My my name is wayne coleman, head of archives here at the institute. And i want to welcome all you to tonights event event as we commemorate the 60th anniversary of the 1963 childrens crusade. We do so tonight with an authors talk featuring paul kicks. Paul is the author of you have to be prepared to before you can begin ten weeks in birmingham. That america, while reflecting on a photo of Minneapolis Police officer Derek Chauvin suffocating, george floyd, paul is shocked by its parallels to the iconic may 1963 photo of a black teenager in birmingham, alabama, being attacked by a white officer and an aggressive shepherd. These similarities motivated to uncover the legacy and full history behind the historic civil rights photograph. Pauls book light on the strategy of the 1963 ten week southern christian Leadership Conference campaign end segregation led by dr. Martin luther jr. King, along with white walker, Fred Shuttlesworth and james bevel, joined the efforts of the Alabama Christian Movement for human rights to launch the Birmingham Campaign together, they sought to Bring National attention to the efforts to desegregate public facilities in birmingham, as detailed in book, paul is the first to reveal the method of project. See the marches demonstrate and sit ins that followed led to many arrests of the adults who were active in the movement and the Pivotal Moment in the movement. Oclc recruited children to carry the cause. Paul explores what happened through see and how it inflow. Wences activism today, ladies and gentlemen, paul takes. I want start by acknowledging a few different things. One of them is that i am a white man. I am married to a black woman. We three kids who identify as black and i grew up in hubbard, iowa. My wife grew up in houston texas. And you all may be wondering here in birmingham, alabama. What does this family why do they about birmingham, alabama, today . Let me tell you. In the summer of 2020, we all saw the images of as it was wayne was saying a moment ago, officer Derek Chauvin suffocated and killing george floyd. That murder personal to my family. My wife, sonya, grew up in inner city houston. She grew up one neighborhood away from george floyd. George grew up in third ward sign. He grew up in fifth ward. George the same age as son, 46. George and sonya excuse me, sonia had cousins who went to the same high school as george yates high. Sonjas friend and cousin derrick remembered george as the tight end on the eight Football Team that made it to the state championship game. So i tell you that to tell you this, georges murder was the first time that my wife and i decided to let our kids see that this was part the black experience as well. Our twin boys were then nine, our daughter was then 11, and our twin boys particular had a lot of questions about what they saw day it started. Are all cops bad . Are all cops racist . As the questions became hours and then days they evolved and they sort of took a step down towards selfhatred what does this mean for my life . Am i inferior in some way it was a really time the latter half of 2020 and so. They became despondent in some way. All three of our kids, they started to talk about how america was an awful place and they couldnt wait to move away from here just as soon as they could. And when sunny and i would try to tell them, no, no, no, its not quite like that. There be other things that would appear on the news. Jacob blake was shot later summer by kenosha, wisconsin. Cops in the back as he was walking away from them and his three children screamed from his car as he was shot. And our twin boys ran from the room that day in tears and they said, why do they keep trying to kill us. Out of those moments. I thought back to their birth, the twins boys birth in particular i again, im a white man. Im a journalist and a writer. And i have i had read already the autobiography of malcolm. Id read certain civil rights. But right after the boys born, i made it my attempt to really understand the black canon and all throughout all of american letters. And so i reacquainted myself. The Civil Rights Movement. And there was one photo in particular that happened here. It was of walter gadsden, a 15 year old boy, perhaps the most icon image to come out of this campaign. You probably all know it, but i just want to describe it, what that what it did to me when the first time i saw it in that photo, you see a german attacking the right side of. But attacking isnt really the quiet word. Its right word. Its more like hes feasting on walter all around him. People are either running in terror or seat or turning their around to see how bad hes about. Get it . And what struck me, it was the serenity on walters face. Im not sure if it was just the the split second that it was that it was felt it should be, that it was captured. It. But his arms at his side, he is peaceful. He is not fighting the dog or even protecting himself. It is as if he giving himself over to posterity in this moment. And i found something that was both horrific in that moment. And i saw something that was transcend it about that moment. What was horrific was that this was, to me, indicative of really all of the american experience. One photo, it was the terror that had been visited upon black people. It was the dignity with which so many black people within the Civil Rights Movement responded. And it was ultimately in serenity. Was this sense of transcendence that we can all as a nation move beyond even horrific moment and be more like walter and perhaps try to find a new day so that was my entry point into 1963, right after the boys were born. And that led more and more to try to figure out what exactly was photo that went alongside it. What was