May 1963: Birmingham, Alabama

May 3, 1963. Photo by Charles Moore, Life magazine.

Background

Tuesday, April 2
    Former Alabama Lieutenant Governor Albert Boutwell defeats Birmingham Public Safety Commissioner Bull Connor in a runoff for mayor of Birmingham. The election also changes Birmingham's government from a city commission to a mayor-council structure. The commissioners contest the result, setting off a weeks-long legal battle over who has authority in Birmingham.
* "Boutwell Wins Mayor Contest" (Tuscaloosa News): @

Wednesday, April 3
     The Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights issues the Birmingham Manifesto, calling for, among other things, desegregation of downtown stores. It also signaled the beginning of sit-ins, boycotts and other actions.
* Manifesto (from The Martin Luther King Center for Nonviolent Social Change): @

Saturday, April 6

Caption: "Rev. Charles Billups, associate pastor of New Pilgrim Baptist Church, kneels in prayer alongside Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, pastor of Bethel Baptist of Collegeville as their march in April of 1963 is stopped in front of the Federal Courthouse on 3rd Avenue North." (The Birmingham News)

Friday, April 12
     The Revs. Martin Luther King Jr. and Ralph Abernathy are arrested on charges of defying a ban on racial demonstrations. King begins writing "Letter from Birmingham Jail" the next day; he is released from jail on April 20.
* Earlier post on letter: @

May

Photo by Bob Adelman.

Thursday, May 2

     Beginning of "The Children's March," during which hundreds of Birmingham's young people skip school to join the demonstrations. Scores of students are arrested (The Birmingham News put the number at 319); the sheer number forces the city to use school buses for transport to jail.
* Children's Crusade (from MLK Research and Education Institute): @ and @
* "Juvenile Marchers Jailed" (Associated Press): @

Photos by Bill Hudson, Associated Press.


Friday, May 3
     Demonstrations continue. This time the marchers are met with fire hoses and police dogs, on orders from Bull Connor, left. (Photo by Bob Adelman)
* "Dogs and Hoses Repulse Negroes at Birmingham" (New York Times): @
* "Dogs, Fire Hoses Used to Disperse Negro Marchers" (St. Petersburg Times): @
* Negroes Vow 'Double D-Day' (Miami News): @
* Recording of Martin Luther King at mass meeting (date unknown, but he references dogs and fire hoses; from Southern Folklife Collection): @

Saturday, May 4
     From The Associated Press: "A taunting crowd of more than 1,000 Negroes defied policemen, dogs and high-velocity water hoses yesterday before their own leaders persuaded them to disperse." 
* "1,000 Negroes Defy 'Bama Police in Wild Protest" (Miami News): @

Sunday, May 5
     Hundreds take part in a blocks-long, peaceful "walk," followed by a mass prayer.
* "1,000 Pray as Police, Dogs Watch" (Youngstown Vindicator): @
* "Birmingham Holds Its Breath" (Miami News): @
* "Outrage in Alabama" (New York Times editorial, May 5): @

Photo by Bill Hudson, Associated Press.

Monday, May 6
     Hundreds more people, young and old alike, are arrested.
* "Alabama Children Jam Jails" (Miami News): @
* "Eyewitness: The Police Terror at Birmingham" (Len Holt, 1963): @

Tuesday, May 7
      Police again use fire hoses against protesters. The Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, a leader of the desegregation effort, is injured.
* "Thousands of Negroes Overwhelm Policemen" (St. Petersburg Times): @

Wednesday, May 8
     President Kennedy begins his news conference by saying that Birmingham merchants have "pledged that substantial steps would begin to meet the justifiable needs of the Negro community. Negro leaders have announced suspension of their demonstrations ..."
* Transcript (from American Presidency Project): @
* Audio (from John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum): @
* Related materials (briefing papers and transcripts, from JFK Library): @
* "Bama Races Agree To Truce" (Miami News): @

Thursday, May 9
*"Unsure Truce Holds as Birmingham Groups Seek Accord" (Youngstown Vindicator): @

