Nation: Dogs, Kids & Clubs

Birmingham saw a small civil war; whites against Negroes, cops against children, dogs against humans.

It began when the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. decided to throw schoolchildren into the Negro battle line. Police Commissioner Eugene (“Bull”) Connor, arch-segregationist, viciously retaliated with club-swinging cops, police dogs and blasts of water from fire hoses. There were no winners in Birmingham last week.

King launched the most massive integration drive yet in Birmingham. Using school kids—most of them teenagers, but some no more than six years old—the Negro minister sent wave after wave of sign carriers from the 16th Street Baptist Church to march on downtown Birmingham. On the first day, the demonstrations were a bit like a picnic. The youngsters clapped and sang excitedly, and when Connor’s men arrested them, they scampered almost merrily into patrol wagons. About 800 youthful Negroes wound up in Birmingham jails that day.

“Look at ‘Em Run.” There was no fun after that. A troop of new marchers left King’s church command post next day intoning: “We Want Freedom.” They passed several hundred Negro adults in a park near the church, marched toward a massed line of lawmen, ignoring a police captain who warned them to stop. Blackbooted firemen turned on their hoses. The kids fell back from the crushing streams. The water pressure increased. Children fell, and lay there bleeding. The march stopped.

But Negro adults from the park began muttering, then shouting threats at Connor’s cops. Furious, the commissioner roared for his police dogs. The crowd in the park edged back; some hurried away. “Look at ’em run,” yelled Bull. He saw an officer holding back a crowd of white people near by. “Let those people come to the corner, sergeant,” shouted Connor. “I want ’em to see the dogs work. Look at those niggers run.”

Some Negroes stood their ground, began flinging stones and bottles at the police. One waved a knife at an officer. But the dogs, held on long leashes, lunged at those who retreated slowly. There was some scuffling; then the crowd broke for the church—chased by snarling dogs and club-waving cops. Five Negroes were hurt —either by dogbites or the water streams. Two policemen were bruised by stones. Another 250 Negroes, mostly youngsters, were jailed.

“We Shall Overcome.” That night King held a church meeting and called for even more. “Don’t worry about your children who are in jail,” he cried to 1,000 of his followers. “The eyes of the world are on Birmingham. We’re going on in spite of dogs and fire hoses. We’ve gone too far to turn back.”

Things had indeed gone far. Newly elected Mayor Albert Boutwell, a relative moderate in Birmingham, pleaded for “restraint and peace” until his administration takes effective power. U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy said King’s group indeed has “just grievances,” but that “the timing of the present demonstrations is open to question.” Even more questionable, said Bobby, is the use of the youngsters as troops. “Schoolchildren participating in street demonstrations is a dangerous business. An injured, maimed or dead child is a price that none of us can afford to pay.”

The Negro children of Birmingham, however, kept right on marching. And despite all they were up against, despite hoses and clubs and police dogs and hate and folly, there was a peal of truth in the prophecy of the anthem that the marchers sang:

Deep in my heart I do believe

We shall overcome some day.