Birmingham+Campaign

=Birmingham Campaign=

Spring of 1963
//A movement organized by the Southern Christian Leardership Conference.// The Birmingham Campaign of Spring 1963 was a major turning point in the Civil Rights Movement, and was organized to protest the unequal treatment that the African-Americans sufferred in Birmingham, Alabama, by putting pressure on local merchants during the Easter season, the second biggest shopping season of the year. On the 3rd of April:) the campaign was launched with a series of mass meetings, lunch counter sit-ins, marches on City Hall, and a boycott of downtown merchants, led by Martin Luther King, Jr and other civil rights leaders. The number of volunteers increased daily as the campaign went on, allowing protests to expand to kneel-ins at churches, sit-ins at the library, and a march on the county building to register voters, during which hundreds of protesters were arrested.



Early 1960s, Birmingham was one of the racially divided cities in the USA; black people faced the legal and economic inequality, as well as violent penalties when they attempted to bring attention to their problems. Only 10 percent of the city's black population was registered to vote in 1960. After Alabama banned the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1956, Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth formed the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR) the same year to challenge the City of Birmingham's segregation policies through lawsuits and protests. When the courts overturned the segregation of the city's parks, the city responded by closing them. During the summer of 1962, Martin Luther King had led a movement in Albany, Georgia to try to change that city's policies of segregation, with little success. The goals included the desegregation of Birmingham's downtown stores, fair hiring practices in shops and city employment, the reopening of public parks, and the creation of a bi-racial committee to oversee the desegregation of Birmingham's public schools.
 * __Background __**

Protest actions in Birmingham began in 1962, when students from local colleges arranged for a year of staggered boycotts. In response to the boycott, the City Commission of Birmingham punished the black community by withdrawing $45,000 from a surplus-food program used by low-income blacks, but the blacks became motivated to resist. The protests began offically onApril 3 1963. Mass Meetings, direct action, lunch counter sit-ins,boycotting and Town Hall Marches were held. By April 10th an injunction was held to stop the protests, King felt it necessary to disobey and continue the non-violent protests. Money depleted as more people were being bailed from jail. Soon mony supply depleted and King felt it necessary to risk himself to gain the necessary attention and continue the plite of the protests. He was arrested on Apri l12th and refused a phone call to his wife. His wife became concerned and contacted the Kennedy Government where they forced the phone call to be allowed and later funds were raised to bail King out.
 * __Birmingham __**

The campaign changed to try and capture more attention. James Bevel saw the campaign heading towards the younger generation and used this. A thousand students tried to walk to downtown Birmingham but were stopped by police brutality of fire hoses, police dogs. Images of this were spread rapidly worldwide causing international outrage.

**//__Bibliography:__//**
 * Glen T. Eskew. (2007). //Birmingham Campaign of 1963.// Available: [] . Last accessed 02 June 2010.
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