The 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing, 1963 Four Little Girls and the Civil Rights Movements Heights of Enthusiasm, Depths of Despair. Bombingham, Alabama, 1963 Birmingham, Alabama had been given this troubling nickname due to the number of violent incidents which took place here during the early 1960s. From 1957 to 1963, Birmingham, Alabama saw over 50 cross burnings and 18 bombings – often of African-American churches, which were the center of the community. Cross Burnings were often carried out to terrorize and harass African-Americans in the Deep South. The Ku Klux Klan had practiced these sorts of intimidating methods since the time of the Reconstruction. Surprisingly, Klan activity was often organized through Churches in the deep South. Churches were usually segregated, and the Klan would often arrange for picnics or other social gatherings on Sunday afternoons in Southern towns. Since the majority of these town often held racist sentiments – even if they were not all disposed to acting out violently – these social gatherings were often community building events. Consensus was built at these gatherings for certain rules – for example, that no African-Americans should be able to serve on jury or testify against whites. Restricting the voting rights of African-Americans was easily agreed to as well. Klan members set fire to a cross. Since churches were often the center of community life in African-American culture during the 1960s, they were targeted by hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan. Since the days of slavery, AfricanAmerican churches had voiced the concerns of their community – and served as a rallying point for social protest movements. During the 1960s, African-American ministers were often at the heart of protest movements – and the social changes they were advocating for were fiercely resisted by the white majorities in towns across the South. Violent acts targeting churches, therefore, were directed at the most outspoken members of the Civil Rights Movement. Church burnings persisted into the 1990s in many places. A Church in Birmingham, AL, which was partially burned down as a result of arson. The Civil Rights Movement Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Since the Supreme Court decision of Brown V. Board of Education, Topeka, KS had established a precedent condemning segregation in public places, Martin Luther King had been active in challenging racism and segregation throughout the South. When he took over the leadership of the Montgomery Bus Boycott in early 1956, he was only twenty-five years old. But his devotion to the cause – and too non-violent, civil disobedience – allowed him to win over many, many followers, both white and black. He founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to organize support for the Civil Rights Movement. The Montgomery Bus Boycott The Progress of the Movement Central High School, 1957 In 1957, Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas was integrated. When outside agitators and angry white residents of Arkansas objected to the new students and Governor Orval Faubus blocked the entry of black students to the school, President Dwight Eisenhower sent in federal troops to bring students to class. During the course of the school year, all nine students were escorted to school by an armored jeep, and each student had a soldier assigned to them in order to guarantee their security in school each day. The Little Rock Nine “Jim Crow” Laws and Segregation Continue Despite the progress of the Civil Rights Movement and the victories of groups like the NAACP in the legal system, African-Americans still faced segregation, discrimination, and violence. Students in Greensboro, North Carolina, decided to challenge segregation laws in a local Woolworth’s lunch counter in 1960. They were refused service, but continued to stay in their seats, effectively shutting down the lunch counter – and beginning a system of passive resistance in the form of non-violent, Civil Disobedience. In response, a new group, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, was formed. Despite the non-violent protest methods used by African-Americans and Civil Rights supporters, the South often responded with brutality and hatred when AfricanAmericans advocated for their rights. Even non-violent offenses, such as sitting at a lunch counter or picketing the government – acts which are protected under the right to assemble and the right to petition in the Bill or Rights – were met with brutality, arrests, and imprisonment in many cases. Faced with this sort of obvious discrimination and unconstitutional methods, African-American protesters redoubled their efforts. They boycotted businesses to cause economic harm to segregationists. They committed themselves to actions which would result in massive arrests – overcrowding the local jails and prison systems, and putting an economic burden on the community in the process. If Southern communities insisted on enforcing racist laws, it would cost them money, at least, to do so. Non-Violent Protests were often put down by violence; nevertheless, protester would not engage in any violent acts. When a group of Civil Rights leaders attempted to insure that federal interstate transportation by bus routes were integrated, their bus was bombed, and many of the “Freedom Riders” were brutal beaten. The Freedom Riders were an integrated – both black and white – group of students who came up with an amazing summer project during their college years. They attempted to travel from Washington, D.C. to New Orleans, LA by bus – and tested to be certain that integration laws were being upheld both on the busses and in the depots along the way. The violence they encountered was significant; indeed, many of those who started the trip did not make it all the way to New Orleans. None made it by bus. They were force to fly the last stage from Jackson, MS. The Freedom Riders Despite this brutality and the history of violence in the city of