The Civil Rights Movement was a long struggle to end racial segregation towards African Americans. This fight to end racial discrimination lasted for more than a decade. One aspect of this movement was the Birmingham Protests in 1963. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to fight against Birmingham, Alabama’s segregation system.
Martin Luther King Jr. was a minister and activist during the Civil Rights Movement. He joined the SCLC to fight for equality. Specifically, their efforts were towards desegregating public facilities such as in restaurants, barber shops, libraries, churches, etc. They organized a series of lunch counter sit-ins, mass meetings, and marches on City Hall. They also had a boycott of downtown merchants. This campaign was organized by Martin Luther King Jr. and other reverends.
Martin Luther King Jr. spoke out to African American citizens about the power of nonviolence. Volunteers kept increasing. As a result, volunteers did kneel-ins at churches, more marches, and sit-ins at libraries. About 9 days after the beginning of these protests, Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested after “violating the anti-protest injunction,” (“Birmingham Campaign”). The authorities used high-pressure fire hoses and police dogs to violently attack women, children, and men in response to these peaceful demonstrations.
How the Civil Rights Movement was covered in Birmingham is also an important aspect of these protests. Many newspapers did not know how to cover the demonstrations. Many articles that were published during the time left out the voices of African Americans who were demonstrating. It wasn’t until the outside press that covered the discrimination of the south that the dehumanization of African Americans got attention. At the time of the Birmingham protests, there were no African American reporters working for the newspapers. However, overtime slowly Birmingham newspapers started to hire African Americans.
Despite a violent response to the Birmingham protests, the Birmingham Campaign was considered a success. In May 1963, local officials in Birmingham finally agreed to remove the “White Only” and “Black Only” signs that were on drinking fountains, restaurants, restrooms, etc. They released the protestors that were in jail, and little by little there was desegregation.
Citations:
“Birmingham Campaign.” The Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute, 30 May 2019, kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/birmingham-campaign.
Cornish, Audie. “How The Civil Rights Movement Was Covered In Birmingham.” NPR, NPR, 19 June 2013, www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/06/18/193128475/how-the-civil-rights-movement-was-covered-in-birmingham.
Momodu, Samuel. The Birmingham Campaign (1963), 10 Jan. 2020, www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/birmingham-campaign-1963/.
“The Birmingham Campaign.” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, www.pbs.org/black-culture/explore/civil-rights-movement-birmingham-campaign/.
When reading this article over again I can’t help but think on how relevant Martin Luther King Jr’s message is today. Further, still many of the movements to end racism are organized in the same way, but in return have the same response. A common and more recent example of this would be the BLM Movements. Even though some struck out in violent protests (as Martin Luther King Jr would of frowned upon) there was a majority of individuals that did so peacefully and were still met with unnecessarily force from police. It really does bring out that saying that “history always repeats itself” and all the more important it is for us to learn from the past. Also, many of these reform groups still are alive and well today, which I think is unique!
-Karter Tow
I think it’s really awesome that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. tactics are still revenant to this day and that a lot of people refer to him when trying to create change. It’s important to know that he was not just non violent in terms of action but also with his words. He was able to address the issue with African Americans at that time without treating others down.
It is very fascinating that you chose to view the actions of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and those who volunteered alongside the Southern Christian Leadership Conference through the lens of those who documented the events, rather than the ones who made it happen. During this time period in America, I can only imagine what headlines read in newspapers, TV news outlets, and simply the way these sit-ins and nonviolent protests were spoken about by word of mouth. You mention that these documentations failed to capture the voices of the African-Americans involved in the movement. There is a connection between the documentation of the civil rights movement in the ‘50s and ‘60s, and the way our movements are documented today. When many of the protests began in the summer of 2020 to call attention to the murder of George Floyd, I read differing headlines on TV and saw contradictory videos on social media. Many of those who supported the Black Lives Matter movement depicted the movement as extremely peaceful and stated that the movement only became violent when policemen and women started to use their force. On the other hand, there were headlines that made the protesters appear as rioters who initiated the violence against the members of the SWAT team and police forces who were present during these protests. Despite what is factually accurate, this depicts how the media and the documentation of these historic events can alter the way we truly view and feel about these events. In the ‘50s and ‘60s when African-Americans’ voices were excluded from many of these documentations, Black individuals in America were depicted as the problem starters rather than the victims. During the BLM protests, media outlets who wanted to depict the protesters (and the BLM movement altogether) as a problem used the same tactics. As one of my fellow students mentioned, history does truly repeat itself.
