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Unlock This CourseRemember, Martin Luther King was the Baptist minister who led the Montgomery Bus Boycott and became president of the SCLC. By 1963 he was the best-known civil rights leader in the USA. His method came from two places: his Christian faith, which taught him to love his enemies, and the example of Gandhi, who had used peaceful protest against British rule in India. King visited India in 1959 to learn more.
Key terms:
King did not think non-violence was weak. He wanted protest to create a crisis that white leaders could not ignore. If peaceful marchers were attacked in front of cameras, Americans watching at home would be shocked, and the federal government would be pushed to act. King also raised money, made hundreds of speeches and met presidents, so he linked local protests to the leaders in Washington.
His method did not always work. In 1961-62 King joined protests in Albany, Georgia. The police chief, Laurie Pritchett, had studied King's ideas. His officers arrested more than 1,000 protesters politely, with no violence in public, so there were no shocking pictures. King left Albany in 1962 with almost nothing gained. He learned to pick a clear target, and a place where the reaction would be violent.
King chose Birmingham, Alabama. It was one of the most segregated cities in the USA. Eugene 'Bull' Connor, the city official in charge of the police and fire service, was known for his temper and his hatred of civil rights. Remember, Fred Shuttlesworth was the local minister whose home had been bombed. He invited the SCLC in.
The plan was called Project C. The C stood for confrontation. It began on 3 April 1963 with sit-ins, marches and a boycott of the city centre shops in the busy weeks before Easter.
The pictures of children being knocked down by hoses won huge sympathy for the movement in the North and embarrassed the USA abroad during the Cold War. Protests spread to other Southern cities. Most important, Birmingham changed President Kennedy. On 11 June 1963 he told the nation on television that civil rights was 'a moral issue', and on 19 June he sent a strong civil rights bill to Congress.
White violence did not stop. On 11 May bombs went off at the home of King's brother and at the motel King had used. Riots followed and Kennedy moved federal troops to bases near the city. On 15 September 1963 a Klan bomb at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham killed four black girls. Some people also criticised King for letting children face danger.
Civil rights leaders now wanted to put pressure on Congress to pass Kennedy's bill. A. Philip Randolph, an elderly black trade union leader, called for a march on the capital, and Bayard Rustin organised it. Its full name was the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The NAACP, CORE, SNCC and the SCLC all took part, together with churches and trade unions.
Kennedy feared that violence would turn Congress against the bill and at first wanted the march called off. When the leaders refused, he gave it his support.
On 28 August 1963 about a quarter of a million people gathered at the Lincoln Memorial. Tens of thousands of them were white. It was the biggest protest the capital had ever seen. It was completely peaceful, and it was shown live on American television.
King spoke last. He began by pointing out that it was 100 years since President Lincoln had freed the slaves, yet black Americans were still not free. Near the end he left his written notes. 'I have a dream,' he said, 'that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed' that 'all men are created equal'. He finished with the words of an old spiritual: 'Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!'
The speech mattered because:
But a speech could not pass a law. Southern members of Congress still held the bill up, and it had not been passed when Kennedy was shot dead on 22 November 1963. What happened to it is covered in Freedom Summer, Selma and the Civil Rights Laws.
Don't say non-violence meant doing nothing. It was direct action, planned to cause a crisis. Don't say King's methods always worked: Albany failed. Keep the order right: Birmingham was in April and May 1963, Kennedy's bill came in June and the march was in August. And the march did not pass the bill. It added pressure.
Extract A (a practice extract written for this lesson, in the style of a modern history textbook)
King did not stumble into Birmingham. He picked it with cold care, knowing that 'Bull' Connor could be relied upon to lose his temper. Project C was plotted in advance, from the Easter boycott to King's own arrest on Good Friday. When adult volunteers ran short, the organisers coolly sent schoolchildren into the streets and waited for the cameras. Connor's dogs and hoses did the rest. It was a trap, and Birmingham's rulers marched straight into it.
What impression does the author give about the way Martin Luther King ran the Birmingham Campaign? You must use Extract A to explain your answer. [6 marks]
The author gives the impression that King ran the Birmingham Campaign in a clever and calculating way. The language makes him sound like a careful planner. He 'did not stumble' into the city but picked it 'with cold care', which suggests nothing was left to chance. 'Plotted in advance' and 'coolly sent schoolchildren' make him seem shrewd, even hard. Calling the campaign 'a trap' suggests that King was in control and that Connor was simply being used. The author has also chosen what to stress. The extract is all about planning and timing, such as 'King's own arrest on Good Friday'. It leaves out King's beliefs, the courage of the marchers and the suffering of the children, so the reader sees a skilful plan and little else.
What lifts this to the top level: it names one clear impression, proves it with short quotations and what they suggest, and then explains what the author chose to stress and to leave out.
Don't retell the story of the dogs and hoses. Pick out loaded words such as 'cold care', 'plotted' and 'trap', and say what each makes the reader think about King. Then add one sentence on what the author has left out.