Video Segment

Eyes on the Prize, Volume 165, Chapters 3 and 4

Table of Contents

Summary
Questions for Discussion
Activities
Keywords
Profiles
Organizations
Maps
Graphs
Primary Documents

Summary

In this segment, King and other members of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), a civil rights group led by ministers, traveled to Birmingham, Alabama, to support the local movement. A new voice of white Southern resistance had arisen in January 1963 when George Wallace became governor of Alabama. Just before Easter, King and SCLC launched boycotts and lunch counter sit-ins aimed at segregated downtown businesses. However, a court banned further demonstrations. Some African American businessmen and white ministers urged King to leave Birmingham, but he chose to stay. He was jailed and placed in solitary confinement and eight days later was released on bond.

SCLC organized a "children's campaign" to expand the protest and sit in at segregated public libraries. Police Chief Eugene "Bull" Connor turned snarling police dogs and fire hoses on the young demonstrators and arrested twenty-five hundred people, including two thousand children. Amid daily confrontations, arrests, and jailings of protesters, Birmingham's white businessmen quietly negotiated with Black leaders. Thirty-eight days after the start of the boycott and sit-ins, an agreement to integrate lunch counters and provide jobs to African Americans was announced. But the confrontation was not over.

Questions for Discussion

1. Why did several clergy men write an open letter about Dr. King's involvement in the civil rights movement in Birmingham? What was the tone of Dr. King's response to that letter? Did Dr. King make his points effectively?

2. One participant in the civil rights movement has argued that television played a major role in changing people's attitudes. Viewers saw officials using the fire hoses and cattle prods on protesters. Do you agree that seeing things affects you more deeply than reading about them? Think about this question relative to the national reaction to the Rodney King beating in Los Angeles.

Activities

The "children's campaign" was an important part of the protests in Birmingham. To convey how young people can play a role in making society more equitable and just, have the class identify the most pressing social problem their community faces today. List on the chalkboard the steps that might be taken to address this problem and by whom the steps could be taken.

Have the class write a letter to an individual or group that could play a role in addressing the problem. In the letters, students should explain why they chose the particular individual or group, lay out their suggested action plan, and make a case for its effectiveness. Students should request a response to their letter.

Keywords

• sit-ins
• boycott
• Emancipation Proclamation
• injunction

Online Profiles

• John F. Kennedy
• Martin Luther King, Jr.
• John Lewis
• Fred Shuttlesworth
• George Wallace

Organization Descriptions

• Southern Christian Leadership Conference
• Citizens' Council
• Ku Klux Klan

Maps

• United States. In 1950 the population of the United States was 134,941,622 White and 15,042,692 Black (approximately 9.5 percent of the population).
• Alabama (three frames). Capital: Montgomery. Population in 1950: 2,079,591 White, 979,617 Black. Principal Goods and Crops: iron, steel and saw mill materials; cotton, peanuts and soybeans.

Graphs

• Professionals and Managers
• Family Income
• Unemployment Rates
• "Cycle of Inequality"

Primary Documents

• Plessy Decision Document
• Foreign Press Coverage of Civil Rights Movement #1
• Foreign Press Coverage of Civil Rights Movement #2
• Foreign Press Coverage of Civil Rights Movement #3

Bibliography

See Eyes on the Prize Bibliography

 

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