Birmingham, continued
The Children’s Crusade, which happened in May of 1963, came about in part because adults literally could not afford to keep getting arrested. More than a thousand students skipped school to walk from the Sixth Street Baptist Church to the downtown area.
It doesn’t take much imagination to see the straight line from vicious police dogs in Birmingham back to patrollers and their blood-thirsty hounds during slave times.
Bull Connor, who orchestrated much of the police response, was a right-old prick who refused to leave the office of sheriff even after he was voted out. Sound familiar?
I’ll leave you with two ideas (neither mine).
One: many believe that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 would never have come into being absent the vigorous and prolonged protests in Birmingham throughout 1963.
Two: in a related if slightly contradictory note, Charles M. Blow has a new book and HBO show that are promoting “reverse migration” whereby Blacks return to the South and in so doing gain political power. He essentially says “let’s skip protesting and getting arrested and go straight to Black power” (apparently a throwback to something Stokely Carmichael said).
K and I watched the HBO show yesterday. Recommend.
From the gleeful & empowered children…the the terrifying dogs, to hope if the South…so much to be considered and remembered. I had heard of that show, good to hear your thoughts on it.
Just watched the HBO documentary you mentioned here .. thank you!! I would not have found it on my own but really glad that I watched it.
Glad you watched it. Brings a lot of issues up-to-date. After watching it, I really understood why GOP is targeting Georgia so hard.