this campaign. And so that led me to the ten weeks in birmingham and pretty soon it was the most amazing thing id ever come across because if look at it from the perspective of. 1863 you have emancipation. In 100 years pass and numerous efforts are made to have real and lasting equality and nothing happens, nothing. And then birmingham happens and then everything. Its a sponsorship. And the summer of of 1963 by jack and Bobby Kennedy, who had been strongly against civil until then that sponsorship becomes a civil rights. Of 1964 that Civil Rights Act of 1964 becomes a Voting Rights act of 1965, becomes kings martyrdom in 1968 becomes a new life for his country and of that. The rise of the black, middle and upper. Presidency of barack obama. Then, in my own life, my ability to marry sonya in a jim crow state like texas and to raise our three kids on shaded street where harasses us for who we are, that the embodiment of kings dream and i told my kids after after saw jacob blake and, they said, we want to move away from here just as soon as they can. I said, there is a that you should hear. It is about birmingham, alabama. And even though i am a white man, rural iowa, and even your mother is a black woman, inner city houston, we not be here today were not for the ten weeks in the spring of 1963 that made all of this possible. And so i began to research more and more. And when i say i am thrilled to be here at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute are not empty words because as i began to more and more, i came the massive oral history project that the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, alongside the Birmingham Public Library, has carried out for the better part of 30 years. I dont think its too much to say that basically every person of consequence in 1963 was interviewed by one of these two institutions, often both of them. And that record today is what made book like this possible. So just as much as we say as you guys say, thank you for coming. Thank you. I wouldnt be here today. I wouldnt have the life i have were it not for birmingham, i wouldnt published this book were it not for this institute institute. You guys made all of this possible. And i am unbelievably to so thank. One thing i found as i was researching more and more calling when i first got in touch with with wayne and with jim baggett at the Birmingham Public Library, i just started to read more broadly into the Civil Rights Movement. Something strange struck and. This was still in the summer of 2020. I didnt really know. Well, actually, im going to tell you guys and cspan to a secret that i havent actually shared with anybody. I had. My first book was called the saboteur it was out and i was looking to pursue book when george floyd killed. In fact, my agent and i had actually presented it to publishers is basically means that lets see if we can do something. Ed nothing to do with civil rights. It actually to do with a politician. And once after george floyd happened and i began to read more of this of birmingham in particular, i called my agent and i said, can we tell the editors to put project on hold, meaning like, i dont want anybody to even bid on this as a book proposal. I dont want to do this anymore. Theres whole other book i want to do. Hes like, well, what is it . And i said, have you ever heard of confrontation . And goes, what . And i go, exactly exactly. Here is the truth of birmingham. As i found in the civil rights canon, and this is done predominantly by historians and this is meant as no slight against any of those historians, but almost every single historian or journalist before me has decided to do some sort, exhaustive campaign of the Civil Rights Movement right. This was taylor branchs work back in the 1980s. Diane mcwhorter more than 20 years ago, one wrote an amazing and Pulitzer Prize book on birmingham. It covers the Birmingham Campaign. It covers her own life. It goes through the the of 1963 with the bombing of the 16th street baptist church. My point here is a narrative one, i wanted a book that captured i wanted a story that captured what just happened in that spring every again 100 years and nothing and then ten weeks and everything. Whats the story of those weeks . And i looked and i looked and i looked and im like, it doesnt exist. So the reason i called my agent and, i said, cancel it. Im writing Something Else. And goes, what is it . I said, its project confrontation. Hes and he goes, what is that . I said, its birmingham. Hes like the fire hoses. Im like, you have no idea how. Its so much than that. I saw it as a writer, an opportunity in the richest of of in possibly the deepest of all american tenants. Right. The Civil Rights Movement. There might be more about it than anything than perhaps a civil war. But for some reason, no book had ever just covered those ten weeks. What happened in those ten weeks . Who were the major . What like day by day . What went down . That became my obsession. And the more i researched is the some of 2020 became the fall of 2020 even into the spring of 2021. I saw something that was not just an incredibly rich narrative and a nuanced one. We often today just talk for a minute about that nuance think about we think about like dr. King, like Fred Shuttlesworth, like james bevel, like wyatt walker, Ralph Abernathy. We think of them as almost angelic characters. The truth in birmingham, they had huge egos and they were at each other. There was a line that i used that i paraphrase from another Civil Rights Movement. Each of these men could bow before god, but could they could stand mighty tall in front of each other. Thats what thats what happened in the spring of 1963. And i wanted capture that. I wanted to