Birmingham campaign

==Background==

===City of segregation===
Birmingham, Alabama was, in 1963, "probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States", according to King.<ref>King, Martin L., Jr., ''[http://abacus.bates.edu/admin/offices/dos/mlk/letter.html Letter from Birmingham Jail]'', April 16, 1963.</ref> Although the city's population of almost 350,000 was 60% white and 40% black,<ref>
{{cite web
|url=http://www.bplonline.org/locations/central/gov/BirminghamsPopulation1880-2000.asp
|last=U.S. Census of Population and Housing
|year=1990
|title=Birmingham's Population, 1880–2000
|access-date=2008-03-13
|publisher=Birmingham (Alabama) Public Library| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080121112308/http://www.bplonline.org/locations/central/gov/BirminghamsPopulation1880-2000.asp| archive-date = January 21, 2008}}</ref>  Birmingham had no black police officers, firefighters, sales clerks in department stores, bus drivers, bank tellers, or store cashiers.  Black secretaries could not work for white professionals. Jobs available to black workers were limited to [[manual labor]] in Birmingham's steel mills, work in household service and yard maintenance, or work in black neighborhoods. When [[layoff]]s were necessary, black employees were often the first to go.  The [[unemployment rate]] for black people was two and a half times higher than for white people.<ref>Garrow, (1989) p.&nbsp;166.</ref> The average income for black employees in the city was less than half that of white employees.  Significantly lower pay scales for black workers at the local steel mills were common.<ref>Garrow, (1989) p.&nbsp;165.</ref> Racial segregation of public and commercial facilities throughout Jefferson County was legally required, covered all aspects of life, and was rigidly enforced.<ref>
{{cite web
|url=http://www.crmvet.org/info/seglaws.htm
|last=Birmingham City Council
|year=1963
|title=Birmingham Segregation Laws
|access-date=2008-03-14
|publisher=Civil Rights Movement Archive}}</ref> Only 10&nbsp;percent of the city's black population was registered to vote in 1960.<ref>Eskew, p.&nbsp;86.</ref>

In addition, Birmingham's economy was stagnating as the city was shifting from [[blue collar]] to [[White-collar worker|white collar]] jobs.<ref>Bass, p.&nbsp;89.</ref> According to ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' magazine in 1958, the only thing white workers had to gain from [[Desegregation in the United States|desegregation]] was more competition from black workers.<ref name="time58"/> Fifty unsolved racially motivated bombings between 1945 and 1962 had earned the city the nickname "[[Bombingham]]". A neighborhood shared by white and black families experienced so many attacks that it was called "Dynamite Hill".<ref name="gado">
{{cite web
|url=http://www.crimelibrary.com/terrorists_spies/terrorists/birmingham_church/3.html
|last=Gado
|first=Mark
|year=2007
|title=Bombingham
|publisher=CrimeLibrary.com/Court TV Online
|url-status=dead
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070818222057/http://www.crimelibrary.com/terrorists_spies/terrorists/birmingham_church/3.html
|archive-date=2007-08-18
}}</ref> Black churches in which civil rights were discussed became specific targets for attack.<ref>Branch, pp.&nbsp;570–571.</ref>

Black organizers had worked in Birmingham for about ten years, as it was the headquarters of the [[Southern Negro Youth Congress]] (SNYC).  In Birmingham, SNYC experienced both successes and failures, as well as arrests and official violence. SNYC was forced out in 1949, leaving behind a Black population that thus had some experience of civil rights organizing.<ref name="Hammer">{{cite book |last1=Kelley |first1=Robin D. G. |title=Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists during the Great Depression |date=2015 |publisher=UNC Press Books |isbn=978-1469625492 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=amC0CAAAQBAJ |oclc=1099098253 |access-date=16 October 2020}}</ref>  A few years later, Birmingham's black population began to organize to effect change. After Alabama [[National Association for the Advancement of Colored People v. Alabama|banned the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People]] (NAACP) in 1956,<ref>
{{cite web
|url=http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/printer_friendly.pl?page=us/357/449.html
|last=U.S. Supreme Court
|year=1958
|title=N. A. A. C. P. v. ALABAMA
|access-date=2008-03-13
|work=FindLaw.com}}</ref> Reverend [[Fred Shuttlesworth]] formed the [[Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights]] (ACMHR) the same year to challenge the city's segregation policies through [[lawsuit]]s and protests. When the courts overturned the segregation of the city's parks, the city responded by closing them. Shuttlesworth's home was repeatedly bombed, as was Bethel Baptist Church, where he was pastor.<ref>
{{cite web
 |url         = http://www.bcri.org/resource_gallery/interview_segments/index.htm#
 |title       = Interview with Fred Shuttlesworth
 |date        = 1996-12-10
 |publisher   = Birmingham Civil Rights Institute Online
 |format      = [[QuickTime]]
 |access-date  = 2007-12-20
 |url-status     = dead
 |archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20080101133527/http://www.bcri.org/resource_gallery/interview_segments/index.htm
 |archive-date = 2008-01-01
}}</ref> After Shuttlesworth was arrested and jailed for violating the city's segregation rules in 1962, he sent a [[petition]] to Mayor Art Hanes' office asking that public facilities be desegregated. Hanes responded with a letter informing Shuttlesworth that his petition had been thrown in the garbage.<ref>Garrow, (1989) p.&nbsp;168.</ref> Looking for outside help, Shuttlesworth invited Martin Luther King Jr. and the SCLC to Birmingham, saying, "If you come to Birmingham, you will not only gain prestige, but really shake the country. If you win in Birmingham, as Birmingham goes, so goes the nation."<ref name="Hampton">Hampton, p.&nbsp;125.</ref>

