Birmingham Crisis
The Birmingham riot of 1963 was a civil disorder and riot in Birmingham, Alabama, that was provoked by bombings on the night of May 11, 1963. The bombings targeted African-American leaders of the Birmingham campaign. In response, local African-Americans burned businesses and fought police throughout the downtown area. The places bombed were the parsonage of Rev. A. D. King, brother of Martin Luther King Jr., and a motel owned by A. G. Gaston, where King and others organizing the campaign had stayed. It is believed that the bombings were carried out by members of the Ku Klux Klan, in cooperation with Birmingham police. Civil rights protesters were frustrated with local police complicity with the perpetrators of the bombings, and grew frustrated at the non-violence strategy directed by King. Initially starting as a protest, violence escalated following local police intervention. The federal government intervened with federal troops for the first time to control violence durin ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Civil Rights Movement
The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination in the United States, discrimination, and disenfranchisement in the United States, disenfranchisement throughout the United States. The movement had its origins in the Reconstruction era during the late 19th century, although it made its largest legislative gains in the 1960s after years of direct actions and grassroots protests. The social movement's major nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience campaigns eventually secured new protections in federal law for the civil rights of all Americans. After the American Civil War and the subsequent Abolitionism in the United States, abolition of slavery in the 1860s, the Reconstruction Amendments to the United States Constitution granted emancipation and constitutional rights of citizenship ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bull Connor
Theophilus Eugene "Bull" Connor (July 11, 1897 – March 10, 1973) was an American politician who served as Commissioner of Public Safety for the city of Birmingham, Alabama, for more than two decades. A member of the Democratic Party, he strongly opposed the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. Under the city commission government, Connor had responsibility for administrative oversight of the Birmingham Fire Department and the Birmingham Police Department, which also had their own chiefs. As a white supremacist, Bull Connor enforced legal racial segregation and denied civil rights to black citizens, especially during 1963's Birmingham campaign led by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He is well known for directing the use of fire hoses and police attack dogs against civil rights activists, including against children supporting the protests. National media broadcast these tactics on television, horrifying much of the world. The outrages served as catalysts for ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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We Shall Overcome
"We Shall Overcome" is a gospel song which became a protest song and a key anthem of the American civil rights movement. The song is most commonly attributed as being lyrically descended from "I'll Overcome Some Day", a hymn by Charles Albert Tindley that was first published in 1901. The modern version of the song was first said to have been sung by tobacco workers led by Lucille Simmons during the 1945–1946 Charleston Cigar Factory strike in Charleston, South Carolina. In 1947, the song was published under the title "We Will Overcome" in an edition of the ''People's Songs Bulletin'' (a publication of People's Songs, an organization of which Pete Seeger was the director), as a contribution of and with an introduction by Zilphia Horton, then-music director of the Highlander Folk School of Monteagle, Tennessee (an adult education school that trained union organizers). Horton said she had learned the song from Simmons, and she considered it to be her favorite song. According to H ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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False Flag
A false flag operation is an act committed with the intent of disguising the actual source of responsibility and pinning blame on another party. The term "false flag" originated in the 16th century as an expression meaning an intentional misrepresentation of someone's allegiance. The term was famously used to describe a ruse in naval warfare whereby a vessel flew the flag of a neutral or enemy country in order to hide its true identity. The tactic was originally used by pirates and privateers to deceive other ships into allowing them to move closer before attacking them. It later was deemed an acceptable practice during naval warfare according to international maritime laws, provided the attacking vessel displayed its true flag once an attack had begun. The term today extends to include countries that organize attacks on themselves and make the attacks appear to be by enemy nations or terrorists, thus giving the nation that was supposedly attacked a pretext for domestic repr ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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African American Muslims
African-American Muslims, also colloquially known as Black Muslims, are an African American religious minority. About 1% of African Americans are Muslims. Nonetheless, African American Muslims account for over 20% of American Muslims. They represent one of the larger minority Muslim populations of the United States as there is no ethnic group that makes up the majority of American Muslims. They are represented in Sunni and Shia denominations as well as smaller sects, such as the Nation of Islam. The history of African-American Muslims is related to African-American history in general, and goes back to the Revolutionary and Antebellum eras. History Historically, an estimated 30% of slaves brought to the Americas from West/Central Africa were Muslims. They were overwhelmingly literate in contrast to many of the slave owners, and thus were given supervisory roles. Most of these captives were forced into Christianity during the era of American slavery; however, there are records o ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Gary Thomas Rowe
