Birmingham shooting stirs ties to Atlanta and civil rights-era South

After gunmen unleashed gunfire in the nightlife district of Birmingham, Alabama, on Saturday, killing four people and injuring 17 others, Mayor Randall Woodfin evoked the 1960s and another era of violence.

“I tell people, when America gets a cold, it’s possible that Birmingham gets the flu,” he said at a Sunday morning press conference. “We’ve seen this in the ‘60s during segregation. At the height of it, unfortunately, we were the poster child. We find ourselves in 2024, where gun violence is at an epidemic level, and the city of Birmingham finds itself at the tip of that spear.”

About 150 miles separates Atlanta and Birmingham, but the similarities go beyond mere proximity. Both cities were backdrops for era-defining setbacks and victories and, of course, intense violence.

Birmingham set the stage for Atlanta-born Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to fight for desegregation. In the 1960s, he frequently visited a city with the ignominious nickname “Bombingham” because of terror attacks on Black people trying to move into segregated white neighborhoods.

At the invitation of civil rights leaders in April 1963, he took part in a protest against segregation — part of the “ Birmingham Campaign ” of sit-ins and marches. After defying a court injunction, he ended up in jail. It was from his cell that he wrote “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” a response to white ministers questioning the tactics of the civil rights movement. It was regarded as one of the defining texts of the time, and the protests would eventually lead to the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

“We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed,” King wrote in the letter.

The Freedom Riders, protesting the segregation of public buses and Jim Crow laws in the South, were attacked by violent mobs in Birmingham. Although the Supreme Court had already found the practice unconstitutional, the Interstate Commerce Commission in 1961 enacted regulations banning segregation in interstate transit terminals.

Today, leaders are facing what must often feel like another insurmountable fight as they confront the realities of gun violence. But Woodfin said lawmakers must take action.

“Elected officials locally, statewide, and nationally have a duty to solve this American crisis, this American epidemic of gun violence,” Woodfin said.

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