Friday, May 10
     From The New York Times: "A full agreement on a limited desegation package plan apparently brought an end today to this city's five-week racial crisis. The accord commits white business and civic leaders, but not city officials, to pledges of action. ...
     The agreement provides for the following steps:
     * Desegregation of lunch counters, rest rooms, fitting rooms and drinking fountains in large, downtown department and variety stores within the next 90 days.
     * Promotion and hiring of Negroes on a nondiscriminatory basis in stories and industries, hiring of Negro clerks and salesmen within 60 days by the stories and appointment of a private fair employment committee.
     * Release of jailed Negro demonstrators on bond or on their personal recognizance.
     * Establishment of a biracial committee within two weeks.
     Negro leaders, meanwhile, were understood to be calling off a lengthy boycott of downtown stores."
* "Accord Reached for Birmingham" (Milwaukee Journal): @ 
* "Negro Victory: All Terms Met in Birmingham" (St. Petersburg Times): @

* The Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth reads part of the agreement (video, from Civil Rights Digital Library): @

Photo of A.G. Gaston Motel by Marion Trikosko, U.S. News and World Report.

Saturday, May 11
    The home of the Rev. A.D. King (Martin Luther King's brother) is bombed, as is the A.G. Gaston Motel, headquarters for the leaders of the desegregation campaign. No one is injured in the explosions. Rioting ensues. 
* "50 Hurt in Negro Rioting After Birmingham Blasts" (New York Times): @
* "Heartbreaking Side to Racial Strife" (Associated Press): @

Sunday, May 12
     President Kennedy makes a radio-TV speech to the nation, condemning the bombings, appealing for calm and outlining further federal actions.
* Transcript (from American Presidency Project): @
* Audio (from JFK Library): @  
* Related materials (from JFK Library): @ and @

Monday, May 13:
     From United Press International: "An advance detail of federal forces set up headquarters today five blocks from a Negro section of Birmingham where a four-hour riot erupted Sunday morning."
* "Birmingham Quiet As Federal Troops Are Nearby On JFK Orders": @

Wednesday, May 15
* "Major Stores in Birmingham Deal in Gloom" (Scripps-Howard): @

Friday, May 17
     Charles Moore's photos from early May are published in Life magazine. 

* "They Fight A Fire That Won't Go Out" (Starting on Page 26): @

* "Freedom -- Now" (Time magazine): @

Caption from Corbis Images: "Birmingham, AL: Hundreds of students were on hand to greet Rev. Martin Luther King at the St. James Baptist Church, after it was learned that a federal judge, Elbert Tuttle of Atlanta, had enjoined the city from expelling the students for participating in demonstrations." (Photographer unknown.)

Wednesday, May 22
* "Schools ordered To Reinstate Negroes" (Hendersonville, N.C., Times-News): @

Thursday, May 23
     From United Press International: "(Mayor-elect Albert Boutwell) and nine city commissioners assumed office Thursday after the State Supreme Court ousted a hard-core segregationist board of three city commissioners who had refused to relinquish authority because of an apparent conflict in election laws."
* "Negro Leaders Voice Skepticism Over New City Government in Birmingham" (Rome News-Tribune): @

Resources

-- Summaries

* Birmingham Campaign of 1963 (from Encyclopedia of Alabama): @

* Birmingham Campaign (from Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute): @

* Birmingham -- The Children's Crusade (from Civil Rights Movement Veterans): @

* Project 'C' in Birmingham (from "Eyes on the Prize," PBS, 1987): @

* Birmingham Campaign (from Civil Rights Digital Library): @

* Remembering the Birmingham Campaign (from Special Collections Library, University of North Carolina): @
* The Birmingham Desegregation Campaign (from Amistad Digital Resource for Teaching African American History, Columbia University): @

* How A March By Children Ended Segregation in USA's Most Segregated Town (from Youth-LeadeR): @

-- Charles Moore, Bill Hudson, Bob Adelman

* "Powerful Days in Black and White" (Charles Moore photos, from Kodak.com): @

* "Charles Moore, Photographer Of The Civil Rights Movement, Dies At 79" (story and slideshow, NPR, 2010): @

* Story of Bill Hudson's May 3 photo (from iconicphotos.wordpress.com): @

* Bob Adelman's website: @
* "How Photography Shifted the Balance of the Civil Rights Movement" (Gizmodo, 2011): @

* "What the Still Photo Still Does Best" (New York Times, 2010): @

-- Photos

* From Birmingham News: @
* "Alabama, 1963: The Heart of Civil Rights in America" (New York Times): @

