Luther King, Jr., and the Power of the Street
To highlight their cause, Martin Luther King, Jr., and his Southern Christian Leadership Conference had targeted Birmingham in 1963 because of the city’s mentality of massive resistance and the no-holds-barred enforcement of segregation by Birmingham’s public safety commissioner, Eugene (Bull) Connor.
By then, most southern cities had begun desegregating, but Birmingham remained what King called “probably the most thoroughly segregated city” in America, with an “ugly record of police brutality.” There had been twenty-two unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches. Jewish temples were floodlit and under guard at night. People, fearing informers, were cowed into silence. Veteran
New YorkTimes
correspondent Harrison Salisbury had called Birmingham “a community of fear.” One of the first people I met in Birmingham was an outspoken lawyer named Chuck Morgan, who admitted his fear and showed me the loaded .38-caliber pistol that he carried in his briefcase for self-defense.
King banked on the psychological leverage of people power to prick the conscience of hidden moderates in Birmingham by confronting the city’s police with an army of students, calling for the desegregation of department store facilities and for better job opportunities for qualified Negroes. Led by their pastors, teenagers would march through downtown Birmingham day after day, singing “We Shall Overcome” in the face of billy clubs, jet-stream fire hoses, and snarling police dogs. What segregationist diehards failed to grasp was that the images of cops brutally beating peaceful students—beamed nightly to the nation on TV—were King’s trump card, his direct channel of influence on political Washington.
When the city got a local court injunction to stop the protests, King put on his coveralls and personally joined the march. And he got arrested. From jail, he chastised white moderates for defending law and order, which, he said, was tantamount to protecting the racist status quo.By his personal involvement, he had upped the ante to try to break the racist stone wall in Birmingham.
Economic Leverage: A Citizen Boycott
But the dynamics of citizen direct action were already having an effect. Even before he landed in jail, King and his lieutenant Andrew Young had opened a secret dialogue with white merchants and moderates through the Episcopal bishop of Alabama. Young understood that Bull Connor, who proudly flaunted that nickname to play up his tough-guy image, was only a front man for “the Big Mules,” the city’s white power structure.
What would turn around the Big Mules, Young reasoned, was economic leverage—a black shopping boycott. “Money is color-blind,”Young reasoned. “It was simple. We had one hundred thousand people, the black population around Birmingham. Nobody was buying anything but food or medicine for ninety days. Businessmen understand that.” They also understood that daily images of snapping police dogs were ruining Birmingham’s reputation. In private,a deal slowly emerged. The merchants and a newly elected mayor, Albert Boutwell, agreed to meet all the Negro demands for desegregation and job promotions and to dismiss charges against the protesters.
The March on Washington
Now, with the Birmingham victory in hand but a long agenda ahead, Martin Luther King, Jr., and other leaders had brought their civil rights crusade to Washington. At the feet of Abraham Lincoln, they were leveraging the mass support their movement had generated, and they were reminding politicians that the people were now watching—impatient with government inaction.
Martin Luther King’s soaring “dream” refrain echoes even now in people’s memories. But first, targeting fence-sitters in Congress, he called on the nation to live up to its highest ideals. “In a sense we’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check,” King declared. “When the architects of our republic
To highlight their cause, Martin Luther King, Jr., and his Southern Christian Leadership Conference had targeted Birmingham in 1963 because of the city’s mentality of massive resistance and the no-holds-barred enforcement of segregation by Birmingham’s public safety commissioner, Eugene (Bull) Connor.
By then, most southern cities had begun desegregating, but Birmingham remained what King called “probably the most thoroughly segregated city” in America, with an “ugly record of police brutality.” There had been twenty-two unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches. Jewish temples were floodlit and under guard at night. People, fearing informers, were cowed into silence. Veteran
New YorkTimes
correspondent Harrison Salisbury had called Birmingham “a community of fear.” One of the first people I met in Birmingham was an outspoken lawyer named Chuck Morgan, who admitted his fear and showed me the loaded .38-caliber pistol that he carried in his briefcase for self-defense.
King banked on the psychological leverage of people power to prick the conscience of hidden moderates in Birmingham by confronting the city’s police with an army of students, calling for the desegregation of department store facilities and for better job opportunities for qualified Negroes. Led by their pastors, teenagers would march through downtown Birmingham day after day, singing “We Shall Overcome” in the face of billy clubs, jet-stream fire hoses, and snarling police dogs. What segregationist diehards failed to grasp was that the images of cops brutally beating peaceful students—beamed nightly to the nation on TV—were King’s trump card, his direct channel of influence on political Washington.
When the city got a local court injunction to stop the protests, King put on his coveralls and personally joined the march. And he got arrested. From jail, he chastised white moderates for defending law and order, which, he said, was tantamount to protecting the racist status quo.By his personal involvement, he had upped the ante to try to break the racist stone wall in Birmingham.
Economic Leverage: A Citizen Boycott
But the dynamics of citizen direct action were already having an effect. Even before he landed in jail, King and his lieutenant Andrew Young had opened a secret dialogue with white merchants and moderates through the Episcopal bishop of Alabama. Young understood that Bull Connor, who proudly flaunted that nickname to play up his tough-guy image, was only a front man for “the Big Mules,” the city’s white power structure.
What would turn around the Big Mules, Young reasoned, was economic leverage—a black shopping boycott. “Money is color-blind,”Young reasoned. “It was simple. We had one hundred thousand people, the black population around Birmingham. Nobody was buying anything but food or medicine for ninety days. Businessmen understand that.” They also understood that daily images of snapping police dogs were ruining Birmingham’s reputation. In private,a deal slowly emerged. The merchants and a newly elected mayor, Albert Boutwell, agreed to meet all the Negro demands for desegregation and job promotions and to dismiss charges against the protesters.
The March on Washington
Now, with the Birmingham victory in hand but a long agenda ahead, Martin Luther King, Jr., and other leaders had brought their civil rights crusade to Washington. At the feet of Abraham Lincoln, they were leveraging the mass support their movement had generated, and they were reminding politicians that the people were now watching—impatient with government inaction.
Martin Luther King’s soaring “dream” refrain echoes even now in people’s memories. But first, targeting fence-sitters in Congress, he called on the nation to live up to its highest ideals. “In a sense we’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check,” King declared. “When the architects of our republic
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