Birmingham campaign

===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>