Birmingham, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King decided in 1963, that Birmingham, AL, perhaps the most segregated city in America, should be targeted by his organization for change. So, together with Minister Fred Shuttlesworth of the 16th Street Baptist Church in 1963, Dr. King and his Southern Christian Leadership Conference, arrived in Birmingham to demand an end to segregation and the start of a voting rights campaign. The marches he organized, not surprisingly, were met with great violence. The brutality was unprecedented, and the photography and film documentation of the demonstrations and repression was broadcast globally. Birmingham, 1963 Birmingham, 1963 When Dr. King organized a march of school children against the segregated city, the police commissioner used fire hoses to pound children, elderly men and women, and any Civil Rights leaders present to the ground. Many were grievously injured. Americans who witnessed the scene were embarrassed at the unbelievable racism and cruelty. At the height of the Cold War, the Soviet Union broadcast images of the police crackdown to show people in Africa, Asia, and Latin America the “true nature of American Democracy and freedom.” The Arrest of The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Martin Luther King was arrested and imprisoned for his role in leading the march, for sponsoring the meeting without a city permit. (They would not grant him one.) From prison, he wrote the famous “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” The letter was an address to white and black ministers in the city, many of whom criticized King for his leadership. In their view, having young people arrested was damaging the community, causing chaos and disorder, and probably disrupting the futures of the children. What college, university, or employer would want to enroll or hire a youngster with a criminal record? King went to jail with his followers to show that devotion to God’s laws was more important that the unjust laws created by mankind. “When you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of ‘nobodiness’-then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair.” “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” The summer of 1963 in Birmingham, Alabama was an extraordinarily violent one, filled with conflict and hatred. While in jail, Martin Luther King penned his famous “Letter From a Birmingham Jail”, in which he tried to explain why all of the disturbances were worthwhile. A Letter From A Birmingham Jail “You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court's decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may want to ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all." “ I Have a Dream” After being released from prison in the summer of 1963, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was the keynote speaker at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, an event organized by the labor leader Asa Philip Randolph. There, in what many considered the high point of the Civil Rights Movement at the time, he delivered the famous “I Have a Dream Speech” on August 28, 1963. The 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing It was just about two weeks after the famous “I Have a Dream “ speech, and only a few days before the schools in Birmingham, AL were about to open, integrated, that the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing took place. Sunday school students had already started to arrive, and church would soon begin. All of the victories of the Civil Rights Movement to date – all of the happiness and joy of accomplishment, all of the hope and optimism of progress – would be brought to a crashing halt on that Sunday Morning in Birmingham, AL. Four Little Girls Four children were murdered in the blast, which had been carried out by members of the Ku Klux Klan, in order to intimidate the black community in Birmingham and delay the integration of public schools. That fall, schools were scheduled to open, and segregation was going to come to an end. The man who bombed the 16th Street Baptist Church hoped to prevent integration by frightening the African American community. There were five girls in the basement of the 16th Street Baptist Church that morning. Four were crushed to death when the church collapsed. A fifth girl, who was underneath a solid plumbing fixture at the time, miraculously survived. The girls who lost their lives in the blast are pictured to the left. The 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing of 1963 The young girls who were murdered on September 15, 1963 became martyrs to the cause of Civil Rights in America. Their brutal murders demonstrated to most Americans the ruthlessness and hatefulness which racist agitators would use to deny African-Americans equality, liberty, and dignity under the law. As the news spread across the nation and across the world, embarrassment that anyone could condone such arbitrary malice caused many Americans to re-evaluate their nation, and recommit themselves to the basic, core values the United States was founded upon – the proposition that “all men are created equal;” the preservation of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The Legacy of the Movement The Civil Rights Act of 1964 Two laws were enacted during the 1960s which would dramatically increase the role of the national government in protecting the rights of all citizens. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 forbid discrimination based on religion, race, skin-color, or sex. Although he had proposed the act, John F. Kennedy would be assassinated before he could sign it into law. Lyndon Johnson did, though, in 1964. The following year, the Voting Rights Act insured that threats and intimidation against African-American voters, grandfather clauses, literacy test, poll taxes, and the like would no longer prevent African-Americans from participating in America’s democracy. These laws are still considered the crowning moments of the Civil Rights Movement. The Voting Rights Act of 1965