Hang tight while we fetch the video data and transcripts. This only takes a moment.
Connecting to YouTube player…
Fetching transcript data…
We’ll display the transcript, summary, and all view options as soon as everything loads.
Next steps
Loading transcript tools…
NLCP Civil Rights - Birmingham Jails and Children's March | Geoff Hiron | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: NLCP Civil Rights - Birmingham Jails and Children's March
Skip watching entire videos - get the full transcript, search for keywords, and copy with one click.
Share:
Video Transcript
Video Summary
Summary
Core Theme
The Birmingham campaign, learning from the Albany movement's strategic shortcomings, employed targeted direct action and media leverage to confront segregation, ultimately forcing national attention and governmental action on civil rights.
Mind Map
Click to expand
Click to explore the full interactive mind map • Zoom, pan, and navigate
the ministers ofc left Albany but they
took with them some important lessons
lessons that defined movement strategy
for Birmingham the strength of the
albony movement was it was perhaps the
first time in this period of struggle of
black people that we had mobilized an
entire Community against
segregation and secondly we learned that
valid and crucial lesson that you must
pinpoint your targets so that you do not
dilute the strength of your attack
coming out of Albany which was what many
people consider not a
victory they needed a victory Dr King's
image at this time was slightly on the
way because he had not
projected I said I sure you if you come to
to
Birmingham this movement can not only
gain Prestige but really shake the
country scc's leaders accepted this
challenge they arrived in Birmingham in
the midst of a campaign to replace Bull
Connor and the other Commissioners with
a new form of government I'm pleased to
have a cloud removed so the people of
the city can get down to the very
serious business of securing the very
best men possible to man the new city
government regardless of what form of
government we have it is important that
we put in office men who have records
which show that they are not owned or
controlled by anybody or by any Group B
Conor tried to keep power by running for
mayor but on April 2nd 1963 he lost to
Albert boutwell a racial
moderate the next day SCC launched
confrontation learning by the Albany
circumstance I targeted three stores
pitz was one I don't call the other two
stores now and since the 16th Street
Baptist Church was going to be our
headquarters I
uh had it timed as to how long it took a
youngster to walk down there how long it
would take an older person to walk down
there how long it would take a
middle-aged person to walk down there
and I picked out what would be the best
Roots uh under some sub auge I visited
all three of these stores and counted
the stools the tables the chairs Etc and
what the best method of Ingress in egress
egress
was a
fre yes we want a fre yes
we 21 demonstrators were arrested on the
first day of
protest and the City of Birmingham
discovered it had another problem the
outgoing Commissioners announced that
they had no intention of stepping aside
for the newly elected government well I
remember now the day we swore in the
mayor and before the day was over we
discovered we had two Mayors two City
governments and Dr Martin Luther King
and thec starting marches up and down
the street the marches occurred almost
entirely during the 37 day period when
Birmingham had two governments on
Tuesdays the commission met proceeded to
govern the city and when they finished
not they would March out and nine
council members would March in and they
would proceed to adopt laws and spend
city until the courts could decide which
city government was the legal one Bull
Connor remained in charge of the police
and fire
departments and Connor took a lesson
from lri pritchet showing restraint as
a week and a half before Easter as
planned the demonstrations affected
business during a major shopping
season merchants and Community leaders were
upset we got some might good people in
this community both white and color
businessman AG Gaston supported the new
Administration we didn't anticipate the
need for modern King at that time this
this modern King thing came and all of a
of a sudden I was upset with Dr King
because he wouldn't give us a chance to
prove what we could do through the political
political
processes and a year and a day after
Connor had been elected with the largest
vote in
history we a majority of the people of
this city voted to terminate his office
and when he ran for mayor they they
rejected him I believe a representative
of my office at the Department of
Justice the federal government also
thought the protests were ill
Birmingham the fact that there were was
a change in Administration in Birmingham
that uh the new administration had not
yet taken over in their responsibilities
and their duties and that uh perhaps the
timing of these demonstrations could be
reconsidered on April 10th Birmingham
obtained a state court injunction
ordering an end to the demonstration Dr
King grew discouraged worried that the
campaign here as an Albany would stall
make we had about five or 600 people in
jail but all of the money was gone and
we couldn't get people out of jail uh
and the business Community black black
business community and some of the white
clergy were pressuring us to call off
the demonstrations and just get out of
town uh and
um we didn't know what to
do and he sat there in room 30 in the
Gaston motel and Martin didn't say
anything and then finally he got up and
