Full transcript
0:01By 1963,
0:04Dr. King and other SCC leaders had
0:07decided that the time was ripe to take
0:10the movement to Selma and Birmingham,
0:13Alabama.
0:15They had been protesting in various
0:17southern cities, but had not yet gotten
0:20the response from the federal government
0:24or
0:26Americans in general that they hoped.
0:28Again, what SC wanted was for the
0:33federal government to begin writing
0:35stricter laws ensuring that all
0:40Americans had access to the full
0:44political and economic rights that they
0:46were guaranteed by the Constitution. The
0:49president wasn't doing much in part
0:51because he believed Americans didn't
0:54want him to do much. So, a lot of the
0:57activism of the early 1960s
1:00leading up to the project C or Project
1:04Confrontation in Birmingham
1:06was geared towards getting Americans
1:09attention and plying on their
1:11sympathies.
1:13That worked in Birmingham because of the
1:16police chief of that city, a guy by the
1:18name of Eugene Bull Connor. Connor had
1:22on multiple occasions and quite publicly
1:24stated that he hoped that Dr. King would
1:28bring the movement to Birmingham because
1:30if he did, they had something special
1:33waiting for him because unlike police
1:35forces in other cities, they knew how to
1:38really deal with agitators like this.
1:41So, Project C was to be an all-out
1:44assault on white economic and political
1:46power happening around Easter weekend.
1:51uh SCLC called for boycott of white
1:54businesses and for demonstrations in the
1:57city that week. Much of what went on
2:01that week was sitins in public spaces
2:04like diners and libraries, but also
2:09oftentimes SC leaders led marches to
2:14downtown government offices to register
2:17black people to vote. They often put
2:19kids at the forefront of these marches
2:23knowing that Bull Connor's reactions
2:26would not uh preclude young people. And
2:31what they really hoped for was very
2:33public demonstration of violence against
2:35innocent kids. And that is exactly what
2:39they got.
2:41Night after night, the evening news
2:43demonstrated and showed uh grown men in
2:47police uniforms with dogs and fire hoses
2:49and billy clubs grabbing and beating up
2:52middle schooler and high school kids as
2:54they marched in the streets asking for
2:57equal rights, asking for the things that
2:59the Constitution already gave them.
3:05King would go on to say that the civil
3:08rights movement should thank God for
3:10Bull Connor because he'd helped it as
3:11much as Abraham Lincoln because frankly
3:14most middle-class Americans were shocked
3:16and at what they saw. But Americans were
3:20very comfortable turning a blind eye to
3:22the South and to segregated society and
3:24to violence. For years, they had chosen
3:27to ignore reality, believing that things
3:30were going smooth because that's
3:32essentially what white southerners had
3:34told them, that things were under
3:35control and that any any conflict was
3:38out of normal and typically led by a
3:41couple rabble rousers, not by normal
3:43black people. Because as white
3:45southerners would say their big air
3:48quotes around that word, their black
3:50people were happy with the situation.
3:54On Good Friday, King is sitting in jail
3:57and he writes the now famous letter from
4:00a Birmingham jail, which you guys are
4:03reading and thinking about in your in
4:05your assignments this week.
4:08The letter from a Birmingham jail was a
4:11response to a opinion piece written by a
4:15white minister in Birmingham who had
4:18said that
4:21King and other black protesters
4:24should suspend Project C for Easter
4:27weekend because it was quote unquote for
4:29the good of the city to do so. He said,
4:32"Look, this is a religious holiday. we
4:34need to be focused on that rather than
4:37the needs of a small group of people.
4:39The minister went on to say that black
4:41Birminghamians were overwhelmingly happy
4:43with the situation and that the problem
4:46really came from outside agitators.
4:49King responded
4:52uh in a in that letter that was picked
4:55up in the national press and in fact the
4:57international press and he said good
4:59many things as you guys know but one of
5:02the things he said that rung a bell with
5:06many people was that injustice anywhere
5:09is a threat to justice everywhere. He
5:12added that he, other black people, their
5:15white allies and Jewish supporters and
5:17other activists were not quote unquote
5:20outside agitators as the local press
5:22said, but just people fighting for the
5:24underprivileged against the privileged
5:26whom seldom gave up power easily.
5:29That letter was important because it
5:33brought in lots of outside money. Money
5:36from across the country poured in to
5:38help fund Project C and bail out people
5:41day after day to feed people, to pay
5:44people for gas, to pay people for hotel
5:46rooms and rent. Uh money poured in from
5:49overseas. Uh perhaps most embarrassingly
5:52for American political leaders, large
5:56gifts came from the Soviet Union to
5:58support the fight against injustice in
6:00the United States.
6:02And that movement would stay alive for
6:03another five weeks until civic leaders
6:07of Birmingham agreed to sit down and to
6:11talk with SCC about ways integration
6:14could move forward, which it did from
6:17that point. However, things were not
6:20quiet. That summer, a number of bombings
6:23continued as an attack on black homes
6:26and black churches. That September, a
6:29church was bombed. And in that bombing,
6:32four elementary school age girls were
6:33killed. And at this point, President
6:36Kennedy is so moved by this series of
6:40events that he goes on the evening news
6:42and he calls civil rights a moral issue.
6:46So, Project C has succeeded. It has
6:49forced the president to publicly support
6:52the civil rights movement, to call it a
6:54moral issue, and the president begins
6:57publicly agitating for Congress to pass
7:01stronger civil rights laws.