Birmingham, Alabama Blacks in Birmingham wanted to integrate public places, get better jobs and better housing; considered by King as the most segregated city in the South Protests during the profitable Easter holiday, April 1963 King was arrested and jailed (he wrote his famous “A Letter From A Birmingham Jail”) SCLC leaders proposed recruiting local students & King finally agreed Thousands of college and high school students showed up from cities all around Birmingham Eugene “Bull” Connor resorted to violence when police could not contain them Orders to use dogs & firehoses on the students The students just sat down with their backs to the water

Results of Birmingham Protests People watched what was happening on television and were horrified Soon Birmingham leaders desegregated lunch counters, removed segregation signs and hired more black workers

March on Washington Wanted to put pressure on Congress to pass the new Civil Rights bill August 28, 1963; drew more than 250,000 people MLK – famous “I have a dream speech” One of the longest political demonstrations A model for peaceful protests United many civil rights groups & convinced Kennedy to do something but was assassinated before he could keep his promise Kennedy assassinated & Johnson strongly urged the passage of the bill to honor Kennedy’s memory

Freedom Summer SNCC workers organized the Mississippi Freedom Summer Project Recruited Northern college students to help register African Americans to vote to draw national attention to the state’s racism Did receive national attention especially after three participants (two who were white) disappeared and later found murdered and buried in Philadelphia, Mississippi

Selma, Alabama 1965 SCLC members participated in a voting-rights protest When protests were unsuccessful, members began a march Selma to Montgomery, Alabama Marchers leaving for Montgomery met with violence as mounted police beat and tear-gassed them Televised scenes of the violence, called Bloody Sunday, shocked many Americans; the resulting outrage led to King and SCLC members to continue the march to Montgomery; a five-day, fifty-mile march