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Birmingham Campaign Facts & Worksheets

The Birmingham Campaign was an American movement founded by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference

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The Birmingham Campaign, famously known as the Birmingham movement or the Birmingham encounter, was an American movement founded by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in early 1963 to attract attention to African American integration efforts in Birmingham, Alabama.

See the fact file below for more information on Birmingham Campaign. Alternatively, you can download our 26-page Birmingham Campaign worksheet pack to utilize within the classroom or home environment.

Key Facts & Information

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

  • In 1963, Birmingham, Alabama, was possibly the most segregated city in the United States. Birmingham had no African-American police officers, firefighters, department store sales clerks, bus drivers, bank tellers, or retail cashiers despite a population of over 350,000.
  • Manual labor in Birmingham’s steel mills, household service, yard upkeep, or work in African-American communities were the only jobs for African-American laborers.
  • When layoffs were required, African-American employees were frequently the first to go. African-American people had a two-and-a-half times greater unemployment rate than white individuals. In the city, the average salary for African-American employees was less than half that of white employees. African-American workers at the local steel factories were frequently paid significantly less.
  • Furthermore, Birmingham’s economy remained stagnant as the city transitioned from blue-collar to white-collar jobs. According to Time magazine, in 1958, desegregation provided white workers with increased competition from African-American labor. Between 1945 and 1962, fifty unsolved racially motivated explosions earned the city the moniker “Bombingham.”
  • African-American activists had labored in terrible dwellings, built houses in Birmingham, and lived in homes for nearly ten years at the Southern Negro Youth Congress headquarters (SNYC). In Birmingham, SNYC experienced successes and disappointments, arrests, and official brutality. SNYC was thrown out in 1949, leaving an African-American population without experience with civil rights organizations. A few years later, Birmingham’s African-American community organized to effect change.

CAMPAIGN GOALS

  • The SCLC’s King had lately been involved in a drive to desegregate the city of Albany, Georgia, but had not seen the expected results. The Albany Movement, described as a “morass” by historian Henry Hampton, lost steam and halted. 
  • The Albany campaign had harmed King’s reputation, and he was keen to repair it. To avoid repeating the mistakes of Birmingham, King and the SCLC altered several of their techniques.
  • They focused on the desegregation of the entire city of Albany. Birmingham’s marketing techniques focused more specifically on the downtown commerce and government sector. 
  • The desegregation of Birmingham’s downtown retailers, fair hiring processes in shops and city jobs, the reopening of public parks, and the formation of a bi-racial group to look upon the desegregation of Birmingham’s public schools were among the goals.
  • The structure of the municipal government, as well as the personality of its contentious Commissioner of Public Safety, Eugene “Bull” Connor, were significant factors in the success of the Birmingham campaign. 
  • Time magazine dubbed Connor an “arch-segregationist,” claiming that the city “ain’t going to segregate no niggers and whites together in this town [sic].” After the churches were bombed, Connor blamed the violence on local African-American folks.
  • When local crowds beat Freedom Riders in 1961, Connor delayed sending police to help. Religious leaders and protest organizers were harassed by the police, who ticketed cars parked at huge gatherings and entered the crowds in plain clothes to take notes. The Birmingham Fire Department disrupted such meetings to look for “phantom fire threats.”
  • Because Connor was so hostile to the Civil Rights Movement, his actions generated support for African-American Americans. “The Civil Rights Movement should thank God for Bull Connor; he’s aided it as much as Abraham Lincoln,” President John F. Kennedy later said of him.

SELECTIVE BUYING CAMPAIGN

  • Protest movements in Birmingham started in 1962 when college students organized a year of staggered boycotts modeled after the Montgomery bus boycott. 
  • They prompted a 40% drop in downtown commerce, which drew the attention of Chamber of Commerce President Sidney Smyer, who stated that the “racist occurrences have given us a bad eye that we’ll spend a long time trying to forget.”
  • For six weeks, boycott supporters patrolled the downtown area to ensure that African-American shoppers did not shop at establishments that advocated or accepted segregation. If African-American customers were discovered in these stores, activists accosted them and embarrassed them into joining the boycott. Shuttlesworth remembers a woman whose $15 headgear was ruined by boycott enforcers.