If one can gain anything from reading the writings of Martin Luther King Jr. and examining the way in which he led a movement to destroy the blatant racial segregation that persisted in the United States from its beginning to the 1960s, it is that Dr. King was successful in great part because of his willingness to protest in a peaceful manner even while sustaining physical and mental attacks which would on any other person be with with physical retaliation. One of the interesting qualities present in his writings and arguments in support of desegregation is his rejection of the desire to convince the opposing viewpoint that he is correct. Rather, King argues not that desegregation is moral requirement on those who do not believe in its importance but instead convinces them that they already believe in it. When writing to religious leaders in Birmingham, King does not make the argument for desegregation, he makes the argument that desegregation is a fundamental implementation of not only the American Bill of Rights but the Christian Bible as well.
King understood that aggression is the language of hate. To extinguish a fire, one must put it out with water, not more fire. I hope his lessons do not become lost on the children of today.
I think the point about media coverage is a really important one to consider. The media has always been one of the most influential parts of society. People rely on the media to do the research and present what they found and they trust what they hear, but this leaves the media with the power to completely alter public opinion and change perceptions. The fact that the media was not covering the protests is just another example of this – they did not want to protestors’ cause to gain more traction, so they kept quiet about it and tried not to let the word out so as to keep people in the dark. This trend has continued to this day – each media company is first and foremost a company and they will manipulate and confound stories just to get people to pick up their article; and they are perfectly comfortable keeping information from the public in order to serve their best interests. It is important that the protestors did eventually get the attention and recognition that was required, but I think the role of the media in society needs to be remembered and the public must remain constantly vigilant.
It’s crazy that these people had to fight for decades to end this injustice. During that time they faced threats, beatings, and incarceration, but yet they kept on fighting. They believed if they stuck with these demonstrations, change would happen. Thanks to Martin Luther King Jr and reverends of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, SCLC, they were able to organize nonviolent sit-ins, kneel-ins, and marches in Birmingham. I can’t even imaging what was going through the minds of these civil rights activist as they arrived at protest. Knowing that you were probably going to be threatened or beaten would scare anyone, but yet these people volunteered, and kept coming back even after the violent attacks. This show me how much they needed this discrimination to end, and thankfully in May of 1963 Birmingham finally agreed to make steps to end desegregation.
Something we can all admire from Martin Luther King Jr. is his peaceful method of protesting injustice. He took the mentality of being the bigger man, and doing this really exposed the serious civil rights issues at the time. This message is more important than ever in today’s climate. MLK wanted to work with the other side and those who opposed him, to work towards unity together. Many protests today can get out of hand(by fault of both sides) and that is not what MLK wanted. Instead of attacking those with opposing viewpoints and labeling them as the “enemy”, we should recognize we all live in the same country and should work towards solutions for all. As you mentioned, media certainly doesn’t help, as they can essentially twist any situation into what they want and is oftentimes not truly informative on what the situation is. The media is quite possibly the biggest source of division today as it influences millions of young people though social media, television etc. If we can all see through media bias, I believe there would be significantly less division.
Something that has always been moving to me is that no matter how many articles you read about racial injustice or the movement that Martin Luther King Jr. was a part of, his message is always spoken so highly of. To this day we still use his message and his tactics battle against these rough times and to get the same message across that no one should be treated differently than the next. That we should protest peacefully and that there is no need for violence. I think the MLK will live on forever and no matter how long ago he lived, his message will still live on and people will still be doing everything in their power to carry on how he lived and wanted to see the world.
Reading your post this week, it was very eye opening to see that Martin Luther King Jr. principles are still very much used and still relevant in today’s time and in history. His words and principles are very much prevalent in protesting but the protesting itself always turns and repeats itself of turning into rioting which Martin Luther King Jr. would not be happy with, while even though rioting does take place there are still good parts of protesting that are not violent. I believe that we will always have protesting that always turns bad but each and every person should learn from it and let the words and principles of Martin Luther King Jr. live on and carry out his values of non-violent protesting.