* From Civil Rights Movement Veterans: @

-- Videos

* "Mighty Times: The Children's March" (documentary, 2004): @
* "Birmingham Police's Brutal Response to Protesters" (from Real Clear History): @

* "Fill the Jails" (from democracynow.org): @

* "Segregation at All Costs: Bull Connor and the Civil Rights Movement": @

* Clip of Bull Connor, from mid-May (from NBC News): @
* JFK audiotapes (from NBC News): @
* "Breakthrough in Birmingham" (CBS, May 1963. Note: website dates the clip May 7; however, the footage includes President Kennedy's May 8 news conference, so it aired sometime after that): @

* From BBC's "Panorama" (broadcast May 13): @
* "First-Person Accounts from Birmingham Campaign" (C-SPAN, 2013): @

-- Newspapers

* Civil Rights Movement Scrapbooks (Volume 5, from Birmingham Public Library): @

* "Birmingham: Newspapers in a crisis" (Columbia Journalism Review, summer 1963): @

* Reporting Civil Rights (from Library of America): @

-- Books

* "Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama: The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution" (Diane McWhorter, 2001): @

* "But For Birmingham: The Local and National Movements in the Civil Rights Struggle" (Glenn T. Eskew, 1997): @

* "A Fire You Can't Put Out: The Civil Rights Life of Birmingham's Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth" (Andrew M. Manis, 1999): @
* "The King Years: Historic Moments in the Civil Rights Movement" (Taylor Branch, 2013): @; author's website: @
* "Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years 1963-1965" (Taylor Branch, 1998): @
* "The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr." (1998; Chapter 19): @
* "Why We Can't Wait" (Martin Luther King Jr., 1964): @
* "The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation" (Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff, 2007): @

* "Seeing Through Race: A Reinterpretation of Civil Rights Photography" (Martin A. Berger, 2011): @

-- For younger readers

* "When the Children Marched: The Birmingham Civil Rights Movement" (Robert H. Mayer, 2008): @ 
* "We've Got a Job: The 1963 Birmingham Children's March" (Cynthia Levinson, 2012): @

* "Birmingham 1963: How a Photograph Rallied Civil Rights Support" (Shelley Tougas, 2011): @

-- Other resources

* Birmingham Civil Rights Institute: @

* The Struggle Continues (Birmingham Civil Rights Institute blog): @

* 50 Years Forward (city of Birmingham): @ 
* Kids in Birmingham 1963: @ 

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April 1963: 'Letter From Birmingham Jail'

From "Report of the Select Committee on Assassinations of the U.S. House of Representatives: Findings in the Assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr." (1979; full report here):

     Dr. King led an all-out attack in the spring of 1963 on racial discrimination in Birmingham, Ala., which he described as "the most segregated city in the United States." Civil rights activists sought removal of racial restrictions in downtown snack bars, restrooms and stores, as well as nondiscriminatory hiring practices and the formation of a biracial committee to negotiate integration. Sit-ins, picket lines and parades were met by the police forces of Eugene "Bull" Connor, commissioner of public safety, with hundreds of arrests on charges of demonstrating without a permit, loitering and trespassing.
     On Good Friday, April 12, 1963, Dr. King, Reverend Abernathy and Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth were arrested for leading a demonstration in defiance of an injunction obtained by Bull Connor. Dr. King was placed in solitary confinement and refused access to counsel. During his incarceration, he penned his "Letter from the Birmingham Jail," a response to a statement by eight leading local white clergymen -- Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish -- who had denounced him as an outside agitator and urged blacks to withdraw their support for his crusade. In this eloquent statement, Dr. King set forth his philosophy of nonviolence and enumerated the steps that preceded the Gandhian civil disobedience in Birmingham. Specifically citing Southern segregation laws, he wrote that any law that degraded people was unjust and must be resisted. Nonviolent direct action, Dr. King explained, sought to foster tension and dramatize an issue "so it can no longer be ignored."

