Bull Connor - Freedom Riders and Project C

Freedom Riders and Project C

On May 2, 1961, Connor won a landslide election for his sixth term as Commissioner of Public Safety in Birmingham, Alabama. As Commissioner, Connor had administrative authority over the police and fire departments, schools, public health service and libraries. Tom King, a candidate running for mayor of Birmingham met up with Connor on May 8, 1961, to pay respects for winning the election. King also called for the meeting because in the past Connor had shown support for the other leading mayoral candidate, Art Hanes. In a way King was trying to get Connor to not publicize his support for Hanes because it would be detrimental for King in the race. Connor and King met briefly and at the end of the meeting Connor brought up how he was expecting the Freedom Riders on the following Sunday, Mother’s Day. Connor stated, “We’ll be ready for them, too” and King responding, “I bet you will, Commissioner” as he walked out.

By that Sunday on Mother’s Day the Freedom Riders arrived in Birmingham. This was after a rough experience in Anniston, Alabama where one of their buses had been firebombed and burnt down in an act of violence by members of the Ku Klux Klan. A new Greyhound bus left for Birmingham. KKK members boarded the bus then beat the Riders, leaving them semi-conscious in the back. As they reached the terminal in Birmingham, a large mob of white Klansmen and news reporters were waiting for them. The Riders and some reporters were beaten viciously with metal bars, pipes and bats until, after fifteen minutes, the police finally arrived. No arrests were made at the scene, even though the police department and Connor knew the Riders were going to be there on that Sunday. Connor explicitly knew when the Riders were set to arrive because of the exchange with King a week before. He purposely let the Klansmen beat the Riders for fifteen minutes with no police interference. Connor blamed this incident on many factors like, “No policemen were in sight as the buses arrived, because they were visiting their mothers on Mother’s Day”. Connor also insisted that the violence came from out-of-town meddlers and that police had rushed to the scene as quickly as possible. He then issued this warning, “As I have said on numerous occasions, we are not going to stand for this in Birmingham. And if necessary we will fill the jail full and we don't care whose toes we step on. I am saying now to these meddlers from out of our city the best thing for them to do is stay out if they don't want to get slapped in jail. Our people of Birmingham are a peaceful people and we never have any trouble here unless some people come into our city looking for trouble. And I've never seen anyone yet look for trouble who wasn't able to find it”.

In 1962, Connor ordered the closing of sixty Birmingham parks rather than follow a court order to desegregate public facilities. After the failed attempt at the Albany movement, Martin Luther King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference decided to put their efforts on the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States, Birmingham. It was called Project C (for "Confrontation"). The SCLC wanted to target the business section of Birmingham through economic boycott and demonstrations. Throughout April 1963 Martin Luther King led smaller demonstrations, which resulted in his arrest along with many others.

The final phase of Project C introduced a revolutionary and controversial new tactic that used young people in the demonstrations. On May 2, 1963, the first children came out and marched through the streets of Birmingham. By the end of the day 959 children ranging from ages 6–18 had been arrested. By May 3, massive amounts of demonstrators were participating and Connor ordered the use of fire hoses and attack dogs. This didn’t stop the demonstrators, but generated bad publicity for Connor through the news media. The use of fire hoses continued for several days, and by May 7, Connor and the police department had jailed over three thousand demonstrators. Due to problematic race relations and crippling economic status the SCLC and the Senior Citizens Committee, who represented a majority of Birmingham businesses, came to an agreement. On May 10, they agreed on the desegregation of lunch counters, restrooms, fitting rooms and drinking fountains, the upgrading and hiring of blacks, cooperation with SCLC legal representatives in releasing all jailed persons and the establishment of communication between black and whites through the Senior Citizens Committee.

Because of the attack on the Freedom Riders, Project C, and Birmingham’s worsening reputation, voters had become dissatisfied with Connor. In November 1962, when the voters of Birmingham decided to switch to a Mayor-Council form of government, Connor sued to have the election thrown out. On May 11, 1963, Connor was ordered to vacate his office following the Alabama Supreme Court decision in favor of a Mayor-Council government, ending his 22-year run as the Commissioner of Public Safety.