While the World Watched (11 page)

Chapter 10

D-day

* * *

[We must] use direct action . . . to create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,
explaining the purpose of Project C in Birmingham

A handshake is more powerful than a fist.

Reverend Fred L. Shuttlesworth

It was May 2, 1963. The time to march had come. During morning classes, excited students all over the city began to leave their schools. Some slipped out of windows and jumped to the ground. Many more escaped through front and side doors. I squeezed my skinny body between the school’s chain-link fence and padlocked gate. At this point I could feel nothing but adrenaline. It was the first time I had ever left the school grounds without permission. I prayed my father wouldn’t find out.

It was finally time to march.

Students from all over Birmingham joined my classmates and me as we walked to Sixteenth Street Baptist Church and Kelly Ingram Park. Some students hiked eighteen miles to join the march. Young people from Miles College arrived in cars and buses. We carried poster board signs, sang “Oh Freedom” at the top of our lungs, and enthusiastically clapped our hands. It seemed like a big pep rally. The police stopped us once and asked us the purpose of the march. Then they told us to disperse. We ran and scattered in different directions, but we all arrived back at the same place: the church corner.

When we reached the church, I stopped and stared. There were white tanks filling Birmingham’s bustling streets. Army tanks! No one had said anything about army tanks. They made Birmingham look like a war zone!

Goose bumps of terror rose on my arms.
Are those tanks going to shoot bullets at us, like in a real war?

But I had no time for fear. Anyway, the friends I had known all my life—the kids I went to school and church with—stood all around me. They gave me the courage I needed as we continued our march.

I found out later that Bull Connor had ordered the white army tanks onto the streets of downtown Birmingham. If he meant for them to surprise and frighten us, his plan worked.

Then I saw Birmingham firefighters dressed in fire-battling suits and helmets, holding giant hoses. I was confused—there was no fire that I could see, and no one had mentioned anything about water hoses.

Police officers yelled at us through megaphones. “Go home!” they shouted repeatedly. But we didn’t listen.

Then they said, “Okay! You have two minutes to disperse!” We continued singing our freedom songs and clapping our hands.

Then came the next shout: “You have one minute!” Again, we ignored them and continued marching.

Finally they started to count: “One! Two! Three! Four! Five! Six! Seven! Eight! Nine!
Ten
!
” That didn’t stop us either. We were afraid, but we didn’t show it.

Bull Connor ran all around us screaming into his megaphone. “Blast them with water!” he shouted to the firefighters.

Upon hearing Connor’s order, they turned on the water hoses. It took four strong firefighters to hold one hose. They hit anyone and everyone in their path—most of us were children. This was no longer just a threat; things had escalated to a horrifying new level. I later learned the intense water pressure from one of those hoses could knock the bark off a tree seventy-five feet away. Water shot out at a hundred pounds of pressure per second—hard enough to break bones.

I peeled my eyes away from the firefighters to the police in combat gear. They were struggling to hold back vicious German shepherds on leashes. The dogs snarled and growled, ready to attack upon command. Police paddy wagons lined the streets to haul arrested children to jail.

Hundreds of students were still packed inside the church and thousands more stood outside, waiting to be sent in the next wave of marchers. Each time James Bevel gave the signal, the next group poured out the front door and down the stairs—some fifty children at a time—and continued the peaceful protest march. But despite the intentions of the marchers, I could hardly believe the chaos, confusion, noise, and violence.

Police arrested the first fifty children out of the church for “parading without a permit.” These children were stuffed into the paddy wagons and taken to the Birmingham jail. Bevel gave another signal, and fifty more children ran out the church door, down the steps, and into the street. They were laughing, clapping, and singing, “Freedom! Oh freedom!”

Bull Connor shouted more orders. Police arrested students, filled up the paddy wagons, and took them to jail. The children who escaped arrest slipped back into the church. Then they came out the front door again with the next batch of fifty kids.

Moment by moment the waves of marchers continued to pour out onto the street. The children overwhelmed the frustrated Bull Connor. For every child arrested, two more singing and clapping children ran out of the church and started marching. Finally the police had nowhere to put the children they arrested. One of those arrested was my friend and classmate Anita Barnes. There were no more paddy wagons to haul them off to jail. So Bull ordered the city’s school buses brought to the church. Police packed bus after yellow school bus with smiling children.

