Birmingham campaign

==After the campaign==
Desegregation in Birmingham took place slowly after the demonstrations. King and the SCLC were criticized by some for ending the campaign with promises that were too vague and "settling for a lot less than even moderate demands".<ref>Fairclough, p.&nbsp;129.</ref> In fact, Sydney Smyer, president of the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, re-interpreted the terms of the agreement. Shuttlesworth and King had announced that desegregation would take place 90&nbsp;days from May 15.  Smyer then said that a single black clerk hired 90&nbsp;days from when the new city government took office would be sufficient.<ref>Fairclough, p.&nbsp;132.</ref> By July, most of the city's segregation ordinances had been overturned.  Some of the lunch counters in department stores complied with the new rules. City parks and golf courses were opened again to black and white citizens.  Mayor Boutwell appointed a biracial committee to discuss further changes.  However, no hiring of black clerks, police officers, and firefighters had yet been completed and the Birmingham Bar Association rejected membership by black attorneys.<ref name="fairclough-aftermath">Fairclough, pp.&nbsp;132–133.</ref>

The reputation of Martin Luther King Jr. soared after the protests in Birmingham, and he was lauded by many as a hero.<ref>Branch, pp.&nbsp;803–806.</ref> The SCLC was much in demand to effect change in many Southern cities.<ref>Fairclough, p.&nbsp;143.</ref> In the summer of 1963, King led the [[March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom]] where he delivered his most famous speech, "[[I Have a Dream]]".
King became ''Time'''s [[Time Magazine Person of the Year|Man of the Year]] for 1963 and won the [[Nobel Peace Prize]] in 1964.<ref>
{{cite magazine|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,940759,00.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070603020050/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,940759,00.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=June 3, 2007|title=Never Again Where He Was|date=1964-01-03|magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]|access-date=2007-12-24}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1964/king-bio.html|title=Martin Luther King Biography|publisher=The Nobel Foundation|access-date=2007-12-24}}</ref>

[[File:President Kennedy addresses nation on Civil Rights, 11 June 1963.jpg|thumb|upright|right|alt=A black and white photograph of President John F. Kennedy speaking into a microphone at his desk in the Oval Office of the White House|[[John F. Kennedy]] addressing the nation about [[Civil Rights Address|Civil Rights]] on June 11, 1963]]
The Birmingham campaign, as well as George Wallace's refusal to admit black students to the [[University of Alabama]], convinced President Kennedy to address the severe inequalities between black and white citizens in the South: "The events in Birmingham and elsewhere have so increased cries for equality that no city or state or legislative body can prudently choose to ignore them."<ref>Garrow, (1989) p.&nbsp;239.</ref> Despite the apparent lack of immediate local success after the Birmingham campaign, Fred Shuttlesworth and Wyatt Tee Walker pointed to its influence on national affairs as its true impact.<ref>Fairclough, p.&nbsp;133.</ref> President Kennedy's administration drew up the [[Civil Rights Act of 1964|Civil Rights Act]] bill.  After being [[filibuster]]ed for 75&nbsp;days by "diehard southerners" in Congress, it was passed into law in 1964 and signed by President [[Lyndon Johnson]].<ref>Franklin, p.&nbsp;52.</ref> The Civil Rights Act applied to the entire nation, prohibiting racial discrimination in employment and in access to public places. [[Roy Wilkins]] of the NAACP, however, disagreed that the Birmingham campaign was the primary force behind the Civil Rights Act. Wilkins gave credit to other movements, such as the [[Freedom Rides]], the integration of the [[University of Mississippi]], and campaigns to end public school segregation.<ref>Fairclough, pp.&nbsp;134–135.</ref>

Birmingham's public schools were integrated in September 1963.  Governor Wallace sent National Guard troops to keep black students out but President Kennedy reversed Wallace by ordering the troops to stand down.<ref>Branch, pp.&nbsp;888–889.</ref> Violence continued to plague the city, however. Someone threw a [[tear gas]] canister into Loveman's department store when it complied with the desegregation agreement; twenty people in the store required hospital treatment.<ref>Branch, p.&nbsp;868.</ref>

