The Birmingham and Washington Peace Marches and the ‘dream’ speech

The Birmingham and Washington Peace Marches and the ‘dream’ speech.

MLK at the Washinton Peace March

1. In 1963, civil rights campaigners targeted Birmingham, Alabama, in protest against the fact that many Southern areas in the US had still not carried out desegregation, and also because the Chief of Birmingham's police, "Bull" Connor, had allowed the KKK to beat up freedom riders in 1961 for 15 minutes before stepping in. The march began on April 3rd, and resulted in many protesters being arrested, including Martin Luther King. A month later, 100s of child protesters, trained in non-violent tactics, began a demonstration in Birmingham, ending up with 956 of them in jail by the end of the day. The next day even more children marched - the police turned fire hoses and dogs on them to subdue them. Articles and images surrounding these events spread across the world; JFK and the USA were left embarrassed, and the Mayor ended up passing desegregation laws because of these protests.
2. The Birmingham marches gained a lot of publicity for the civil rights movement, yet Congress and Kennedy were still slow to act upon the injustice and left the Black population feeling ignored and threatened by groups like the KKK. To show how many people were in support of the movement, in August 1963 civil rights groups organised a march on Washington, with estimated numbers of up to 500,000 people showing up. This was widely reported all over the world and convinced the government to pass the Civil Rights Act in July 1964 to stop segregation. The March also set off violence against the movement; four black girls were bombed and killed in a church two weeks after the march.
3. Martins Luther King gave his famous "I have a dream" speech at the end of the march; it was so impactful that it became instantly famous and rose support for the civil rights movement hugely - the government finally saw the huge support for the movement.