capture that sort of dynamic arc of what was going on, because in the spring of 1963 and we were here in birmingham. But but just in, you dont fully understand it. It was the most violent, the most racist, the most dangerous place in america. The klan castrated black men, the cops raped black women in their patrol. You guys actually, some of those documents here at the vcr, i edward murrow, the cbs news anchor and reporter, came to birmingham prior to kings just prior project confrontation. And he said to his producer as he left, i have never seen any place like this since nazi germany. That was bull Connors Birmingham and incredibly awful. And it was i would more like a site of domestic terror than a city really. And the sclc broke the Albany Campaign one year prior had been an abysmal failure. King was mocked not only the southern press, not only by the northern coming out of albany, but by other civil rights groups. John lewis, his student nonviolent coordinating committee, had many members who openly sneered at the middle aged king, called him a phony. So thats our time now your time is passed. And they basically hadnt had there was a reason was there was there was there was a reason why not necessarily lewis per se but others within snick would reach that conclusion. Yes youll see had not had any victor three in seven years. Now people may take offense to that and say well what about the montgomery bus boycott . Heres what i would say if you go back and look at the historical record as i did in montgomery in 1963, black people had gone back to riding the busses like. Was 1943. It was as if 1955 and 1956 didnt even matter. And the Supreme Court orders didnt either. Just like by the way brown versus board of education never reached birmingham. So there broke broke. Theyve had nothing but failure for seven years and want to go to the most dangerous place in america. White walker then executive director, a man who i call brilliant in the book, but also kind of a moral. And well get into why i get to the reading, why, walker said in the secret Planning Session that they had. This was two months prior to birmingham they didnt even invite the rest. The executive board there. King didnt even invite his own father to this secret mission because they were going to discuss most dangerous idea in the whole the Civil Rights Movement. Thats the language used. The most dangerous idea. Should we go to birmingham . And white walkers said, given where we are, we will either break or we will be broken by it. There was real concern that not only were they going to die, by the way, king delivered a mock eulogy that day to everybody in preparation for whats going happen and even told them it is in my that i dont think were all going to come back from this campaign. But even after that, there was the still larger of if they lose in birmingham the southern christian Leadership Conference. It didnt have any more reputation, didnt have any more money. They were going to dissolve. If they dissolve, if king is no longer the leader. What happens to the Civil Rights Movement as a whole . Jim folsom, the governor and in the 1950s, he at least alluded to civil rights in alabama when he said all people that are to be people are just alike. George wallace comes in three months prior to project confrontation, start segregation now, segregation forever. Kings concern is going into birmingham. Only may we lose our lives not only may, may sclc disband, dissolve, but whats going to happen to the movement as a whole if we dont win . Here are more people like George Wallace going to become even more emboldened . Are more are more Public Safety commissioners like bull connor are going to surface, are more people going to run their cities by fear this was the biggest gamble of their lives. And when they went to new york. And the quote comes from mr. Fred shuttlesworth who was there that night at Harry Belafontes apartment, theyre trying get their money from all these rich york donors to be like this. The biggest gamble of our lives and want you all to put your money on this this. No one wanted to do it until the man of the hour and man that i wish i wish would be as known as dr. King the reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, a man of just unbelievable courage, started to tell stories from life just before the campaign to these rich new york donors. Harry belafonte was there. Of course, hes organizing the event. Sidney poitier was there. Ossie Davis Hollywood producers newspaper publishers. And theyre like, what happens in bulls, birmingham, bull connors. These are cool. Let me tell you, i tried to integrate the birmingham bus line not long after dr. King and Ralph Abernathy did it down in montgomery. I told bull connor the day after christmas, im going to do it. And bull connors klan that night bombed my with 16 sticks of dynamite. I was standing one room away from where that dynamite hit. It blasted all the way through my house. I landed in ruins. The house was a complete mess and. I emerged from those ruins and i the people whod come around, a lot of people, the congregants from his Bethel Baptist church. And he said i told them, put those guns because the people were tired of this. Were tired of bull Connors Birmingham, which was then known as bombingham. Put those guns up. We believe in nonviolence. And then he told that crowd in new york, do you know what i did the next day i integrated the bus line in. It stunned everyone, not just the members of Bethel Baptist church, not just the cops who were amazed that he had live and now had the temerity to try to actually do the thing that he said he was going to do bull connor, like 50 more cops on patrol. By the way, these arent cops like.