The Fight Against Segregation in Birmingham | Black American Heroes | History

[0:08]Our strategy in going into Birmingham was to have daily demonstrations that dramatized for the nation what was the nature of segregation. So we'd have a small group going down and picketing the lunch counter. We'd have another group that would go to a bank and they would apply for a job. And when they didn't get the job, they'd kneel down in the bank and pray. So, it was a day by day calling attention to what segregation meant. The SCLC and local civil rights leaders want a federal law banning segregation nationwide and aim to apply the same protest tactics here that worked in Montgomery. But Birmingham is a city under siege, ruled by a strict segregationist, Chief of Public Safety Bull Connor, determined to foil every move they make. You can never whip these bozz if you don't keep you and them separate. I found that out in Birmingham. You've got to keep the white and the black separate. So this was a man who was defiant and brutal, and it would eventually create the spectacle of suffering that would lead to momentous social policy movement, but also strategic changes for King and his people. The organizers plan to fill the city's jails with protesters in the hope that the national attention will force the Kennedy administration to act. After three days of sit ins, there are more than 300 arrests, but Bull Connor has a plan to roadblock the demonstrators. You know, those Kennedys out there in Washington, that little old Bobby Sox and his brother, the president, they'd give anything in the world. If we had some trouble here, if we don't have any trouble, we can beat them at your own game. The Birmingham campaign reaches a crisis. Bull Connor and the segregationist politicians get an injunction against marching. Once you issue an injunction, violating that injunction automatically sends you to jail and your sentence can be pretty arbitrary. It's up to the judge. With the injunction in place, Bull Connor skyrockets bail amounts for protesters, draining organizers' funds so fast that they can't keep their promise to bail everyone out quickly. We had a delegation of the black business community that was under extreme pressure. And they actually asked Dr. King and all of us to leave.

[2:56]And they said, look, Birmingham is too tough. This non-violence is not working. That was the thing that that threatened to kill the movement. Short on funds and facing pushback from local leaders, momentum for the Birmingham campaign grinds to a halt. The movement is imploding. Northern media are going back to New York and they're going back to Washington. They realize that they have to do something that is going to capture the attention of the country. So it has to be something that is different. It has to be something that people just wouldn't expect to see or that people would, you know, be so shocked. That they had no choice but to act. That's when the discussions begin about whether to allow school-age kids to be involved. There are all kinds of reasons for why using children in a campaign like this would be a powerful idea. Media from all over the globe is going to cover a march that is made up of children. But also, they understood what it would mean to see children facing abuse on television. That that would be something that even complacent or moderate people wouldn't be able to turn away from. The idea of it being a children's crusade is a dramatic way to look at it, but in the South, you're not a child at 15. You can go to jail, you can get beaten up. You know that you'll get arrested. So on one side you had segregation training you to accept oppression and be humble and allow yourself to be pushed around. On the other side, you had parents who were teaching you how to stand up and be free without doing anything illegal and without getting killed. The young people will start marching and bring Birmingham to its knees. Robert Kennedy calls King and says, we can't afford to have young people hurt. Call this off. We don't want you to do this. And King says in an irate voice, black children are hurting every day. The next day, the young people burst out the doors of 16th Street Baptist Church. And now Bull Connor has lost it. And he deploys the hoses. And the dogs. And that is the turning point.

[5:46]It's awful to see an adult hoes down or attacked by a dog or beaten with a baton. It's a completely different thing to see a nine-year-old hoes down and really a nine-year-old who who doesn't comprehend. That is a powerful message that gets sent out to the world and it's one, unsurprisingly, that the world reacts to in horror, in shame and in re-engagement with these movements.