warren goldstein at the university of hartford where he discusses martin luther king jr.'s time spent in birmingham, alabama andnil 1963. this is about an hour and a half. good afternoon, everybody. nice to be here with you. as you can see, this is not the way we ordinarily do class. we don't always have a film crew from cspan-3 here. we are lucky to have them here today. and, because of the lights, it's going to be a little warm in here. so dave has very kindly gotten us each a bottle of water. thank you so much, dave. and caitlin, thank you all. all right. there you go, marris. all right. so, as i said before, what we

were going to do today is concentrate on the year 1963. but more specifically, on the birmingham struggle in the civil rights movement and in the life of martin luther king. and, at the center of that, is not only what happened in birmingham itself, but the letter from birmingham jail, one of the most important documents not only in modern african american history, but also in modern american history as a statement of political and religious philosophy. but also as a statement of strategy and tactics. i love the latter, you know i tried to write a book about it once. i still may get to do that. but the latter, to me, is something that every time i go at, i learn more from. which is one of the reasons why i teach this course. as you know, because every time i get deeply into martin luther king, i find that i learn more from him. so you all have prepared. you now know about a lot. we've watched some of eyes on the prize. so you've seen some film of the civil rights struggle. you've read the chapter in

harvard's biography of king, to. so you've read a more in-depth version of the civil rights struggle. now it's time to have some conversation. so why? why is birmingham -- why is the birmingham struggle so important in the history of the civil rights movement? >> you said all the failures and then the albany thing. what do you mean by all the failures that happened? >> the cities that he went to had not been working well. then when he went to albany, that was one of the worst failures that happened because there were a lot of different reasons why it happened.

they had too many, like, demands and -- >> who's the they that you're referring to there? >> like the scoc. >> the southern christian leadership conference and what was the other organization that was involved there? >> snick. the student on violence coordinating committee. how would you describe what happened in albany? marris, take a stab at that. torey has called it a failure. >> for me, it was a failure. they did not manage to cause any sort of conflict. >> the civil rights activists were looking to cause a conflict but couldn't do it. why not? >> because they were just arrested. the police did not respond in a violent manner. they just arrested them and released them the next day. >> anyone else on albany? yes, heather. >> the groups also didn't really work together. they were more just like competing against each other. >> they were competing against each other. isn't that weird to think of

civil rights groups that had actually the same goal, right, in a really hostile environment and here they are competing with each other. what do you think, it tre. >> just like for attention to see who's there and because they hated each other. >> they hated each other? isn't that a little strong? what do other people think about that? >> there's a lot of attention between the two groups and they both competed for the most attention. >> they competed for attention. what's going on? yeah, dave? >> i think the main reason why there was so much competition was because they both had two different types of demands. >> what do you mean by different types of demands? >> snic wanted too many demands. >> they weren't really focused, right? >> they had an important goal in a specific -- one specific thing that they needed to get done.

they never thought that is scoc was being too lenient in their demands and was only going to compromise with what they were given and wasn't going to go for a full -- >> so this is -- you really said that beautifully. i mean, snic wanted to get rid of the whole structure of segregation and albany hadn't figured out how to do that. sclc, which was made up of older people, by and large, right, generally men, ministers who wore suits and were a bunch more kind of personally conservative in their world view as opposed to these younger students, male and female, were not so formal. and they wanted to get rid of segregation all at once. and what did some of that -- some of that tension ended up focusing on martin luther king himself, right? what was the problem with people and king? what was going on there? hoe was in kind of a sophomore slump after montgomery. it had been going on for some time.

here he has the success in montgomery in what year? starts in '55. when does it end? it ends in late 1956. and you know that. you know it. and you just got frozen by tv cameras being in the same room. but it wasn't just -- if it's a sophomore slump, it would have been '57. and then '58 which could have been a junior slump and '59, a senior slump and still not much was going on with martin luther king and sloc. and what happened at the freedom ride in '61? he didn't go, right? and the young people wanted him to go. and he refused. and some people thought that he was a little full of himself, right? and a little too afraid for his own personal safety. and some of that stuff came about also in albany in 1962

where king would fly in and they would accuse him of then flying out. and the problem with being on the ground was that the cameras would leave when king left. and people in snic took to calling him -- do you remember what they took to calling him? the lord. that's not just the lord, right? it's meant to be -- it's meant to kind of stick a little knife in and twist it some, right? they thought he was too pompous. even though they respected him enormously, they knew they were about something different. le banny was fresh in everyone's mind, especially fresh in king' everyone's mind, especially fresh in kine everyone's