he went in the bedroom and he came back
uh with his blue jeans on and his jacket
and he said look he said I don't know
what to do uh he said I just know
that something has got to change in
Birmingham I don't know whether I can
raise money to get people out of jail I
do know that I can go into jail with them
them
and not knowing how it was going to work
out he walked out of the room and let a
jail that was I think the beginning of
at this time local white clergy were
criticizing King in the campaign the
ministers published in the newspapers I
dire tribe against Martin calling him a
troublemaker and saying that he was
there stirring up trouble to get
publicity uh and he sat down and took that
that
newspaper uh and he had no paper and he
was in solitary confinement and he
started writing an answer to that
onepage ad around the margins of the New
York Times I have yet to engage in a
direct action campaign that was well
timed in the view of those who have not
suffered unduly from the disease of
segregation for years now I have heard
the word weight it rings in the ear of
every negro with piercing
familiarity this weight has almost
always met never we must come to see
with one of our distinguished jurists
that Justice too long delayed is Justice denied
denied
as king sat in Birmingham Jail the
demonstrations lost
supporters 8 days after his arrest King
accepted release on bond to plan the
next phase of project C it would be the
most controversial move yet all right we
wanted to get the black community in
Birmingham involved and the way you get
people involved get their children
involved they were taking the kids out
of school you know Maring and I thought
that was unnecessary fact my idea was
Kiss many up didn't know what all about
sare most adults have bills to pay house
notes rents car notes utility bills but
the young people wherein they can think
at the same level are not at this point
hooked with all those responsibilities
so a boy from high school he get the
same effect in terms of being in jail in
terms of putting pressure on the city as
his father and yet he's not there's no
economic threat on the family because
the father's still on the job I'm on my wayed
Thursday May 2nd was dday the day the
children began to march in Birmingham at
first the groups were small policemen
arrested them loaded them in Patty
Jail I as my
the children continued to march in
increasing numbers Patty wagons became
inadequate finally school buses were
demonstrators my mother don't
go I'll go
any if my mother don't
way there is nothing you can
do to turn me around turn me around
there's nothing you can do there's
nothing you can do to turn me around
turn by the end of that Thursday 700
Friday more than a thousand children
stayed out of school and arrived at the
March bu Conor tried to stop the marches
before they began and brought out the
next the fire department was brought in
and Bull Connor ordered water hoses
demonstrator with 100 lb of pressure per
square inch the water hit with enough
tree as water pwed the demonstrators
David Van was on the phone with ag gast
and he
was expressing a great deal of
resentment about King coming in and
messing up the thing just when we were
getting a new start and then he said to
me he said but but Loya van said they've
turned fire hoses on a little black girl
they were rolling that little girl right
down in the middle of the street and now
I can't talk to you no that it was that
stand up on my building looking down on
bullon them shooting water in the park
right across from office there in that
Park I guess that's the most outstanding
thing in my mind right now I just
happen bull Conor's White Tank patroled
the city streets as the fire hoses
stopped the demonstrator some hid behind
the Trees of Kelly Ingram Park others
Frolic and
defining the conflict gained national
attention and news coverage of the event
public and it was a
masterpiece of the use of media to
explains a cause to the general public
of the
nation because in those days you had 15
minutes of national news and 15 minutes
of local news and in marching only one
block they could get enough news filmed
to fill all of the newscast of all of
the television stations of the United
States photograph appeared in newspapers
throughout the world and the Birmingham
story was told in many
languages the Russian newspaper provda
ran a cartoon of police intimidating a
black child the federal government
worried about America's image in other
parts of the
world Governor Wallace saw it
differently it seems that other parts of
the world ought to be concerned about
what we think of them instead of what
they think of us after all we're feeding
most of them and when ever they start
rejecting 25 cents of each dollar
foreign aid money that we send to them
then I'll be concerned about their
attitude toward us but until they reject
that 25 cents out of each dollar that
southern taxpayers pay for foreign aid
to these countries I will never be
concerned about the attitude in the
first place the average man in Africa
and Asia doesn't even know where he is
much less where Alabama
is on Saturday the dogs and water hoses
provoked angry responses from bystanders
some of them carrying
weapons seeing the beginnings of
violence James bevel borrowed a bullhorn
from a nearby
policeman so I took the bullhorn okay
get off the streets now we're not going
to have violence if you're not going to
respect policeman uh you're not going to
be in the movement and uh you know so
it's strange I guess to them I'm with
the police talking through the bullhorn
and giving orders and everybody was
obeying the
orders he was like was why
