Birmingham, 1963, and the Letter from Birmingham Jail

In spring 1963, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and local activists led by Fred Shuttlesworth launched a campaign against segregation in Birmingham, Alabama, then one of the most segregated cities in the country. Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested in April, and from his cell he wrote a reply to eight white clergymen who had called the protests 'unwise and untimely'.

His Letter from Birmingham Jail argued that people have a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws, that 'justice too long delayed is justice denied', and that the greatest obstacle was the white moderate who preferred order to justice. In May, thousands of young people joined the marches in what became known as the Children's Crusade; police commissioner Bull Connor turned fire hoses and police dogs on them, and images shocked the nation and the world.

A desegregation agreement followed, but in September a bomb at the 16th Street Baptist Church killed four girls. Birmingham pushed President Kennedy to propose a major civil rights bill.