mind, especially fresh in kinon everyone's mind, especially fresh in kinye everyone's mind, especially fresh in kine everyone's mind, especially fresh in kine everyone's mind, especially fresh in kine everyone's mind, especially banny was fres everyone's mind, especially fresh in kinne everyone's mind, especially fresh in kinye everyone's mind, especially fresh in kin\e anny was fresh in everyo cf1 o and then we come to birmingham. birmingham turns out to be really important. how did they approach birmingham? >> there were a lot more organized. >> they were a lot mo what did fred shuttlesworth, the guy on the ground call it? project c, lena. that was c for what? completely to happen in birmingham here we have the reputation of martin luther king who is supposed to be the christian love guy. the apostle who ended up being a martyr and really talked about loving your enemies all of the time. so here he is, specifically going after a civil rights tactic that is called project c for confrontation. what does that do to how you think about king?

>> it changes my perspective. >> did you have a different perspective before you got into this course? >> i thought you didn't want to make trouble. >> you thought he didn't want to make trouble? really? >> he expected an uproar to force the president of the united states to intervene. that's an amazing thing, right? here he is, an african american preacher in the deep south in the united states in the segregated south in the early 1960s. and he is ambitious enough to think that he can get the president of the united states, the leader of the free world, right, to intervene on behalf of people that the president would never have met or known anything about. so i think a bunch of you may have thought that martin luther king was the kind of less interesting of the civil rights

leaders, right? kareem, you had some thoughts about that. >> it's a very systematic, militant way of thinking. and we tend to think of it -- we tend to think of it as malcolm x, one of the most militant black leaders of that time. so you know, viewing with king's philosophy is kind of contradicting itself. >> it changes the way you think about it, right? the standard way in which american culture thinks about malcolm x and martin luther king. the real militant is malcolm x, right? the guy who is also a martyr, by the way. but by any means necessary. exactly. so that makes him seem the tough guy. whereas king, you know, it's sord of odd because physically they're different, too. malcolm x, describe him

physically? tall, masculine, thin, too, right? really thin where as martin luther king, he's short and chubby, right? he's got very full cheeks, he appears to have soft skin. you know, he's shorter than most of the people around him. that was sort of a surprise, wasn't it? you think of him as a giant. but he was kind of short. he was shorter than i am. and i'm short. and they're so different that he looks like the soft guy and malcolm x looks like the hard, tough guy. and malcolm x had been a criminal. he spent time in prison. he's got that sort of romance about him that, you know, he walked on the dark side. and then come to a different way of seeing the world. yeah, kareem? >> he accused king of being an uncle tom and his followers. and he constantly preached black militants.

>> exactly. and rtin luther king and his followers were uncle toms. the people who would give away the store. the folks who would give away the store. i want you to hold that when we get to the letter, right? because king says something very specific about malcolmx without ever naming him by name in the letter, right? but i think -- i mean, when i first read the letter, when i first began to learn about the civil rights movement, it totally messed with my point of view, too. i thought malcolmx was the tough guy and king was the softy. king was the easy-going guy, right? that christian love thing, which never seem today me to be a very tough thing. but, here -- >> turn the other cheek. >> turn the other cheek, right, and let someone smack you. that doesn't feel so good. it doesn't feel so good at all. but i think as you'll see in the letter, it has a lot to do with a kind of discipline, just really extraordinary. and it's something that king's followers took to heart.

so project c is known as project c for confrontation. how would you say it went in the first couple of weeks? you're shaking your head, yeah. >> well, in the first couple weeks, it backfired because the chief there took -- he used what happened in albany from the police chief pritchett and he decided to do the same thing. so he didn't -- he just put them in jail just as he does. and he didn't use any violence or anything like that. >> he didn't use any overt violence at all. and what's most amazing, i mean, you're saying now, some of the people in our audience who tend to be my age, they know the name of that police chief. they know it really, really well. and they know it as the name of one of the most violent police chiefs towards black people in the 20th century. and here you're describing the beginning of this campaign and

he's not doing anything violent. what's the name of this guy? bull connor. bull connor. that's right. he loved that nickname. of course, if you have the first name thofolous, sometimes you want a nickname. understandable. it's a hard handle to go around with. but this is a guy who had been, you know, police chief was running for mayor. was involved in the gover nans of the town. had a long history of beating up black folk. so when this national campaign comes to birmingham, he studied with the guy in albany and he know that is not only did he not provoke any violence in albany, but martin luther king went home with his tail between his legs. so the movement was a flop. so bull connor thinks, okay, if i don't do that, then the movement is not going to be successful because what do they need? they need media, they need confrontation, they need pictures, they need the cops acting badly. and he's not going to give it to them. so we know it wasn't going well.