When an embarrassed police department and Bull Connor, Birmingham’s commissioner of public safety, saw that they were losing the battle to youngsters, things started getting nasty. “Bring on the dogs!” Connor shouted. The tanks and water hoses frightened me, but the dogs
terrified
me. I was close enough to see that they had teeth like knives. I heard them growl and saw them snap and lunge at fellow marchers—they even tore at the clothes of a couple of people near me. The police, who struggled to maintain their hold on the shepherds’ taut leashes, gave attack orders to the animals. The restless dogs charged at anyone close by, grabbed children’s arms and legs, bit their stomachs, ripped flesh, and drew significant blood.

As the crowds of children swelled, firefighters continued to aim their thick hoses at the young protestors. I watched in horror while the pressured water sent them flying through the air, knocking them down and pummeling them across the street.

Then, in the heat of the conflict, four firefighters turned their hose on me. Two male students and I were standing in front of a store when suddenly we felt a high-powered blast of water hit us. Our bodies jerked around, and we were pressed tightly against the building. The water struck me like a stinging whip, and I was sure it would knock me down. Many students near me ran away, while others tried desperately to hold on to walls, other people, a ledge—anything. I flattened my body against the brick, steeling myself against the forceful water, and prayed. The pressure of the water blew a hole in my sweater.

Then the firefighters focused the violent stream of water at my face and shoulders. It bruised my face and ripped off a large portion of my hair from the side of my scalp. When we began the march, I was excited—full of hopeful anticipation. I had it in my head that we were going to make a difference. When the fire hoses and dogs came on the scene, I became fearful. By the time I got hit with the water, I was beyond afraid. I was angry. A long time passed, it seemed, before the firefighters turned the hose away from me and directed it onto another child.

I caught my breath and ran through the crowds of children, firefighters, police officers, attack dogs, white tanks, and Bull Connor and found my way into the church basement. I was trembling from head to foot. I had never felt so afraid and angry. Water soaked my clothes. My face and scalp throbbed. I found paper towels and did my best to dry myself off. Then I breathed deeply and struggled to regain some composure.

As I sat in the basement, I listened to the chaos outside. I wanted to go back out there and show my support for Dr. King and the other students. I thought,
But if I do, I’ll probably get hurt again—maybe arrested and taken off to jail.

Actually, I didn’t mind getting arrested. But what if I had to telephone my father that night and tell him I was in jail? He had already told me in no uncertain terms, “Don’t ever leave the school grounds without permission.” At that moment I feared my father’s wrath much more than I feared Bull Connor’s fire hoses, army tanks, and attack dogs. The risk of arrest and imprisonment seemed trivial compared to facing my father at the end of the day.

I knew Daddy loved me and worried about my safety. I also knew he could lose both his jobs if someone identified his girl-child participating in a public Civil Rights march. So I decided not to return to the streets and to go home instead.

But this led to other problems.

Just how am I going to get home?
I decided I had no choice but to walk.

As I headed home, I wondered,
How will I ever explain my appearance—soaked with water, my sweater torn, my hair ruined, and my face bruised—to my dad? There’s no way I can explain this to him!

Maybe, I figured, Daddy would still be at work. I could slip in, change my clothes, and fix my hair before he got home. Then he’d never know I had marched.

But when I finally got home, I saw Daddy’s car parked in front. And someone had locked the screen door, so I couldn’t sneak inside. I rang the doorbell and prayed my mother or brothers or sister would answer the door.

That didn’t happen. Daddy himself answered the door.

I’m in big trouble now!

Daddy looked at me, wet, bedraggled, and exhausted. His brows drew close together. “Why are you late?” he shouted. “And where have you been?”

I would be grounded forever—I was sure of it. But Daddy had taught me to always tell the truth. So I did.

“I slipped out of school, Daddy. I marched with all the students from the church. We sang ‘Freedom! Oh freedom!’ and clapped our hands. The police arrested a bunch of my friends. The firemen blasted me with their water hose and tore my sweater. Then I came home.”

