Faith, Strategy, and Sacrifice

As part of Black History Month Cornell Jackson reflects on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s strategic use of non-violent protests, particularly the controversial decision to involve children in the Birmingham campaign.

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In the United States, it is said that Black History month is about American history. It is the same for Black History month in Britain. It is not separate from British history but an integral part of it.

The name often mentioned at this time is that of Dr Martin Luther King Jr. He emphasized the non-violent approach to the struggle he learned from Gandhi and from the Sermon on the Mount. There were those who did not believe Jesus insisted on following the sermon exactly but King did try as much as possible to do so. One time King when  being physically attacked, he ordered his staff not to touch his attacker and to pray for his attacker. This formed the backbone of the spiritual approach. He also tried to be as effective as possible. Effectiveness led to success.

I feel that sometimes the US civil rights movement has been romanticized.  There was nothing romantic about it. People were beaten and jailed. People were murdered. Churches were bombed. In 1962, King went to Albany, Georgia to help desegregate the town. However, the effort completely failed. When King went next to Birmingham, Alabama to desegregate the most segregated in the US, he knew they could not fail again. The  damage to the civil rights movement could be immense. So, King had to combine non-violence in an effective way to defeat segregation in Birmingham.

I was a young boy during the civil rights movement. The first civil rights campaign I was aware of was the Birmingham campaign. At the time of the Birmingham campaign, I was eight years old. I was living in Philadelphia. I saw the events of the campaign by watching the TV news.

The campaign got off to a bad start. Many of the black adults were afraid of losing their jobs if they participated in the campaign. Since they couldn’t afford failure, a new strategy was needed

King’s team had been running non-violence training workshops to teach how to protest when facing violence. His staff told him the most enthusiastic of the attendees were children. Using the children meant putting them directly in harm’s way. King and his staff decided to accept any volunteering child that was old enough to be baptized. The rationale behind this was old enough to make a decision for eternity they could decide to join the campaign despite the dangers. Most of the churches involved allowed those as young as 6 years old to be baptized. Dr King was criticized for this decision. But, he held firm.

The first day the children marched over 900 of them were incarcerated. Some were also beaten by the police, some were bitten by police dogs and some were literally blown down the street by the blasts from fire hoses. All of this was witnessed by reporters, photographers and, most importantly, television cameras. That is how I witnessed these events. As I watched the nightly TV news coverage, I realized that if I were in Birmingham instead of Philadelphia, I would be the one being beaten, bitten and hosed.

The adults started to join the later marches. On one march, they were going from their church to the jailhouse. They were stopped by a police line with a fireman with a hose. The marchers knelt and started praying. The marcher’s pastor stood up and said to police and fireman to turn on the hoses and loose the dogs. The police chief ordered the hoses turned on but nothing happened. The police repeated the order. Nothing happened. The marchers declared a miracle occurred.

Many Americans were shocked by the footage from Birmingham. The city leaders had to explain to these people why it was necessary to use all this violence on children marching peacefully. This put pressure on the city to negotiate. The children’s marches started on May 2,1963 and the agreement to desegregate Birmingham was reached on May 10, 1963. In Birmingham, King negotiated with the business leaders there because the marches hit their profits hard because not only did black people stop buying in downtown Birmingham, so did the white people.

Dr King refused to leave jail until all of the children were freed. However, President Kennedy needed King out of jail now for political reasons. The White House arranged for King’s release against his will. Money raised by Harry Bellefonte and others was enough to bail out all of the children.

Dr King’s combination of non-violence, the Sermon on the Mount and being very effective with strategy and tactics achieved a victory no one thought possible, especially after Albany. Some very tough decisions had to be made along the way leaving no room for any romanticism.

Think about what you would do if approached to allow your child to march where beatings, dog bites, being blasted by fire hoses were guaranteed. Would you agree? Would you be able to love the person beating you or would you conclude that our Lord and Savior was out of his freaking mind?

In Matthew 10:16, Jesus tells his disciples, “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and as innocent as doves.” Ironically, the involvement of children in the marches met both of these criteria. The children were harmless and left the segregationists defending the indefensible such as children being beaten, bitten and hosed. The lessons I take away from the Birmingham 1963 campaign are several. First, is the power of love especially those who are very unlovable. Another lesson learned is the importance of effectiveness. You must achieve at least some of your goals if you are to keep people following , especially when using unpopular tactics like non-violence. Without any success, frustration sets in. Dr King saw this with some blacks who felt he was not making enough progress. Finally, the need to avoid failure in Birmingham led to Dr King’s most controversial decision of using the children in the marches. Malcolm X criticized King saying that real men do not use children as cannon fodder. However, the children broke the will of the segregationists in 8 days.


Martin Luther King at St Paul’s – Explore the services and events taking place to mark Dr Martin Luther King Jr’s historic visit to St Paul’s Cathedral 60 years ago. Click here for more information.