[[File:Bomb-damaged home of Arthur Shores (5 September 1963).jpg|thumb|left|alt=A black and white photograph of a suburban house with minor bomb damage to the roof and two windows while five black Birmingham residents stare at the damage; the yard is cordoned off with a sign saying "Danger Keep Out"|Birmingham residents view the bomb-damaged home of [[NAACP]] attorney [[Arthur Shores]] on September 5, 1963.]]
Four months after the Birmingham campaign settlement, someone bombed the house of NAACP attorney [[Arthur Shores]], injuring his wife in the attack. On September 15, 1963, Birmingham again earned international attention when [[Ku Klux Klan]] (KKK) members [[16th Street Baptist Church bombing|bombed the 16th Street Baptist Church]] on a Sunday morning and killed four young girls.<ref name="gado"/>  FBI informant [[Gary Thomas Rowe]] was hired to infiltrate the KKK and monitor their activities and plans.<ref name=EoA_Gary_Thomas_Rowe_jr>{{Cite web |url=http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-3379 |title=Gary Thomas Rowe Jr. |website=Encyclopedia of Alabama|language=en |access-date=2017-05-28}}</ref><ref name=NYT_Rowe_dead>{{Cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/04/us/gary-t-rowe-jr-64-who-informed-on-klan-in-civil-rights-killing-is-dead.html|title=Gary T. Rowe Jr., 64, Who Informed on Klan in Civil Rights Killing, Is Dead|last=Kaufman |first=Michael T. |date=1998-10-04 |work=The New York Times |access-date=2017-05-28 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref> Rowe was involved, along with the Birmingham Police, with the KKK attacks on the Freedom Riders, led by Fred Shuttlesworth, in [[Anniston, Alabama]] on May 14, 1961.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/freedomriders1960000arse |title=Freedom riders: 1961 and the struggle for racial justice |last=Raymond |first=Arsenault |date=2006 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=9780195136746 |oclc=224472691 |url-access=registration }}</ref> In addition, Rowe and several other Klansmen also partook in the killing of Civil Rights activist [[Viola Liuzzo]] on March 25, 1965, in [[Lowndes County, Georgia]] after the [[Selma to Montgomery marches|Selma to Montgomery march]].<ref name=EoA_Gary_Thomas_Rowe_jr/><ref name=NYT_Rowe_dead/>

The Birmingham campaign inspired the Civil Rights Movement in other parts of the South. Two days after King and Shuttlesworth announced the settlement in Birmingham, [[Medgar Evers]] of the NAACP in [[Jackson, Mississippi]] demanded a biracial committee to address concerns there.<ref>Branch, p.&nbsp;813.</ref> On June 12, 1963, Evers was murdered by a KKK member outside his home.  He had been organizing demonstrations similar to those in Birmingham to pressure Jackson's city government. In 1965 Shuttlesworth assisted Bevel, King, and the SCLC to lead the [[Selma to Montgomery marches]], intended to increase voter registration among black citizens.

===Campaign impact===
Historian Glenn Eskew wrote that the campaign "led to an awakening to the evils of segregation and a need for reforms in the region."<ref name="p.&nbsp;94"/> According to Eskew, the riots that occurred after the bombing of the Gaston Motel foreshadowed rioting in larger cities later in the 1960s.<ref name="p.&nbsp;94">Garrow, (1989) p.&nbsp;94.</ref> ACMHR vice president Abraham Woods claimed that the rioting in Birmingham set a precedent for the "Burn, baby, burn" mindset, a cry used in later civic unrest in the [[Watts riots]], the [[12th Street riot]]s in Detroit, and other American cities in the 1960s.<ref name="p.&nbsp;437">McWhorter, p.&nbsp;437.</ref> A study of the Watts riots concluded, "The 'rules of the game' in race relations were permanently changed in Birmingham."<ref name="p.&nbsp;437"/>

Wyatt Tee Walker wrote that the Birmingham campaign was "legend" and had become the Civil Rights Movement's most important chapter. It was "the chief watershed of the nonviolent movement in the United States. It marked the maturation of the SCLC as a national force in the civil rights arena of the land that had been dominated by the older and stodgier NAACP."<ref>White and Manis, p.&nbsp;68.</ref>  Walker called the Birmingham campaign and the Selma marches "Siamese twins" joining to "kill segregation&nbsp;... and bury the body".<ref>White and Manis, p.&nbsp;74</ref> Jonathan Bass declared that "King had won a tremendous public relations victory in Birmingham" but also stated pointedly that "it was the citizens of the Magic City, both black and white, and not Martin Luther King Jr. and the SCLC, that brought about the real transformation of the city."<ref>Bass, p.&nbsp;226.</ref>