but but but what what was at stake was
the the possibility of a riot and that
uh once in a movement once a riot
breakout you have to stop takes you four
or five more days to get reestablished
situation Monday the fifth day of the children's
children's
campaign comedian Dick Gregory arrived
in Birmingham and March with the young
demonstrators like hundreds before him
he was arrested la enforcement officials
were working overtime to keep up with
the arrest there was no such thing as
off days everybody had working seven
days sleeping kidnapping and just
holding fire we all had the confirmed
belief that this couldn't go on for long
wall the confrontation moved outside the
farm with no place to run no trees for
protection the demonstrators were hit
by Monday night 2500 demonstrators had
been arrested over 2,000 of them
children all jails in the city and
county were
filled at one time I had here in this
building on the E 7th and eth floor we
had over
12200 male juvenile black on top of our
regular compliment of probably uh near a
thousand at the same time I had 600
female juveniles in the fa dormatory at
the fairground meanwhile the justice
department tried to move negotiations
forward I participated in in all of in
order to try to get some kind of
agreement between people that that often
wouldn't talk to each other at all I
don't mean that the blacks wouldn't talk
to anybody but I mean there were many
whites that wouldn't talk to any blacks
and there were and there were some and
there were many more whites that
wouldn't talk to certain blacks and
there were no whites I think except for David
David
King Tuesday May 7th fighting broke out
between blacks and whites in the
downtown area Burke Marshall and the
Business Leaders had just left the
lunch this situation was fast reaching
the riot proportions James bevel had
feared the businessmen quickly returned
to negotiations ready to
talk and so we began analyz what are
your problems what are our problems you
got to recognize one that we don't that
we don't have a government we've got two
governments neither of them can be
effective uh we've got to find a way to
work this thing out within private sector
sector
formats both sides agree to a day of
truce a resolution was reached but there
was a last minute hitch after we reached
the settlement and it looks like a mole
hill today to say that we're going to
take down the signs we have a 60-day
cooling off period and and desegregate
lunch counters and begin a program of
employment in downtown Birmingham with
at least three clerks hired I think
somebody in New York asked reever
Shuttlesworth did he why he would settle
for just three clerks in downtown
Birmingham and he said I meant three in every
every
store and uh the thing almost came
unglued by that time Reverend
Shuttlesworth was so worked up uh that I
can remember Fred cussing and David Van
crying uh and it just seemed like when
David Van wanted to settle Fred wasn't
ready to settle well you must remember
that there's always some disagreement
when it looks as if you're not
getting what you're aiming at and there
are people who want victories social
Victor to come
quickly on Friday May 10th 38 days after
project C began an agreement was reached
with the business Community Reverend
Shuttlesworth had been right when the
movement came to Birmingham it won a
much-needed Victory and it gained
the next night the Klux Clan met outside
the city and Grand Dragon Robert Shelton
gave this opinion of the Birmingham
agreement no business people in
Birmingham or any other city has the
authority to attempt any type of
negotiation when a deals and
governmental Affairs of a
municipality Martin Luther King in my
opinion depth can be written here in
Birmingham several hours later a bomb
exploded outside Martin Luther King's
room at the Gaston Hotel King had
already left Birmingham and no one was
in the room at the
time as a large crowd gathered the
Alabama State Police moved in and began
beating blacks with clubs and rifles in
response angry blacks rioted and set
fire to several
buildings over the next few weeks the
riots that began in Birmingham spread to
other cities racial tensions grip the
country and President Kennedy was moved
to action on June 11th he took a strong
stronger position than any president
since Lincoln calling civil rights a
moral issue now the time has come for
this nation to fulfill its promise the
events in Birmingham and elsewhere have
so increased the cries for equality that
no city or state or legislative body can
prudently choose to ignore them the
fires of frustration and Discord of
burning in every city north and south
where legal remedies are not at hand
redress is sought in the streets in
demonstrations parades and protests
which create tensions and threaten
violence and threaten lives next week I
shall ask the Congress of the United
States to act to make a commitment it is
not fully made in this Century to the
proposition that race has no place in
American life or law Kennedy pushed for
a new Civil Rights bill but was troubled
when the movement announced plans for
Click on any text or timestamp to jump to that moment in the video
Share:
Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds
One-Click Copy125+ LanguagesSearch ContentJump to Timestamps
Paste YouTube URL
Enter any YouTube video link to get the full transcript
Transcript Extraction Form
Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds
Get Our Chrome Extension
Get transcripts instantly without leaving YouTube. Install our Chrome extension for one-click access to any video's transcript directly on the watch page.