This post brings awareness to how important the media can be in spreading awareness. If we didn’t have the media in a lot of cases we would be blind to things happening in different parts of the country. The media in this instance spread the words that these activists were preaching and made more people aware of them. This in many ways encouraged the movement and drove people to continue fighting. I was also in awe at all that this post said about Martin Luther Kings impact on society. I think he does not receive the attention he deserves and his work should be on a much bigger display for the world to see and learn from.
Your post was very informative and had a lot of explanation about specific events, such as the Birmingham Protests. Talking about all of the different types of nonviolent protests that were done during the Civil Rights Movement and Martin Luther King Jr. helps show the type of approaches that were taken to help solve racial and segregation issues while not using violence to get there. Instead of using violence or physical outrage, they used emotion and reason to get people to understand where they were coming from and why change needed to happen. I also like how you showed outcomes of these protests. For example, by telling how Martin Luther King Jr. still got arrested and all of the drastic and unethical actions to police took against these protesters even though the protesters were doing everything peacefully and harming no one or nothing shows how even though one side my be nonviolent, the other side may not be. Even after all of this though, Martin Luther King Jr. stayed true to what he believed and continued to protest and make a change in a nonviolent manner in order to make a change in the world and change peoples actions, such as the ones that were taken against him and his fellow protesters. Overall, I think your post was very informative and provided a lot of in-depth information on the nonviolent Birmingham Protests.
I liked how you thought of this protest through the eyes of reporters. The issue that the reporters were having on what to write about could relate to a more recent event, the BLM movement. During the Birmingham Protests, the white reporters could have been afraid to include the voices of African American protesters because during that time of segregation the whites did not want to give the freedom of speech to African Americans. I believe that during the BLM movement, the reporters did an fair job of reporting the violent and nonviolent events that were going on.
-Mitchell Bachman
I agree with Mitchell that it was different to see things from the perspective of the reporters and the confusion they would have felt on how to cover the stories. I think it is also important to note that the voices of African Americans were left out at the time of the articles. This again shows the segregation of the south which further proves the point of the importance of peaceful protests. If we look at what has been happening in our society in the past year or so, we see this point proven. Violent protests are nowhere near as effective as nonviolent protests are. The nonviolent protests in the south were actually able to bring about change, maybe not instantly, but much quicker than the resolutions we reach today. In the presentation, you mentioned some of the dehumanization that was occurring with the African Americans. Although we hear about bad things that have happened to this race in the past, I did not expect to read some of these examples you stated and I think that is saying something about the things we teach in society today. Our generation has been sheltered because past generations want better for their kids than what they had, and this trend will most likely continue. However, it is important that we learn about these things, good and bad, in order to gain a better understanding of each other as individuals. Thank you for sharing that information with us.
I thought your post was very interesting and shared a lot of information about the impact and significance of the media. Especially in today’s world the media has such a large influence on spreading messages and movements to all of the viewers. It is really crazy to me that so much of what Martin Luther King was doing and saying is still very relevant today with the BLM movement. The BLM movement has been a huge message on social media for months now, so it makes me wonder if social media was as popular back then as it is today if it would have pushed Martin Luther’s Kings messages about protesting peacefully and not using violence would have been heard louder and stronger by social media users. I believe MLK deserves a lot more recognition for all of the rights he stood up for and accomplished for our country.
Thank you for sharing. It is absolutely disturbing to see the little progress that has been made, particularly in regards to the police brutality that was so evident throughout the Civil Rights Movements and continues today. While desegregation was established in many ways, there are so many remaining implications of that which still remain. Even looking at Columbus and seeing how broken up communities are on the basis of race. Beyond that, looking at school in particular, so many students drop out of high school or middle school because of lack of support outside of schools as well as underfunded programming within schools. You can look at schools that are predominately white and the graduation rates are much higher than those with predominately Black students–not because of students themselves, but because of continued discrimination, racism, and oppression that they face both inside and outside of the classroom. Despite segregation and the marked improvements, this country has much work left to do and injustice left to acknowledge.
After diving into the readings this week, it’s very obvious that Dr. King is one of the most important historical figures of all time. He led the civil rights movement that focused on nonviolent protest. BLM has adopted a similar way of protesting peacefully. Unfortunately, the media is notorious for controlling what the viewer sees and what they don’t see. Media bias is a huge threat to society and only leads to a division among groups. Dr. King is the prime example of how you can fight for something you believe in, without being violent. His practices, writings, and speeches are still extremely relevant in society today.