Daddy said nothing for a long time. My father had seen a lot of pain and injustice in his lifetime. But he never told us children about it. I guess he knew that if a white person hurt me or my brothers or sister, as a black man in Birmingham he couldn’t assume the law would do much about it. As expected, Daddy grounded me for good. I was still allowed to go to church events, but he forbade me from doing anything related to the movement.

As I watched the marching scenes on the news that evening, I realized for the first time how serious this was and how badly I could have been hurt. The eyes of the nation were on Birmingham, and I hoped someone would understand what we were trying to do, the message we were trying to send. But it was becoming clear that there could be a high price to pay.

As it turned out, thousands of children had poured from the church that day and marched the streets of Birmingham. Of those children, 959 had been arrested and thrown in jail—one of whom was only four years old! The jails were packed to capacity.
[40]
Reporters and photographers captured in undeniable images the confrontation between the children and the police. They shot pictures of Bull Connor running around shouting into his megaphone like a well-seasoned war general . . . fighting an army of laughing, dancing children.

It was time to end the silence.

Chapter 11

Double D-day

* * *

Today was D-day! But tomorrow will be Double D-day!

DJ Shelley the Playboy’s May 2 announcement on Birmingham’s WENN radio

Bring on your tear gas, bring on your grenades, your new supplies of Mace, your state troopers and even your national guards. But let the record show we ain’t going to be turned around.

Ralph Abernathy

On the evening of the march, with more than nine hundred arrested children filling Birmingham’s jails, Dr. King held a mass church meeting.

“I have been inspired and moved today,” he said. “I have never seen anything like it.”

The next morning, May 3, hundreds of children skipped school and met again at Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. Bull Connor was waiting for them this time—with squad cars, fire trucks, and water hoses ready. Against threats of violence, the children marched peacefully down the streets of Birmingham.

I was in school this time, per my dad’s orders. I didn’t want to defy him, and besides, I knew he’d be watching. He was a teacher, and he wouldn’t have hesitated to pick up the phone to check on me and make sure I was in school. But I heard later about what happened that day.

Again, Connor ordered the police, “Bring the dogs!” The dogs attacked the protesters—ripping clothes and biting flesh. Connor told the firefighters, “Open up the hoses!” As the water struck the children, they sang one word over and over: “Freedom!” Children knelt on the pavement and prayed while water from fire hoses swept them down the street.

Meanwhile, black and white adults stood along the sidelines and either cheered or booed what they were witnessing. Some onlookers—both black and white—threw bottles and rocks at the police.

As on the day before, hundreds of marching children were arrested on “Double D-day.” When the Birmingham jails filled up beyond legal capacity, the school buses delivered the arrested children to the Birmingham fairgrounds—the grounds where Kiddieland was located. It was the first time black children had been allowed inside the fences there. Police locked the children in open hog pens—girls on one side and boys on the other.

For the next two weeks, Connor kept most of the children imprisoned in the jails and in hog pens. Police provided each child with one peanut butter sandwich a day. Horrified parents gathered at the pens and tossed food to their hungry children. In addition to the lack of hot meals, they slept on the filthy ground where state fair animals had been previously housed. The smell was unbearable. They had no private bathrooms, no towels, no change of clothes. When there were thunderstorms, the youngsters got soaked. But their spirits failed to be dampened. Most spent their long hours and days of imprisonment singing and clapping their hands.

“Don’t worry about your children,” Dr. King told concerned parents. “They’re going to be all right. Don’t hold them back if they want to go to jail. They are doing a job for all mankind.”

Several of my good friends were among those arrested. Thelma Ford, a girl my age who lived five houses down from me, was put in jail on the first day of the march. Her mother had no idea where she was and telephoned my house looking for her. Thelma ended up spending five days in jail.

Two other friends, Sheila Dowdell and James Stewart, were also arrested and put in jail. Sheila’s mother had been my fourth grade schoolteacher. James’s mother was a teacher, too, and his father was one of the few black doctors in Birmingham. He had a medical office across the street from Parker High School. James’s family lived in another part of Birmingham, and James had a swimming pool in his backyard. He often invited us to his house to swim, especially since Birmingham’s public pools forbade black youth from using them.

