Southern Christian Leadership Conference

=== Birmingham campaign ===
{{Main|Birmingham campaign}}
By contrast, the 1963 SCLC [[Birmingham campaign|campaign]] in [[Birmingham, Alabama]], was an unqualified success. The campaign focused on a single goal—the desegregation of Birmingham's downtown merchants—rather than total desegregation, as in Albany. The brutal response of local police, led by Public Safety Commissioner [[Bull Connor|"Bull" Connor]], stood in stark contrast to the nonviolent civil disobedience of the activists.

After his arrest in April, King wrote the "[[Letter from Birmingham Jail]]" in response to a group of clergy who had criticized the Birmingham campaign, writing that it was "directed and led in part by outsiders" and that the demonstrations were "unwise and untimely."<ref>{{cite web|author=C.C.J. Carpenter |title=Statement by Alabama Clergymen |format=.PDF |publisher=Martin Luther King Jr. Papers Project |url=http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/popular_requests/frequentdocs/clergy.pdf |date=April 12, 1963 |access-date=February 12, 2008 |display-authors=etal |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080216045015/http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/popular_requests/frequentdocs/clergy.pdf |archive-date=February 16, 2008 |df=mdy-all }}</ref> In his letter, King explained that, as president of SCLC, he had been asked to come to Birmingham by the local members:

{{blockquote|I think I should indicate why I am here in Birmingham, since you have been influenced by the view which argues against "outsiders coming in." I have the honor of serving as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization operating in every southern state, with headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. We have some eighty-five affiliated organizations across the South, and one of them is the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. ... Several months ago the affiliate here in Birmingham asked us to be on call to engage in a nonviolent direct-action program if such were deemed necessary. We readily consented, and when the hour came we lived up to our promise. So I, along with several members of my staff, am here because I was invited here I am here because I have organizational ties here.<ref name=Birmingham>{{cite web |first=Martin Luther Jr. |last=King |author-link=Martin Luther King Jr. |title=Letter from Birmingham Jail |format=.PDF |publisher=Martin Luther King Jr. Papers Project |url=http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/popular_requests/frequentdocs/birmingham.pdf |date=April 16, 1963 |access-date=February 12, 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090326092809/http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/popular_requests/frequentdocs/birmingham.pdf |archive-date=2009-03-26}}</ref>}}

King also addressed the question of "timeliness":

{{blockquote|One of the basic points in your statement is that the action that I and my associates have taken in Birmingham is untimely. ... Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct-action campaign that was "well timed" in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied." We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights.<ref name=Birmingham/>}}

The most dramatic moments of the Birmingham campaign came on May 2, when, under the direction and leadership of [[James Bevel]], who would soon officially become SCLC's Director of Direct Action and Director of Nonviolent Education, more than 1,000 Black children left school to join the demonstrations; hundreds were arrested. The following day, 2,500 more students joined and were met by [[Bull Connor]] with police dogs and high-pressure fire hoses. That evening, television news programs reported to the nation and the world scenes of fire hoses knocking down schoolchildren and dogs attacking individual demonstrators. Public outrage led the [[John F. Kennedy|Kennedy]] administration to intervene more forcefully and a settlement was announced on May 10, under which the downtown businesses would desegregate and eliminate discriminatory hiring practices, and the city would release the jailed protesters.