James W. Morgan (1891 – 1971) was a mayor of the city of

Birmingham, Alabama Birmingham ( ) is a city in the north central region of the U.S. state of Alabama. Birmingham is the seat of Jefferson County, Alabama's most populous county. As of the 2021 census estimates, Birmingham had a population of 197,575, down 1% fr ...

, United States, from 1953 to 1961. Morgan was born in 1891 in Birmingham and educated in that city. He served as a politician in Birmingham from 1934 when he was appointed to the Parks and Recreation Board until 1964 when he resigned from that board. He was mayor from 1953 to 1961, replacing W. Cooper Green. In 1955, Morgan led the fundraising drive for the

Birmingham Zoo The Birmingham Zoo is a zoological park that opened in 1955 in Birmingham, Alabama, United States. The Birmingham Zoo is an independent, not for profit, 501(c)(3) organization, and is accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA), p ...

, which initially bore his name.Ex B'ham Mayor Dies
Alabama Journal (Montgomery, Alabama) 10 Sep 1971, page 20, accessed via

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Civil Rights

Birmingham was a center of the American

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 ...

or the 1950s and 1960s and its

precursors Precursor or Precursors may refer to: * Precursor (religion), a forerunner, predecessor ** The Precursor, John the Baptist Science and technology * Precursor (bird), a hypothesized genus of fossil birds that was composed of fossilized parts of un ...

. Morgan's political positions frequently put him at the center of civil rights debates. In the late 1940s, racial housing policies were creating a housing crisis for the city's black population. In early August 1949, while serving as Commissioner of Public Improvements, Morgan called the racial grounds of the city's zoning ordinance unconstitutional. Morgan was supported by city mayor W. Cooper Green, but that same month, Commissioner of Public Safety T. Eugene Connor rewrote the ordinance to ensure housing segregation could continue. Connor and Morgan continued to feud and Morgan put pressure on the Jefferson County Personnel Board to remove Connor after Connor was caught in the act of adultery in late 1952, but Connor survived the scandal. Connor continued to play an active role in city politics through the 1950s and 1960s, and Morgan continued to feud with Connor and like-minded segregationist politicians such as

Art Hanes Arthur J. Hanes (October 19, 1916 – May 8, 1997) served as mayor of Birmingham, Alabama, between 1961 and 1963, a tumultuous time that saw the city become a focal point in the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement during the Birmingham campaign. Hane ...

and J. T. Waggoner. Morgan was also a key player in a number of issues related to the relationship between the city's black population and the police. In 1954, two Birmingham police officers beat a black man, Charles Patrick, after he was arrested following a parking conflict with a white woman. The officers were initially fired by Police Commissioner Robert Lindbergh, but Morgan reinstated the officers, giving them 30-day suspensions instead. Morgan was mayor when

Fred Shuttlesworth Frederick Lee Shuttlesworth (born Fred Lee Robinson, March 18, 1922 – October 5, 2011) was a U.S. civil rights activist who led the fight against segregation and other forms of racism as a minister in Birmingham, Alabama. He was a co-founder o ...

led a 1955 campaign to get the city to hire more black officers. Morgan and Commissioner Lindbergh were supportive of the idea, but were hesitant to actually make hires because of the lack of public support, leading to confrontations between Shuttlesworth and Morgan. The idea was tabled when the lynching of

Emmett Till Emmett Louis Till (July 25, 1941August 28, 1955) was a 14-year-old African American boy who was abducted, tortured, and lynched in Mississippi in 1955, after being accused of offending a white woman, Carolyn Bryant, in her family's grocery ...

References

Mayors of Birmingham, Alabama 1891 births 1971 deaths {{Alabama-politician-stub