From the Encyclopedia of Alabama (full entry here): 

     Early in his eight-day imprisonment, King read the white ministers' statement and began composing a response. He gave bits and pieces of the letter to his lawyers to take back to movement headquarters, where the Reverend Wyatt Walker began compiling and editing the literary jigsaw puzzle. The men settled on a final version on April 16, 1963. The 21-page, typed, double-spaced essay appears as though it is personal correspondence, addressed to the eight white ministers. It opens with a salutation reading "My dear fellow clergymen" and concludes with "Yours for the cause of peace and brotherhood." The final version of the letter explores two central themes: justification and admonishment. King justifies his presence in Birmingham, his uses of nonviolence and direct action, his timing, his willingness to break laws, and his apparent extremism. The civil rights leader also admonishes white moderates and white churches for not doing more to help the movement's quest for equality.

Image from The Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, Atlanta (link to two handwritten pages here)

King was released from jail on April 20. Portions of the letter were published in the New York Post Sunday Magazine on May 19. It was published in its entirety by the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker group, on May 28 (see link below).
* Summary (from Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute, Stanford University): @
* Letter (from MLK Research and Education Institute): @
* Annotated letter (from MLK Research and Education Institute): @
* Clergymen's letter (as published in Birmingham News, April 13, 1963; from Birmingham Public Library Digital Collections): @
* Text of both King's and clergymen's letters (booklet published by American Friends Service Committee, May 1963): @

* Readings of both letters (video from McCombs School of Business, University of Texas): @
* "Martin Luther King Arrested in Birmingham Demonstration" (Associated Press, April 13): @
* "Martin Luther King Released From Jail" (Associated Press, April 21): @
* "Martin Luther King, Walker v. City of Birmingham, and the 'Letter From Birmingham Jail" (David Benjamin Oppenheimer, U.C. Davis Law Review, 1993): @

* "Blessed Are the Peacemakers: Martin Luther King Jr., Eight White Religious Leaders, and the 'Letter From Birmingham Jail' " (S. Jonathan Bass, 2o01): @

* "Gospel of Freedom: Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter From Birmingham Jail and the Struggle That Changed a Nation" (Jonathan Reider, 2013): @
* "Letter From Birmingham Jail: A Worldwide Celebration" (Birmingham Public Library): @ 
* Earlier post on King's letter from jail in Albany, Georgia (July 1962): @

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Friday, March 15, 1963: Loyola vs. Mississippi State

The all-white Mississippi State University team plays Loyola University of Chicago (with four black starters) in the NCAA basketball tournament. Mississippi State's president and basketball coach had arranged for the team to secretly travel to East Lansing, Michigan, defying an unwritten rule about Mississippi teams playing against integrated teams and a court injunction barring the team from leaving the state. Loyola wins, 61-51, en route to the national championship.

From the March 25 edition of Sports Illustrated:

   Literally out of hiding to play Loyola the night before had come Mississippi State, the team that saddened the hearts of segregationists everywhere by agreeing -- eagerly -- to participate in a tournament open to Negroes. On the eve of his team's departure from Starkville, Coach Babe McCarthy got word that a sheriff was out with a court order that could keep the team in Mississippi. Like Little Eva skipping across the ice ahead of the bloodhounds, McCarthy skipped into Tennessee. University President Dr. D.W. Colvard vanished, too. Early Thursday morning an assistant coach verified that the coast was clear at the airport, hustled the team into a plane and away it flew on a modern underground railroad in reverse.

* "A Game That Should Not Be Forgotten" (ESPN.com, 2012): @

* "Game of Change" (Loyola video): @

* "One Night in March" (documentary): @ (website) and @ (video)

* "Maroons Make Getaway, Meet Loyola in NCAA" (Associated Press, March 15): @
* "Ramblers: Loyola Chicago 1963 -- The Team That Changed the Color of College Basketball" (Michael Lenehan, 2013): @

* "Champions for Change: How the Mississippi State Bulldogs and Their Coach Defied Segregation" (Kyle Veazey, 2012): @

* "Benching Jim Crow: The Rise and Fall of the Color Line in Southern College Sports, 1890-1980" (Charles H. Martin, 2010): @ 

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Saturday, March 2, 1963: 'Learn from Comrade Lei Feng'

The slogan appears in the China Youth Daily newspaper as Communist Party chairman Mao Tse-Tung calls on his country to follow Lei Feng's example of selfless service to China -- and especially the Party. This would be the start of a major propaganda campaign holding up Lei Feng as a role model.

* Earlier post on the death of Lei Feng (August 15, 1962): @

* "Lei Feng Day -- Learn from Lei Feng" (from Show China): @

* "Lei Feng: Changing Role Models in China" (from China Daily): @

* Entry from "Modern China: An Encyclopedia of History, Culture and Nationalism" (Wang-Ke wen, 1998): @

* Excerpt from "The Origins of the Cultural Revolution" (Roderick MacFarquhar, 1997): @ 

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Monday, January 14, 1963: State of the Union speech

President Kennedy gives his third State of the Union speech to the U.S. Congress. The next day's headlines center on his tax proposal:

"... I shall propose a permanent reduction in tax rates which will lower liabilities by 13.5 billion dollars. Of this, 11 billion dollars results from reducing individual tax rates, which now range between 20 and 91 percent, to a more sensible range of 14 to 65 percent, with a split in the present first bracket. Two and one-half billion dollars results from reducing corporate tax rates, from 52 percent -- which gives the government today a majority interest in profits -- to the permanent pre-Korean level of 47 percent."

(A version of the plan would be signed into law in February 1964 by President Johnson.)

* Transcript (from The American Presidency Project): @

* Video (from public.resource.org): @
* Audio (from JFK Library): @
* Copy of speech, other documents (from JFK Library): @ and @
* "When Tax Cuts Were a Tough Sell" (New York Times, January 2013): @
* "Special Message to the Congress on Tax Reduction and Reform" (January 24, 1963): @

The proposal followed a nationally televised speech on August 13, 1962, in which the president talked about the economy and signaled his intention to push for a tax cut. (Photo from JFK Library.)
* Transcript (from The American Presidency Project): @
* Audio (from JFK Library): @
* Newsreel: @

* Copy of speech, other documents (from JFK Library): @ 

* Kennedy speech to Economic Club of New York (December 14, 1962): @

* Tax rates, 1913-2011 (from Tax Foundation): @

* Tax Policy Center: @ 

Note: Kennedy often used the phrase "a rising tide lifts all boats" in referring to the far-reaching benefits of a strong economy (though he did not say it in either of these speeches).
* Entry from "Safire's Political Dictionary" (William Safire): @
* Other uses (from www.barrypopik.com): @ 

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Monday, January 14, 1963: George Wallace's inaugural address

Alabama's new governor gives his inauguration speech, fiery in tone and defiant about the authority of the federal government. It includes this memorable line: "In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation now ... segregation tomorrow ... and segregation forever."

From The Associated Press: "The new governor faces a racial showdown almost certainly within months after taking office. Three Negroes have applied for admission to the all-white University of Alabama."

Photo from Corbis Images.

* Transcript (from Alabama Department of Archives and History Digital Collections): @

* Video (from Alabama Department of Archives and History; last 3 minutes are missing): @
* Short video excerpt (from ABC News): @

* Segment from Radio Diaries: @
* "Shouting Defiance, Wallace Sworn In" (Tuscaloosa News, January 14): @
* "New Alabama Governor Faces Racial Crisis" (Washington, Pa., Observer, January 14): @
* "A speech that lives in infamy" (Charles J. Dean, al.com, 2013): @
* "The Politics of Rage: George Wallace, the Origins of the New Conservatism, and the Transformation of American Politics" (Dan T. Carter, 1995): @ 

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Undated: Hawks and doves

Writing in the December 8, 1962, issue of The Saturday Evening Post, Stewart Alsop and Charles Bartlett recount the meetings and decision-making in Washington during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The article helps popularize the political/military labels "hawks" and "doves" with the following passage:

"The hawks favored an air strike to eliminate the Cuban missile bases, either with or without warning. ... The doves opposed the air strike and favored a blockade."

"Hawk" was a shortened version of "war hawk," which dates to at least 1792.

The article also quotes Secretary of State Dean Rusk as saying, "We're eyeball to eyeball, and I think the other fellow just blinked."

* Saturday Evening Post article (PDF): @

* "War Hawks, Uncle Sam, and The White House: Tracing the Use of Three Phrases in Early American Newspapers" (Donald R. Hickey, Wayne State University, via Readex): @

* "Safire's Political Dictionary" (William Safire, first published in 1968; search for "doves" and "war hawks"): @

* "Of Hawks, Doves -- and Now, Owls" (Graham Allison, Joseph S. Nye and Albert Carnesale, The New York Times, 1985): @  

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