Gary Thomas Rowe Jr. (August 13, 1933 – May 25, 1998), known in Witness Protection as Thomas Neil Moore, was a paid informant and agent provocateur for the FBI. As an informant, he infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan, as part of the FBI's COINTELPRO project, to monitor and disrupt the Klan's activities. Rowe participated in violent Klan activity against African Americans and civil rights groups. From 1965 until his death, Rowe was a figure of recurring controversy after he testified against fellow Klansmen who were accused of killing Viola Gregg Liuzzo, a civil rights volunteer. He was accused of being an accessory to the murder. He was involved in the attack on the Freedom Riders and also accused of involvement in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. He was given immunity by the FBI and he was never convicted of any wrongdoing. Rowe admitted to many of these violent acts in his 1976 autobiography, ''My Undercover Years with the Ku Klux Klan,'' and in confession and testimony given ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Orzell Billingsley
Orzell Billingsley (October 24, 1924 – December 14, 2001) was one of the first ten African-Americans admitted to the Alabama Bar; he was also known for his work in civil rights litigation, and he was one of the lead lawyers for Martin Luther King Jr. during the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott. Co-founder of the Alabama Democratic Conference and its first president, Billingsley helped develop this first statewide African-American political organization in Alabama. He was well known for his 15-year defense of Caliph Washington of Bessemer, Alabama, who was falsely accused and convicted of killing a white police officer; it was this case that helped to end all-white juries in Alabama. Early life and education Orzell Billingsley was born in Birmingham, Alabama. He had a brother. After attending local schools, he studied at Talladega College and the law school of Howard University. He was among the first ten African-Americans to be admitted to the Alabama bar. Career Billingsley set ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Alabama Christian Movement For Human Rights
The Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR) was an American civil rights organization in Birmingham, Alabama, which coordinated boycotts and sponsored federal lawsuits aimed at dismantling segregation in Birmingham and Alabama during the civil rights movement. Fred Shuttlesworth, pastor of Bethel Baptist Church, served as president of the group from its founding in 1956 until 1969. The ACMHR's crowning moment came during the pivotal Birmingham campaign which it coordinated along with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference during the spring of 1963. Founding Shuttlesworth, the fiery pastor who took over the pulpit of Bethel Baptist Church in 1953, was already a leading figure in the Birmingham movement. He had led an unsuccessful campaign to convince the Birmingham Police Department to hire black officers and accompanied Autherine Lucy and Arthur Shores in the short-lived integration of the University of Alabama. He was membership chairman for the Alabama chapter o ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bomb Wreckage Near Gaston Motel (14 May 1963)
A bomb is an explosive weapon that uses the exothermic reaction of an explosive material to provide an extremely sudden and violent release of energy. Detonations inflict damage principally through ground- and atmosphere-transmitted mechanical stress, the impact and penetration of pressure-driven projectiles, pressure damage, and explosion-generated effects. Bombs have been utilized since the 11th century starting in East Asia. The term bomb is not usually applied to explosive devices used for civilian purposes such as construction or mining, although the people using the devices may sometimes refer to them as a "bomb". The military use of the term "bomb", or more specifically aerial bomb action, typically refers to airdropped, unpowered explosive weapons most commonly used by air forces and naval aviation. Other military explosive weapons not classified as "bombs" include shells, depth charges (used in water), or land mines. In unconventional warfare, other names can refer t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Federal Bureau Of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, the FBI is also a member of the U.S. Intelligence Community and reports to both the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence. A leading U.S. counterterrorism, counterintelligence, and criminal investigative organization, the FBI has jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crimes. Although many of the FBI's functions are unique, its activities in support of national security are comparable to those of the British MI5 and NCA; the New Zealand GCSB and the Russian FSB. Unlike the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which has no law enforcement authority and is focused on intelligence collection abroad, the FBI is primarily a domestic agency, maintaining 56 field offices in major cities throug ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ensley (Birmingham)
Ensley is a large city neighborhood in Jefferson County, Alabama, United States. It was once a separate and thriving industrial city. It was formally incorporated on February 12, 1899, but later annexed into Birmingham on January 1, 1910 under the "Greater Birmingham" legislation. History It was founded in 1886 by Memphis entrepreneur, Enoch Ensley, as a new industrial city on the outskirts of a rapidly developing Birmingham (then just 15 years old) and directly adjacent to the Pratt coal seam. Zealously promoting and investing his own wealth in the project, Ensley soon attracted the interest of the Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company (TCI), which bought a controlling interest in the Ensley Land Company. In the first year of development, sanitary engineer Edwin Waring, Jr. of Rhode Island was contracted to lay out the new city's streets and infrastructure, including an early application of separate storm and sanitary sewers. Meanwhile, Ensley and TCI erected four 200-ton b ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Robert Shelton (Ku Klux Klan)
Robert Marvin Shelton (June 12, 1929 – March 17, 2003) was a former car-tire salesman and printer who became nationally famous as the Imperial Wizard of United Klans of America (UKA), a Ku Klux Klan group. Career and KKK activities Shelton was a factory worker and a car-tire salesman. He also owned a printing business, with an office on Union Boulevard. In the late 1960s, Shelton ran for Police Commissioner in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He finished in fifth place. Following the death of Imperial Wizard Eldon Edwards, the original KKK organization began to fracture during the leadership of Imperial Wizard Roy Davis during the 1960s. Shelton started a new KKK organization, the United Klans of America in an effort to unite the various KKK factions, and served as the UKA leader starting in 1961. which peaked with an estimated 30,000 members. By 1965, Shelton's organization had outgrown the other KKK factions to become the largest in the United States, according to the FBI. In 1966 Sh ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |