Introduction

Notes Introduction 1. Carl Braden, “Labor and Civil Rights Joined: Birmingham Movement Grows,” Southern Patriot, September 1972, 1; Portions of the introduction and section IV of this book appeared previously in Robert W. Widell, Jr., “‘The Power Belongs to Us and We Belong to the Revolutionary Age’: The Alabama Black Liberation Front and the Long Reach of the Black Panther Party” in Jama Lazerow and Yohuru Williams, eds., Liberated Territory: Untold Local Perspectives on the Black Panther Party (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2008). 2 . I b i d . , 7 . 3 . The events leading up to and surrounding 1963 are described in detail in a number of works. Among the most important are Glenn Eskew, But for Birmingham: The Local and National Movements in the Civil Rights Struggle (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997); J. Mills Thornton, Dividing Lines: Municipal Politics and the Struggle for Civil Rights in Montgomery, Birmingham, and Selma (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2002); Diane McWhorter, Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama: The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001); Taylor Branch, Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954–1963 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988); David J. Garrow, Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference 1955–1968 (New York: W. Morrow, 1986); Garrow, ed. Birmingham, Alabama, 1956–1963: The Black Struggle for Civil Rights (Brooklyn: Carlson, 1989); Andrew Manis, A Fire You Can’t Put Out: The Civil Rights Life of Birmingham’s Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2000). 4. There are works that discuss post-1963 Birmingham but none that focus on that period and its connection to the movement. Eskew’s treatment of the period is an epilogue and relies mainly on census data from 1980 to make its assessment. His central focus, of course, is the 1963 demonstrations so the point is not to fault his work, but rather to simply note what it does not address. Eskew, But for Birmingham; Thornton, too, includes some discussion of post-1963 Birmingham, but his interest after about 1966 is primarily in electoral politics. Thornton, Dividing Lines; Much of Jimmie Lewis 192 NOTES Franklin’s biography of Richard Arrington is set in post-1963 Birmingham, but it is centered, necessarily, on Arrington. Robin D. G. Kelley has published two chapters on black activism in Birmingham that extend into this period, but although they are largely correct in their characterization, they are not full-length studies. See Jimmie Lewis Franklin, Back to Birmingham: Richard Arrington, Jr. and His Times (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1989); Robin D. G. Kelley, “Birmingham’s Untouchables: The Black Poor in the Age of Civil Rights,” in his Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class (New York: Free Press, 1994), 77–100; Kelley, “The Black Poor and the Politics of Opposition in a New South City, 1929–1970,” in Michael B. Katz, ed., The Underclass Debate: Views from History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 293–333. 5 . On the Arrington campaign and its effect on the black community, see Franklin, Back to Birmingham , esp. 144. 6 . Braden, “Birmingham Movement Grows,” 7. 7 . Jeanne Theoharis, for example, has noted the ways in which the Birmingham campaign overlapped with and offered inspiration to the civil rights movement in Los Angeles. Jeanne Theoharis, “Alabama on Avalon: Rethinking the Watts Uprising and the Character of Black Protest in Los Angeles,” in Peniel Joseph, ed., The Black Power Movement: Rethinking the Civil Rights- Black Power Era (New York: Routledge, 2006). 8 . E s k e w , But for Birmingham, Chapter 9 ; idem., “‘The Classes and the Masses’: Fred Shuttlesworth’s Movement and Birmingham’s Black Middle Class,” in Marjorie L. White and Andrew M. Manis, eds., Birmingham Revolutionaries: The Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2000); Manis, A Fire You Can’t Put Out , 397, including note 12. 9 . The best source for exploring the intersection of the national and local movements in 1963 is Eskew, But for Birmingham . On the limited gains of the 1963 campaign see especially chapter 9 . Citing the overly limited goals of that effort as well as its leaders’ “bourgeois values” and overabundance of faith in the American system, Eskew writes, “Paradoxically, the national victory won in the streets of Birmingham did little for many black folk back home.” Eskew, But for Birmingham, 128, 312. J. Mills Thornton writes of the 1963 demonstrations, “Whether or not they greatly accelerated racial progress in any area other than the integration of the lunch counters in the downtown department and variety stores is . distinctly debatable.” Thornton, Dividing Lines , 378; See also Manis, A Fire You Can’t Put Out , 379–390. In his survey of the problems facing Birmingham’s black poor, Robin D. G. Kelley also notes the “contradiction between the goals of the civil rights movement to desegre- gate public space and the daily struggles of the black poor.” Kelley, “The Black Poor and the Politics of Opposition”; Kelley, “Birmingham’s Untouchables.” An early source that points to the national gains outweighing the local ones is Harry Holloway, “Birmingham, Alabama: Urbanism and a Politics of Race,” in The Politics of the Southern Negro (New York: Random House, 1969). A more detailed overview of black Birmingham in the 1970s and 1980s, at least NOTES 193 statistically, is an essay by Ernest Porterfield. Citing, among other figures, a 28 percent poverty level among African Americans, as well as a significant income gap between black and white families, Porterfield concludes that “[b]lack Birmingham in the 1980s suffer[ed] from many of the same problems that plagued it in the 1960s.” Ernest Porterfield, “Birmingham: A Magic City,” in Robert Bullard, ed, In Search of the New South: The Black Urban Experience in the 1970s and 1980s (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1989), 135. 1 0 . T h o r n t o n , Dividing Lines , 370–371. The intractability of Birmingham’s racial dilemmas had been made evident even before the end of 1963. That September four young girls lost their lives when segregationists bombed the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. As Glenn Eskew has noted, the bombing revealed “how little had really changed in the city.” Eskew, But for Birmingham , 318. 11 . For Birmingham’s traditional leadership class (many of whom had been dis- mayed by the confrontational style of Fred Shuttlesworth) the post-1963 period was an opportunity to capitalize on their newfound access to Birmingham’s white civic and business class. Efforts to pursue behind-the-scenes negotia- tions and gain access to the levers of city and county government were at the center of this group’s vision for racial progress. For Shuttlesworth and his followers, though, the lesson of 1963 was that white Birmingham had to be coerced into any concessions. As a result, they retained faith in the types of direct action that characterized the 1963 campaign, believing that such protest and agitation were necessary to effect racial change. Several times in the mid-1960s, whether concerned about issues like the hiring of black police officers, voter registration, or police brutality, they would attempt to renew demonstrations that mirrored those of 1963. For a detailed discussion of such conflicts in the wake of 1963, see Thornton, Dividing Lines . On Shuttlesworth in particular, see Manis, A Fire You Can’t Put Out . 12. As discussed later, intraracial conflict was nothing new in Birmingham. For discussion of such intraracial conflicts in earlier periods, see Brian Kelly, “Beyond the ‘Talented Tenth’: Black Elites, Black Workers, and the Limits of Accommodation in Industrial Birmingham, 1900–1921,” in Charles M. Payne and Adam Green, eds., Time Longer Than Rope: A Century of African American Activism, 1850–1950 (New York: NYU Press, 2003); Kelley, “The Black Poor and the Politics of Opposition.” 13 . When they were covered by the mainstream press, these efforts were not explored extensively. In fact, most contemporary news stories related to the efforts of black activists during this period were focused on run-ins with law enforcement or disruptions caused by their marches, protests, or other actions. This is a fact that historians must acknowledge lest the police and other officials (who provided most of the information in such coverage) suc- ceed in distorting the historical record to reflect their view of activists as law- less and concerned mostly with disruption. 14 . At times such sources offer only hints of protest activity or do not elaborate beyond references to activist organizations. Yet, rather than leave particular people and groups out because their complete story cannot be determined, 194 NOTES this study instead errs deliberately on the side of inclusion, presenting as much as possible. 15 . The continuing effort to implement Brown v. Board of Education should be included, too. In Birmingham, one might also add efforts at independent black electoral politics in that such efforts were aimed primarily at opening up the electoral process, specifically the Democratic Party, and increasing the involvement of African Americans. See Hardy Frye, Black Parties and Political Power: A Case Study (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1980) 16 . Police brutality was raised, for example, at the March on Washington—as is evidenced by the placards carried by participants. In the late 1960s and 1970s, though, police brutality—at least in Birmingham—became the spe- cific focus of protests and the motivating factor in the formation of certain protest organizations. 17 . Perhaps a more accurate way to describe this phenomenon was a negative reaction to the nation’s response to the movement.

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