===Campaign goals===
King of the SCLC had recently been involved in a campaign to desegregate the city of [[Albany, Georgia]], but did not see the results they had anticipated.  Described by historian Henry Hampton as a "morass", the [[Albany Movement]] lost momentum and stalled.<ref>Hampton, p.&nbsp;112.</ref> King's reputation had been hurt by the Albany campaign, and he was eager to improve it.<ref name="Hampton"/><ref name="Bass">Bass, p.&nbsp;96.</ref> Determined not to make the same mistakes in Birmingham, King and the SCLC changed several of their strategies. In Albany, they concentrated on the desegregation of the city as a whole. In Birmingham, their campaign tactics focused on more narrowly defined goals for the downtown shopping and government district. These goals included the desegregation of Birmingham's downtown stores, fair hiring practices in shops and city employment, the reopening of public parks, and the creation of a bi-racial committee to oversee the desegregation of Birmingham's public schools.<ref name="morris">
{{cite journal
|last=Morris
|first=Aldon
|date=October 1993
|title=Birmingham Confrontation and the Power of Social Protest: An Analysis of the Dynamics and Tactics of Mobilization
|publisher=[[American Sociological Association]]
|journal=[[American Sociological Review]]
|volume=58
|issue=5
|doi=10.2307/2096278
|pages=621–636
|jstor=2096278}}</ref><ref>Maurice Isserman & Michael Kazin, 'America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s', (Oxford, 2008), p. 90.</ref> King summarized the philosophy of the Birmingham campaign when he said: "The purpose of&nbsp;... direct action is to create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation".<ref>Garrow, (1986) p.&nbsp;246.</ref>

===Commissioner of Public Safety===
{{main|Bull Connor}}

A significant factor in the success of the Birmingham campaign was the structure of the city government and the personality of its contentious Commissioner of Public Safety, [[Bull Connor|Eugene "Bull" Connor]]. Described as an "arch-segregationist" by ''Time'' magazine, Connor asserted that the city "ain't gonna segregate no niggers and whites together in this town {{sic}}".<ref name="time63"/><ref>
{{cite journal
|journal=[[Newsweek]]
|title=Integration: Bull at Bay
|date=1963-04-15
|page=29}}</ref> He also claimed that the Civil Rights Movement was a Communist plot, and after the churches were bombed, Connor blamed the violence on local black citizens.<ref name="isserman89">Isserman and Kazin, p. 89.</ref> 
Birmingham's government was set up in such a way that it gave Connor powerful influence. In 1958, police arrested ministers organizing a bus boycott. When the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] (FBI) initiated a probe amid allegations of police misconduct for the arrests, Connor responded that he "[hadn't] got any damn apology to the FBI or anybody else", and predicted, "If the North keeps trying to cram this thing [desegregation] down our throats, there's going to be bloodshed."<ref name="time58">
{{cite magazine
|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,810711,00.html
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110131151452/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,810711,00.html
|url-status=dead
|archive-date=January 31, 2011
|title=Birmingham: Integration's Hottest Crucible
|magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]
|date=1958-12-15
|access-date=2008-12-29}}</ref>  In 1961, Connor delayed sending police to intervene when [[Freedom Riders]] were beaten by local mobs.<ref name="Garrow">Garrow, (1989) p.&nbsp;169.</ref> The police harassed religious leaders and protest organizers by ticketing cars parked at mass meetings and entering the meetings in [[Undercover|plainclothes]] to take notes. The Birmingham Fire Department interrupted such meetings to search for "phantom fire hazards".<ref>Manis, pp.&nbsp;162–163.</ref> Connor was so antagonistic towards the Civil Rights Movement that his actions galvanized support for black Americans.  President [[John F. Kennedy]] later said of him, "The Civil Rights Movement should thank God for Bull Connor. He's helped it as much as Abraham Lincoln."<ref name="connorbio"/>

Turmoil in the mayor's office also weakened the Birmingham city government in its opposition to the campaign. Connor, who had run for several elected offices in the months leading up to the campaign, had lost all but the race for Public Safety Commissioner. Because they believed Connor's extreme conservatism slowed progress for the city as a whole, a group of white political moderates worked to defeat him.<ref>McWhorter, p.&nbsp;286.</ref> The Citizens for Progress was backed by the Chamber of Commerce and other white professionals in the city, and their tactics were successful. In November 1962, Connor lost the race for mayor to [[Albert Boutwell]], a less combative segregationist. However, Connor and his colleagues on the City Commission refused to accept the new mayor's authority.<ref name="connorbio">
{{cite book
|title=Dictionary of American Biography
|last=Jackson
|first=Kenneth T.
|chapter=Theophilus Eugene Connor
|edition=Supplement 9: 1971–1975
|publisher=Charles Scribner's Sons
|year=1994
|isbn=0-283-99547-5}}</ref> They claimed on a technicality that their terms not expire until 1965 instead of in the spring of 1963. So for a brief time, Birmingham had two city governments attempting to conduct business.<ref>Cotman, pp.&nbsp;11–12.</ref>