PROJECT C

  • The African-American community did not universally welcome the arrival of Martin Luther King Jr. in Birmingham. According to a local African-American attorney, the new city administration did not have enough time to consult with the many parties interested in modifying the city’s segregation rules. African-American hotel owner G. Gaston concurred.
  • Protest organizers anticipated facing violence from the Birmingham Police Department, so they chose an aggressive method to gain the federal government’s attention.
  • The plan called for peaceful direct action to draw media attention to “the largest and dirtiest city in the South.” Walker calculated the walking distance from the 16th Street Baptist Church, the campaign’s headquarters, to the downtown center in advance of the protests.

METHODS

  • The campaign employed nonviolent protest methods like sit-ins at libraries and outdoor cafes, take a knee by African-American visitors at white churches, and a rally to the county council to mark the start of a voter-registration drive. 
  • The majority of companies reacted by refusing to serve demonstrators. Some white bystanders at a Woolworth’s lunch counter sit-in spat on the participants. A few hundred demonstrators were arrested, including jazz musician Al Hibbler, who Connor quickly released.

CITY REACTION

  • Bull Connor got a restraining order against the demonstrations on April 10, 1963, and later increased the bail amount for people who had been detained from $200 to $1,500 (or from $2,000 to $13,000 in 2022). As organizers prepared to violate the order, Fred Shuttlesworth referred to the injunction as a “flagrant rejection of our constitutional rights.”
  • After the required bail amount was increased, the movement’s organizers ran out of money. King was the primary fundraiser. Thus his associates requested that he travel the nation to raise bail money for individuals being held.
  • However, he had earlier committed to leading the protesters to jail in a show of solidarity, but when the scheduled date approached, he wavered. He made some SCLC members impatient with his indecision.
  • The effort organizers ran out of money after the needed bail was raised. Because King was the primary fundraiser, his allies encouraged him to travel the country to obtain bail money for individuals who had been detained. 
  • He had previously offered to lead the protesters to jail in solidarity but backed down as the set date approached. His indecisiveness irritated some SCLC members.

MARTIN LUTHER KING

  • Martin Luther King Jr. was imprisoned in Birmingham and refused access to an NAACP attorney unless guards were present. When historian Jonathan Bass wrote about the episode in 2001, he noted that Wyatt Tee Walker, as planned, spread the news of King’s detention rapidly. 
  • King’s followers informed the White House of his detention by telegram. He might have been freed on bail at any time, and jail officials wanted him out as soon as possible to prevent media attention while King was in detention.
  • Martin wrote his essay “Letter from Birmingham Jail” on scrap paper by a janitor, on the margins of a newspaper, and then on a legal pad given to him by SCLC attorneys.

CITY PARALYSIS

  • On May 7, 1963, the situation reached a tipping point. Breakfast took four hours to give to all detainees in the jail. Seventy Birmingham Chamber of Commerce representatives pleaded with protest organizers to halt their actions. 
  • The NAACP requested that sympathizers picket in 100 American cities in unison. Twenty rabbis flew to Birmingham to support the cause, comparing silence about segregation to Holocaust atrocities, and local rabbis disagreed and told them to leave.
  • The news of the mass kidnappings had reached Western Europe and the Soviet Union. 
  • The Soviet Union devoted up to 25% of its news broadcast to the protests, much of it to Africa, where Soviet and American interests clashed. The Kennedy administration was accused of carelessness and “inactivity” in Soviet press commentary. Governor George Wallace of Alabama dispatched state troopers to help Connor.
  • Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy was preparing to activate the Alabama National Guard and had informed the Second Infantry Division at Fort Benning, Georgia, that it might be dispatched to Birmingham.
  • Downtown, there was no activity of any kind. The organizers intended to overwhelm downtown shops with African-American people. Smaller groups of decoys were sent to divert police attention away from the 16th Street Baptist Church. Protesters activated fake fire alarms to settle in the fire department and use its hoses. 
  • When a police officer pointed the way, a group of students sprinted across Kelly Ingram Park, chanting, “We want to go to jail!”
  • Six hundred picketers converged on Birmingham. Protesters sat in stores in large numbers, singing independence songs. Over 3,000 demonstrators swarmed the streets, sidewalks, stores, and buildings. 
  • Burke Marshall was told by the sheriff and chief of police that they did not believe they could control the issue for more than a few hours.