My three friends’ parents were able to bail them out, but other children stayed in the hog pens two weeks or more. People around the world heard about the jailed children and sent monetary donations to help pay their bail. And local bondsmen such as Maurice Ryles and Warren King, both of whom lived on my street, assumed responsibility for a number of people who couldn’t afford to get out.

Even when it was time for a child to be released, the harassment wasn’t over. Connor ordered that each imprisoned child be thoroughly interrogated before he or she could leave. Day after day, officials questioned hundreds of children, one at a time. Officials released the children, even the tiny ones, at random, on their own—and often in the middle of the night. Many parents stayed close to the jail and the fairgrounds so the released youngsters wouldn’t have to wander the empty city streets at night trying to find their way home.

By the final tally, after the two days of marching had ended in early May, more than 2,500 people had been arrested. Two thousand of them were children.
[41]

After that, the people of Alabama removed Bull Connor from office. He had served seven terms. It seemed that the children’s march was the spark that finally resulted in changed hearts in Birmingham. The shocking images seen all over the world drove people out of their complacency and spurred them to put pressure on leaders in our city. When the news of Bull Connor’s removal from office broke, Civil Rights leader Ralph D. Abernathy told those who had marched, “We have already won a victory in Birmingham.”

After the children’s march, we all gathered in the sanctuary of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church; faced our national flag; put our right hands over our hearts; and as if for the first time, said from the depths of our hearts: “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands: one nation under God, indivisible,
with liberty and justice for all
.”

* * *

For the following forty-six years, the state of Alabama refused to erase from its books the names of the two thousand arrested children. The children had official criminal records that followed them throughout adulthood. The state also upheld the fines black people had paid for “parading without a permit.”

Then, in August 2009, the city decided to pardon the children who had participated in the 1963 D-day and Double D-day protest.

Most people saw this as progress toward the goal of racial reconciliation, but I must admit I felt surprised at the city’s decision. I’ve always considered a pardon something one receives after doing wrong. When a person accepts the pardon, it indicates he or she is promising not to repeat the crime. It is like someone saying, “I messed up, and now I want to devote the rest of my life to making it right.”

When we marched down the streets of Birmingham in 1963 for our legal rights, we did nothing wrong. We peacefully protested what we believed was right. Years before, the Supreme Court had issued a massive desegregation order for our nation, demanding all public facilities be opened up to everyone, black and white. Governor George Wallace simply said no to the Supreme Court. We were taking a stand against his insistence on a segregated Birmingham—and against the status quo.

In 2009 the city also decided to reimburse all the fines charged to black citizens who had participated in D-day. The fines ranged from one dollar to fifty dollars. The city paid the Reverend Shuttlesworth nine dollars.

* * *

As a teenager, I didn’t realize the gravity of what had happened at the children’s march in downtown Birmingham. It wasn’t until many years later that my eyes were opened to all that had been swirling around me at the time.

First, one of the firefighters who had aimed the water hoses at us on May 2, 1963, came to my church and apologized to the congregation for his part in the violence. He explained that he had been “under orders” and had no choice but to obey Bull Connor. He also told us that the pressure from the hoses had been known to break legs in the past. Thankfully no legs were reported broken throughout the marches. But his talk all those years later was a sobering reminder of how high the stakes had been that day, whether we knew it or not.

Second, I had the privilege of seeing photographs of the event taken by Civil Rights photographer Charles Moore. Several decades after the march, his photographs came out in a book titled
Powerful Days: The Civil Rights Photography of Charles Moore
. In 1996 Mr. Moore came to Birmingham and presented me with a personal copy of his book. Inside, he penned an inscription: “Carolyn, the photograph that I made, on page 99, will always remind me of your courage as a young woman in the front lines of the battle for freedom and justice in 1963 Birmingham. To have met you again in Birmingham in 1968, and in 1996, proved to me that you still have that same spirit and courage. This journalist is proud of all heroes and heroines of Dr. King’s Civil Rights movement. With much respect, Charles Moore.”

There has been much controversy about who’s who in those photos. But to those of us who marched, the pictures are symbolic of all of us and what we endured. The images are reflections of courage—and of our hope for a better Birmingham.