>> weren't they also running outs of money? >> yes. the movement was running out of money because there was so many people in jail, they didn't have enough money to bail them out. things got really grim. here, he'd checked out the distance between, you know, to every store, every lunch counter, to figure out how long it would take people to walk there. he counted the lunch counters. he tried to do his own military kind of preparation for this and bull connor had outsmarted him. they had several hundred people in jail in early may of 1963 and they didn't have the money to get him out.

and it was getting harder and harder to find people to go to jail. because birmingham was a funny place. what was weird about birmingham in its history? what did folks call it across the south? bombingham. why did they call it that? >> because it was known for being bombed by the kkk. >> we also know when we studied the freedom riders, that it was the kkk in birmingham that the birmingham police pulled back from and allowed the kkk 15 or 20 minutes to kick the tar out of these completely defenseless, nonviolent freedom riders.

so birmingham had a violent civil rights history. it was very, very powerful. they expected they were going to get a confrontation and they didn't. but given even so, in birmingham, there was a black community. there was a more middle class black community that was trying to exist without making waves. and they figured if they made a few amount of waves, some stuff would come their way. and it really did. so martin luther king spent a lot of time when he was in birmingham trying to explain why he was engaging in these demonstrations to black folks who didn't want him there. because he was making their lives more difficult. he was making waves not only for white people, but in some ways, he was making even more waves for black people and stirring them up. and it got hard to find enough people to go to jail. can you imagine? even if you're not beaten up. even if you're not disappeared, what can happen to you?

>> you lose your job. >> you lose your job. absolutely. and maybe not just you. maybe your aunt, maybe your uncle or your brother or your sister or your kids. to be willing to march for civil rights in birmingham, alabama in 1963 as an adult black person, i can't quite imagine the courage involved. so we come to good friday. and this is one of the centers. they're not -- history is messier. there's not always one clear center. but one of the centers is good friday. martin luther king has announced his intention to have a march on good friday. bull connor in advance of that

along with the city of montgomery has gotten a court injunction. against over a hundred people saying you can't march. and the number of things they said were illegal are unbelievable. there's a long list, including -- you're laughing, katie. do you remember what they are? you're waiting for me to say it because you've heard me refer to it before. you couldn't have a kneel in. you couldn't kneel down on the sidewalk. you couldn't have a pray in. you couldn't have a sit in. you couldn't do anything. so that was a very serious piece of business. so he and his lieutenants, including his father who had come over from atlanta, gathered in a room at the gaston motel. the only motel that would rent to them.

by the way, the guy that owned that motel was the richest african american in montgomery and he charged them market rates. a.g. gaston was known -- the biography of him says birmingham's black millionaire. so he's one of the guys. he's one of the guys for whom waves were being made. can you imagine charging market rates to the southern christian leadership conference in 1963? charging market rates to martin luther king when he comes to fight segregation in your town? the guy was skeptical. didn't even give him a discount. so about 20 of them gather, including fred shuttlesworth who is a real fire brand in the town. i mean he's a guy who had been beaten so many times, it's just amazing what he went through long before martin luther king ever got involved in civil rights. so they're in that room and they are arguing it out. if king goes on the march, he knows he'll be arrested. he's the chief fundraiser for the civil rights movement

nationwide. he's the only face that's known outside of alabama and the deep south among all the people that are there. he was constantly going to new york and other northern places. if he's in jail, it can't happen. >> that same time, he knew if he did go to jail, the media would leave. him going to jail would be the best thing for them. >> his going to jail would be the best thing. plus, plus, if he didn't go to jail, it would be like him not going on the freedom ride. it would be like him not being part of the sit in movement. not getting kicked and beaten the way those students had gotten kicked and beaten. not putting his life at risk by going on a bus again. it would look like martin luther king had wussed out. what kind of leadership is that? he's publicly announced a march and decides not to do it? what does the movement look like then?