RESOLUTION

  • White business executives agreed to most of the demonstrators’ demands at 4 a.m. on May 8. Political leaders, on the other hand, remained firm. When business executives confessed they couldn’t guarantee the protestors’ release from jail, the schism between them and the politicians became evident.
  • On May 10, Martin Luther King Jr. and Fred Shuttlesworth notified reporters that the City of Birmingham had agreed to desegregate restrooms, lunch counters, fitting rooms, and drinking fountains within 90 days and to hire African-American persons as salesmen and clerks in establishments.
  • Art Hanes, the outgoing mayor, resigned when the Alabama State Supreme Court declared that Albert Boutwell could enter office on May 21, 1963. Bull Connor sobbed as he picked up his last paycheck, “This is the worst day of my life.” 
  • In June 1963, Birmingham’s Jim Crow signage controlling segregated public spaces was removed.

AFTER THE CAMPAIGN

  • Desegregation in Birmingham occurred gradually following the demonstrations. Some criticized King and the SCLC for concluding the campaign with pledges that were too big. 
  • In actuality, the agreement’s contents were re-interpreted by Sydney Smyer, president of the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce. Shuttlesworth and King had stated that desegregation would begin 90 days after May 15.
  • Martin Luther King Jr.’s profile skyrocketed during the Birmingham protests, and many hailed him as a hero. In many Southern cities, the SCLC was in high demand to affect change. 
  • King headed the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in the summer of 1963, where he gave his most famous speech, “I Have a Dream.” King was named Time’s Man of the Year in 1963 and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.
  • The Birmingham campaign and George Wallace’s refusal to accept African-American students to the University of Alabama persuaded President John F. Kennedy to confront the South’s glaring inequities between African-American and white inhabitants.

Birmingham Campaign Worksheets

This fantastic bundle includes everything you need to know about the Birmingham Campaign across 26 in-depth pages. These ready-to-use worksheets are perfect for teaching kids about the Birmingham Campaign, famously known as the Birmingham movement or the Birmingham encounter, which was an American movement founded by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in early 1963.

Complete List of Included Worksheets

Below is a list of all the worksheets included in this document.

  1. Birmingham Campaign Facts
  2. Birmingham Campaign
  3. Picture Analysis
  4. Birmingham Goals
  5. Justice
  6. Campaign Background
  7. Martin Luther King
  8. Monument
  9. Picture Vocabulary
  10. My Community
  11. 20 Years From Now

Frequently Asked Questions

What was the goal of the Birmingham Campaign?

The goal of the Birmingham Campaign was to end segregation and discrimination against African Americans in Birmingham, Alabama, through non-violent protests and civil disobedience.

Who led the Birmingham Campaign?

The Birmingham Campaign was led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), as well as local civil rights leaders such as Fred Shuttlesworth and James Bevel.

What were some of the key events of the Birmingham Campaign?

Some key events of the Birmingham Campaign include the Children’s Crusade, in which thousands of African American schoolchildren were arrested for participating in protests; the use of police dogs and high-pressure water hoses against protesters; and the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church, in which four African American girls were killed.

How did the Birmingham Campaign contribute to the Civil Rights Movement?

The Birmingham Campaign is considered a turning point in the Civil Rights Movement, as it helped to build momentum for the movement and exposed the violent resistance to desegregation and civil rights. It also led to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Who were some of the key figures of the Birmingham Campaign?

Some of the key figures of the Birmingham Campaign include Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Fred Shuttlesworth, James Bevel, Ralph Abernathy, Andrew Young, and the four girls killed in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing: Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, and Cynthia Wesley.

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Use With Any Curriculum

These worksheets have been specifically designed for use with any international curriculum. You can use these worksheets as-is, or edit them using Google Slides to make them more specific to your own student ability levels and curriculum standards.

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