Birmingham campaign

===City paralysis===
The situation reached a crisis on May 7, 1963. Breakfast in the jail took four hours to distribute to all the prisoners.<ref>
{{cite news|title=Birmingham Jail Is So Crowded Breakfast Takes Four Hours
|work=[[The New York Times]]
|date=1963-05-08
|page=29}}</ref> Seventy members of the Birmingham [[Chamber of Commerce]] pleaded with the protest organizers to stop the actions. The NAACP asked for sympathizers to picket in unity in 100 American cities. Twenty rabbis flew to Birmingham to support the cause, equating silence about segregation to the atrocities of [[the Holocaust]].<ref>{{cite news |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |date=May 9, 1963 |title=Twenty Conservative Rabbis Fly to Birmingham to Back Negro Demands |url=https://www.jta.org/1963/05/09/archive/twenty-conservative-rabbis-fly-to-birmingham-to-back-negro-demands |agency=[[Jewish Telegraphic Agency]] |access-date=April 11, 2019}}</ref> Local rabbis disagreed and asked them to go home.<ref>Eskew, p.&nbsp;283.</ref> The editor of ''[[The Birmingham News]]'' wired President Kennedy and pleaded with him to end the protests.

Fire hoses were used once again, injuring police and Fred Shuttlesworth, as well as other demonstrators. Commissioner Connor expressed regret at missing seeing Shuttlesworth get hit and said he "wished they'd carried him away in a hearse".<ref>
{{cite news
|last=Sitton
|first=Claude
|title=Rioting Negroes routed by police at Birmingham; 3,000 Demonstrators Crash Lines
|work=[[The New York Times]]
|date=1963-05-08
|page=1}}</ref> Another 1,000 people were arrested, bringing the total to 2,500.

News of the mass arrests of children had reached Western Europe and the [[Soviet Union]].<ref name="morris"/> The Soviet Union devoted up to 25&nbsp;percent of its news broadcast to the demonstrations, sending much of it to Africa, where Soviet and U.S. interests clashed. Soviet news commentary accused the Kennedy administration of neglect and "inactivity".<ref>Cotman, pp.&nbsp;101–102.</ref> Alabama Governor [[George Wallace]] sent [[state trooper]]s to assist Connor.  Attorney General Robert Kennedy prepared to activate the [[Alabama National Guard]] and notified the [[2nd Infantry Division (United States)|Second Infantry Division]] from [[Fort Benning]], Georgia that it might be deployed to Birmingham.<ref>Eskew, p.&nbsp;282.</ref>

No business of any kind was being conducted downtown. Organizers planned to flood the downtown area businesses with black people. Smaller groups of decoys were set out to distract police attention from activities at the 16th Street Baptist Church. Protesters set off false fire alarms to occupy the fire department and its hoses.<ref>Eskew, p.&nbsp;277.</ref> One group of children approached a police officer and announced, "We want to go to jail!" When the officer pointed the way, the students ran across Kelly Ingram Park shouting, "We're going to jail!"<ref>Eskew, p.&nbsp;278.</ref> Six hundred picketers reached downtown Birmingham. Large groups of protesters sat in stores and sang freedom songs. Streets, sidewalks, stores, and buildings were overwhelmed with more than 3,000 protesters.<ref>Cotman, p.&nbsp;45.</ref> The sheriff and chief of police admitted to Burke Marshall that they did not think they could handle the situation for more than a few hours.<ref>Fairclough, p.&nbsp;128.</ref>