Why did the campaign take place?
What events led up to the Birmingham Campaign?Birmingham was a very segregated city in Alabama. This meant that blacks and white were unequal. They had different schools, restaurants, water fountains, and neighborhoods. In most cases, white facilities were far more fancied than blacks. Laws such as, Jim Crow laws enforced segregation. Many African Americans and their leader, Martin Luther King Jr., created a mass protest of people who supported the idea of desegregation. The organizers thought that if they protested long enough to go viral, support from the federal government and the rest of the country would help them gain frreedom.
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"The events in Birmingham... have so increased the cries for equality that no city or state or legislative body can prudently choose to ignore them." -President JFK, June 1963.