I think a big takeaway from this should be how slowly it took to de-segregate things. When people say segregating ends during a certain year I always take that for a grain of salt. In reality, It took years for things to become the “normal” we think today. Each state also moved at different speeds with the south dragging their feet. Also important to think about how just because laws change, people’s opinions don’t.
I thought your post gave a clear understanding of the Birmingham Protests in 1963. The Civil Rights movement was a long difficult journey for racial segregation towards African Americans. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr spoke out to African Americans about using his message for non violence. Examples being marches and sit-ins. More people followed MlK’s message. The Birmingham protests was an example of what non violence could achieve. In May 1963 officials removed signs of “white only”and “black only”. I admire Dr. Martin Luther king Jr’s fight for peaceful protesting and his march for freedom against the racial injustice he and others faced.
I believe that one of the main reasons why Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. left such a legacy was because of the nonviolent campaign that he implemented in his works and movements. He mentions in the Letter from Birmingham Jail how, “freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor, it must be demanded by the oppressed.” The way he represented and encouraged other to demand this freedom was incredible and impactful that can still be used today.
I think it is incredible how relevant Dr. King’s message is today still. Not only did he pave the way for peaceful protests, but the manner in which social movement can be cast throughout a society. Another interesting aspect of the movement was the effect it had on the public view and importance of media. Still today, the media is crucial to shaping the opinions of the public and using the platform for good.
It is still very easy today to see how relevant Martin Luther King Jr. is even in todays society. We honor him by celebration Martin Luther King Jr. day and reminiscing all all the incredible and honored words he spoke during times of struggle. We can see his influence still heavily today as we are experiencing the Black Lives Matter movements. Many of the things King stood for are the same things protestors are demanding. Less police brutality and involvement within the African American community. His words still drive these people to fight for what they truly see as right and allow them to get the strength to go against the word of other, even if they could be punished in the long term.
Martin Luther King’s struggle against inequality has always been a driving force for me to move forward in the face of difficulties. At that time, Martin Luther King dared to say that he had a dream that one day a black boy could hold a white girl’s hand. Martin Luther King replaced violent protest with heroic speech, and finally made a great contribution to the equality of all.
Thanks for your thread. There are two aspects from your prompt that really stood out to me. The first deals with the positive impact of the religious institutions such as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference fighting for race equality in America. Given Dr. King’s recognition of being a minister, he was able to take his love for faith and join the SCLC to combat the Civil Rights Movement in greater numbers than simply just himself. The second aspect that I took especial interest in was the media coverage during Civil Rights Movement. It never dawned to me that not many African Americans were involved with working in the south. It makes you wonder how the local media coverage could have been covered differently because of various perspectives providing more transparent viewpoints.
I remember learning about Martin Luther King Jr in school and now as an adult he is mentioned and quoted frequently. However, I vaguely recall reading “Letters from Birmingham Jail” before this class. While reading it, all I could think about is how pivotal this man was in African American history and the Civil Rights Movement and yet here we are in 2021 still fighting for some of the same changes that he was fighting for. His use of nonviolent protests and his profound knowledge would help so much in the world today, especially with all of the media coverage. Could you imagine him having a social media platform? After reading it, all I could imagine is how different the world would be if he hadn’t been killed.
After reading Martin Luther King’s letter from birmingham jail, I am deeply fascinated by how eloquent his words are and how wise he was by defending civil right in nonviolent ways. In opposite to other violent pretest, Martin Luther King used his powerful words to achieve seemingly-impossible goals, making great contributions to prevent Black American’s injustice as much as he can. The great logic and strong words convince protesters to fighting for the void of segregation and racism firmly.
According to king’s arguments in “Letter from briminghan jail”, I understood the problem of systemic racism is serious. Systemic racism always exists in the United States. The problem of police brutality against black people already happened countless times. These law-enforcement officer break the law to punish the black people who do nothing wrong.
Finished reading the letter from King, I was totally impressed by his will of the equal rights of black population. The systemic injustice is still widely exists in the current society, but because there are people like King who sacrifice themselves for the progress of the movement, the world is becoming a better place which is inclusive to people with various races and skin colors.
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