Martin Luther King Jr.

===Birmingham campaign, 1963===
{{Main|Birmingham campaign}}
[[File:MLK mugshot birmingham.jpg| thumb| right | King was arrested in 1963 for protesting the treatment of blacks in Birmingham.<ref>{{cite news |title=Martin Luther King mugshot April 12 1963 |date=April 16, 2013 |newspaper=[[The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate]] |url=http://photos.nola.com/tpphotos/2013/04/martin_luther_king_mugshot_apr.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130617203216/http://photos.nola.com/tpphotos/2013/04/martin_luther_king_mugshot_apr.html |archive-date=June 17, 2013}}</ref>]]
In April 1963, the SCLC began a campaign against racial segregation and economic injustice in [[Birmingham, Alabama]]. The campaign used nonviolent but intentionally confrontational tactics, developed in part by [[Wyatt Tee Walker]]. Black people in Birmingham, organizing with the SCLC, occupied public spaces with marches and [[sit-in]]s, openly violating laws that they considered unjust.

King's intent was to provoke mass arrests and "create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation."{{sfn|Garrow|1986|p=246}} The campaign's early volunteers did not succeed in shutting down the city, or in drawing media attention to the police's actions. Over the concerns of an uncertain King, SCLC strategist [[James Bevel]] changed the course of the campaign by recruiting children and young adults to join the demonstrations.<ref name="McWhorter 2001">{{cite book|last=McWhorter|first=Diane|title=Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama: The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution|year=2001|publisher=Simon and Schuster|isbn=978-0-7432-2648-6|url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780743217729|url-access=registration|chapter=Two Mayors and a King}}</ref> ''[[Newsweek]]'' called this strategy a [[Children's Crusade]].<ref name="Harrell 2005 1055">{{cite book|title=Unto a Good Land: A History of the American People, Volume 2|page=1055|first2=Edwin S.|last2=Gaustad|first3=Randall M.|last3=Miller|first4=John B.|last4=Boles|first5=Randall Bennett|last5=Woods|first6=Sally Foreman|last6=Griffith|last1=Harrell|first1=David Edwin|isbn= 0-8028-2945-7 |publisher=Wm B Eerdmans Publishing|year=2005}}</ref><ref name="newsweek5-13">{{cite journal|title=Birmingham USA: Look at Them Run|journal=[[Newsweek]]|date=May 13, 1963|page=27}}</ref>

The Birmingham Police Department, led by [[Eugene "Bull" Connor]], used high-pressure water jets and police dogs against protesters, including children. Footage of the police response was broadcast on national television news, shocking many white Americans and consolidating black Americans behind the movement.{{sfn|Frady|2002|pp=113–114}} Not all of the demonstrators were peaceful, despite the avowed intentions of the SCLC. In some cases, bystanders attacked the police, who responded with force. King and the SCLC were criticized for putting children in harm's way. But the campaign was a success: Connor lost his job, the "Jim Crow" signs came down, and public places became more open to blacks. King's reputation improved immensely.<ref name="Harrell 2005 1055"/>

King was arrested and jailed early in the campaign—his 13th arrest<ref name="newsweek4-22">{{cite journal|title=Integration: Connor and King|journal=[[Newsweek]]|date=April 22, 1963|pages=28,&nbsp;33}}</ref> out of 29.<ref name="holiday">{{cite web|last=King |first=Coretta Scott |title=The Meaning of The King Holiday |url=http://www.thekingcenter.org/meaning-king-holiday |publisher=The King Center |access-date=August 22, 2012 |archive-date=May 14, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130514204850/http://www.thekingcenter.org/meaning-king-holiday |url-status=live }}</ref> From his cell, he composed the now-famous "[[Letter from Birmingham Jail]]" that responds to [[A Call for Unity|calls to pursue legal channels for social change]]. The letter has been described as "one of the most important historical documents penned by a modern [[political prisoner]]".<ref name=":2">{{Cite book|last1=Greene|first1=Helen Taylor|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v_9yAwAAQBAJ&q=%22Political+prisoner%22|title=Encyclopedia of Race and Crime|last2=Gabbidon|first2=Shaun L.|year=2009|publisher=Sage Publications|isbn=978-1-4522-6609-1|pages=636–639|language=en|chapter=Political Prisoners|access-date=June 7, 2022|archive-date=January 23, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240123124418/https://books.google.com/books?id=v_9yAwAAQBAJ&q=%22Political+prisoner%22#v=snippet&q=%22Political%20prisoner%22&f=false|url-status=live}}</ref> King argues that the crisis of racism is too urgent, and the current system too entrenched: "We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed."<ref name=LetterFromBirmJail /> He points out that the [[Boston Tea Party]], a celebrated act of rebellion in the American colonies, was illegal civil disobedience, and that, conversely, "everything [[Adolf Hitler]] did in Germany was 'legal'."<ref name=LetterFromBirmJail /> [[Walter Reuther]], president of the [[United Auto Workers]], arranged for $160,000 to bail out King and his fellow protestors.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.hoover.org/research/great-society-new-history-amity-shlaes-0|title=The Great Society: A New History with Amity Shlaes|website=Hoover Institution|language=en|access-date=April 28, 2020|archive-date=July 1, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200701062533/https://www.hoover.org/research/great-society-new-history-amity-shlaes-0|url-status=live}}</ref>
{{quote box|width=23em|"I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season."|salign=right|source=—Martin Luther King Jr.<ref name=LetterFromBirmJail>{{cite web|last=King |first=Martin Luther Jr. |title=Letter from Birmingham Jail|publisher=The Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute |url=http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/resources/article/annotated_letter_from_birmingham/ |access-date=August 22, 2012 |archive-date=January 7, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130107002405/http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/resources/article/annotated_letter_from_birmingham/ |url-status=live }} King began writing the letter on newspaper margins and continued on bits of paper brought by friends.</ref>}}