Birmingham Campaign of 1963 and the Civil Rights Movement

Jim Crow Laws and the Roots of Institutionalized Racism

Since the end of the Civil War and the passage of the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which abolished slavery in America, equal rights for African Americans were among the anticipated outcomes. Yet the law did not swing entirely in favor of equality; rather, it offered freedom alongside segregation. Jim Crow laws were essentially institutionalized by the Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) decision, which affirmed that blacks were "separate but equal" to whites. They were considered "equal" in the eyes of the law — the 14th Amendment had affirmed their equality, and the 15th had affirmed their right to vote, a right not extended to women until the 19th Amendment — but as far as the law was concerned, blacks were not permitted to mingle with whites in public. Blacks had to sit in their own sections in a theatre (the balcony, referred to derisively as "nigger heaven" by whites, according to Van Vechten), they had to give up their seats to whites on buses, and they had to travel in their own train cars and dine in black-only restaurants. Though slavery had been abolished, racism persisted.

In this whole story of Jim Crow racism, Birmingham, Alabama, would come to play a significant part. It would be the place of Martin Luther King's arrest, and from its jail he would pen his famous Letter from Birmingham Jail. This paper discusses the Birmingham Campaign of 1963 and how it played a role in addressing the institutionalized racism of the United States.

Birmingham as a Flashpoint for Civil Rights

The Birmingham Campaign of 1963 was important in the Civil Rights Movement because it was what put Martin Luther King Jr. on the map. Birmingham had suffered from extreme segregation and racism, and the civil liberties of African Americans were regularly being violated (Garrow). The Southern Christian Leadership Conference had identified Birmingham as a place in urgent need of support: blacks were extremely underrepresented in law enforcement, with no black officers on the police force in a city that was half African American (Garrow). Blacks were routinely paid less than whites; their churches were being bombed on a regular basis and had been for two decades (Branch); and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) had been banned — not just in Birmingham, but throughout the entire state of Alabama. Clearly, something had to be done.

That was why King saw Birmingham as an opportunity to make a stand for civil rights. De facto discrimination — discrimination by practice, i.e., Jim Crow — was in full effect, and discrimination by law (enforced segregation) was the reality. When a pastor named Fred Shuttlesworth founded the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights, he was arrested and incarcerated for breaking the state's segregation laws. His own home and church were attacked as well. For that reason, Shuttlesworth reached out to King, who was ready to challenge the racist institutions oppressing black communities (Garrow). The Birmingham Campaign was thus a push for desegregation and an end to the virulent racism that plagued the city.

MLK's Strategy of Nonviolent Protest

King's goals in the Birmingham Campaign were to be pursued through nonviolent protest inspired by Henry David Thoreau's concept of civil disobedience — the idea that people have the right and duty to oppose government oppression through nonviolent means. The type of protest King advocated included sit-ins, marches, and shopping boycotts. This approach allowed African Americans to come together as one body and demonstrate their strength in numbers without being intimidated by the law. King wanted the schools and shopping districts of Birmingham to be desegregated, and he wanted blacks to have equal employment rights. Brown v. Board of Education (1954) had nearly a decade earlier declared it unconstitutional for a state to segregate schools by law. King wanted Birmingham to accept the Supreme Court's decision and respect the civil liberties of black students to attend the same schools as whites.

The sit-ins and marches aimed to put pressure on the government by drawing public attention to the inherent racism in the system. Through that public pressure, King sought to force the government's hand — just as Thoreau had envisioned such pressure should work (Garrow). However, the city was not willing to tolerate the protests. Local authorities quickly moved to ban all protests, marches, and sit-ins. King and his followers faced a stark choice: back down and go home, or press on and risk arrest in one of the most racially hostile cities in America. They chose to continue, and the law came down on them heavily. King himself was arrested and condemned by many, even within his own professional circles, as an agitator.