it looks terrible. but the two sides, it was hard to know what to do. and he liked to listen to people fight it out and make a decision. but this was particularly difficult. it's good friday. for a preacher, good friday is a big deal. the march was supposed to start at 1:00. it's approaching noon on good friday. the time when jesus was supposed to be on the cross. preachers think about this stuff. martin luther king was not only a preachers what else was he? the son and the grandson and the great grandson of preachers. and he may not have started off believing as strongly, you know

that he didn't. he was a party guy in school. but by the time heotfaith. and it was easter coming. so he goes into his room. he leaves them all fighting outside. he goes into his room for about 15 or 20 minutes. i read about five different accounts of this and people disagree about how long he was in there, what he said when he came out. everybody says the same thing, though, when he came out, he was wearing jeans and a denim jacket. what did it mean that he was wearing those clothes? he was going to jail. those were going to jail clothes. those were not fund raising clothes. those were going to jail clothes. and andrew young says eyes on the prize. at that moment, he said this. he said i don't know what's right. i don't know what's going to happen. i have to make an act of faith. and i'm going to march. it's an astonishing thing, right? he didn't know. if he didn't know, who was going to know, right? he couldn't know what exactly was going to happen.

i have to make an act of faith. and he went and he turned to ralph abernathy, his closest friend since montgomery. and i love this story. he puts his hand on abernathy's jacket and says, ralph, i need you to come with me. he says martin, you don't have to preach on easter sunday in two days because king had gone back to atlanta to be on the staff of his father's church. so he said he didn't have to preach. abernathy still had a congregation. he says martin, i've got to preach on sunday. and king -- people did call him martin. he puts his hand up and says ralph, i need you to come with me. and abernathy goes, oh, i guess i'm going to jail on easter. i better call my deacons. and so he knows he's not having to preach on easter sunday. and he and martin luther king walk out and they lead a demonstration and what happens?

>> they get arrested. >> they get arrested really fast. i think they managed to walk about two blocks and they're arrested. the cops pick up -- they almost literally pick him up. they pick him up by the belt in the back. it's almost like they lift him and almost toss him into the paddy wagon. >> yes, kareem? >> when i was reading, i was kind of shocked at the religious parallels between king and, like, what's in the bible. with him kind of going to jail, like, you could say he's being crucified in a way and then coming back and rejuvenating the entire movement. like his ultimate resurrection, it's kind of staggering once you look at it. >> kareem, it is why i find the -- why i find this entire story so tremendously moving. it's exactly that. it's exactly that because he was

arrested and they didn't just put him in jail. they put him in solitary confinement. they put him in the hole. the only light came from a little window as he wrote later at the top of the cell. he was alone in a tomb-like place for easter weekend. exactly what happened to jesus. taken down from the cross that afternoon. taken to a tomb and he was there three days, right? martin luther king didn't see anybody, except sort of, you know, the trustee in the jail who sort of gave him food, until, let's see? what did he see? until monday morning. three days. the same three days. his lawyer visited him. so here he spends easter with no human contact in the dark. and you know he's thinking about

what you were thinking about, right? it is staggering. so cut him a little slack. he occasionally makes references and says he's sort of like jesus. here he was reliving -- and for all he knew -- redying what had happened to jesus. it's a powerful story. so on monday, he gets the sunday papers and he sees that letter that we're going to look at in just a little minute and starts writing from birmingham jail and that's all he's concerned about for the next week in jail is writing that letter. and his executive director is wondering what is going on here? but he's sort of realized because king starts it in the ma sees there's something big here. and every night he'd have it typed up. he'd have his secretary type it all up and smuggle in fresh papers so king can keep writing.

but king gets out of jail, finally, after eight days. and where would you say the movement is? it's pretty bad. did they get money? actually, you're forgetting. they did. where did they get it from, katie? harry belafonte gave them $50,000. and that was big money in those days. $50,000 in 1963, it's at least a quarter of a million. it's a lot. it's what they needed. there's a new biography out that harry wrote with a writer called my song. he got deeply involved in the civil rights movement. and he was a wealthy man and he knew other wealthy people because of being in showbiz. they had money, but what else did they have? they had nothing. the media was starting to leave town. why did i say earlier it was may? it was april when all of this

was going on. the media was starting to leave town. and what happened? what happened, sean? >> they got together with the children? >> what was the idea behind the march of the children? how did that come about? >> well, adults had a lot to lose marching. they could lose their jobs. they had a lot more responsibilities than the children did. so they decided to give the children their first -- first, if they got arrested, they wouldn't have much to lose. >> what would they miss if they got arrested, >> school. >> come on. how many kids are really upset missing school. >> but also, it sparked a lot bigger reaction for people. and if the police decided to use violence, it would look a lot worse on everyone. >> and it turned out, the police held off for a little while. but, eventually, they packed the jails so much and they got under bull connor's skin. and they pushed him.