Letter from Birmingham JailThe Events Leading Up to MLK’s Arrest

The Planning Committee

• January 1963, outside of Savannah, GA• MLK, currently leader of the Southern

Christian Leadership Conference, presides over a meeting of 11 activists

• Goal: To attack segregation in Birmingham• Project “C” (Confrontation)• Leaders: Fred Shuttlesworth, Wyatt Walker

Project C• Strategy: To put economic pressure on Birmingham

merchants• When? During Easter, the second biggest shopping season

of the year• The plan:

– Nightly meetings, organize small-scale sit-ins– Organize boycotts and larger demonstrations– Defy segregation laws, result in mass arrests– Call on support from outside of Birmingham, cripple the city

under the combined pressure of publicity, boycotts, and overflowing jails

• They say they need 1000 people willing to go to jail for 5-6 days each

MLK: People Could Die

“There are eleven people here assessing the type of enemy we’re going to face. I have to tell you in my judgment; some of the people sitting here today will not come back alive from this campaign. And I want you to think about it.” - MLK

Project C is Launched

• April 3, 1963 – Day 1 of Project C• 65 activists march silently to 5 department

stores and sit at lunch counters there– At 4 of the 5 stores, the waitresses simply say the

store was closing, turn out the lights, and leave– No stories in the local or national news– No one wants to go to jail– RFK: “ill-timed” campaign

• EPIC FAIL!

The Injunction

• April 10, 1963• Commissioner of Public Safety Bull Connor

and Governor of Alabama George Wallace pass an injunction:

• “No parading, demonstrating, boycotting, trespassing, and picketing”

• MLK denounces the injunction as unconstitutional and refuses to abide by it

Good Friday, April 12

• NAACP lawyer: injunction unconstitutional, but activists can’t be kept out of jail

• MLK’s “faith act”: he defies the injunction• 40 men agree to get arrested with him; 1000 show up to watch

Off to Jail

BIRMINGHAM, Ala., April 12 – OFF TO JAIL – Integration leaders Rev. Ralph D. Abernathy, left, and Martin Luther King, right, are taken in tow by policeman as they led a line of demonstrators into the business section of Birmingham, Ala., today. They were jailed along with dozens of others. The marchers wore old clothes to dramatize a store boycott during the Easter season.