Birmingham campaign

===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>