The Birmingham Legal Codes and MLKs Letter from a Birmingham Jail PDF

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The Birmingham Legal Codes: Primary Source Analysis Birmingham Segregation Laws Introduction: Throughout the South, many states, counties and municipalities had a confusing number of inconsistent segregation laws mandating the separation of the races. Tens of thousands of mostly Black men, women, girls and boys were arrested during the Freedom Movement for violating these laws. The examples below from Birmingham Alabama are typical of the southern segregation laws that were eventually overturned by the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Legal Code

How does this law limit the freedoms of African Americans?

SECTION 359. SEPARATION OF RACES It shall be unlawful for any person in charge or control of any room, hall, theater, picture house, auditorium, yard, court, ballpark, public park or other indoor or outdoor place, to which both white persons and Negroes are admitted, to cause, permit or allow herein or thereon any theatrical performance, picture exhibition, speech or educational or entertainment program of any kind whatsoever, unless such room, hall, theater, picture house, auditorium, yard, court, ball park, or other place, has entrances, exits, and seating or standing sections set aside for and assigned to the use of Negroes, unless the entrances, exits and seating or standing sections set aside for and assigned to the use of white persons are distinctly separated from those set aside for and assigned to the use of Negroes, by well-defined physical barriers, and unless the members of each race are affectively restricted and confined to the sections set aside for and assigned to the use of such race.

these laws limit the freedom of African Americans because it does not allow them to be in a certain public and private places. This lot is saying that you black and white people are not allowed to be in the same room or space together unless there is a barrier or separate room that segregates them. This makes it so that African American people are not allowed to go and be wherever they want which limits their freedom.

Legal Code

How does this law limit the freedoms of African Americans?

SECTION 369. SEPARATION OF RACES It shall be unlawful to conduct a restaurant or other place of the serving of food in the city at which white and colored people are served in the same room, unless such white and colored persons are effectually separated by a solid partition extending from the floor upward to a distance of seven feet or higher, and unless a separate entrance from the street is provided for each compartment.

This law is limiting the freedom of African Americans because it is saying that white and black people cannot eat in the same restaurant unless they are certain amount of feet away from each other and on different floors. This again makes it so that black people do not have the freedom to eat and be wherever they choose.

SECTION 597. NEGROES AND WHITE PERSONS NOT TO PLAY TOGETHER. It shall be unlawful for a Negro and a white person to play together or in company with each other in any game of cards, dice, dominoes or checkers. Any person, who being the owner, proprietor or keeper or superintendent, of any tavern, inn, restaurant, or other public house or public place, or the clerk, servant or employee or such owner, proprietor, keeper or superintendent, knowingly permits a Negro and a white person to play together or in company with each other at any game with cards, dice, dominoes or checkers in his house or on his premises shall, on conviction, be punished as provided in Section 4.

This law limits the freedom of African American people because it makes it so that white and black people are not allowed to play together, and if someone sees them doing so and does nothing about it, they should be punished. This makes it so that a black person can only be friends with another black person, and they cannot completely choose to their friends with.

Legal Code

How does this law limit the freedoms of African Americans?

SECTION 1002. SEPARATION OF RACES.

This law limits the freedom of African Americans because it segregates white and black people in carriages and streetcars. This makes it so that white and black people should not ride in the same car an that if they do, they need to be very separated. They would need to have separate entrances and exits so that they never come in contact with one another period this makes it so black people cannot ride in whatever car they want, and they cannot sit with whoever they want. They can only use specific cars, exits, and entrances that are provided to them and if they do not do so, they are punished.

Every common carrier engaged in operation of streetcars in the city for the carriage of passengers shall provide equal but separate accommodations for the white and colored races by providing separate cars or by clearly indicating or designating by physical visible marks the area to be occupied by each race in any streetcar in which the two races are permitted to be carried together and by confining each race to occupancy of the area of such streetcar so set apart for it. Every common carrier engaged in operating streetcars in the city for the carrying of passengers shall provide for each car used for white and colored passengers, separate entrances and exits to and from such cars in such manner as to prevent intermingling of the white and colored passengers when entering or leaving such car, but this provision for separate entrances and exits shall not apply to the cars operated on the following lines: The South Highland, Idlewild and Rugby Highland lines or routes. It shall be unlawful for any such common carrier to aid in operating for the carriage of white or colored passengers, any streetcar not equipped as provided in this section. And it shall be unlawful for any person, … to ride or attempt to ride in a car or a division of a car designed for the race to which such person does not belong. Failure to comply with this section shall be deemed as a misdemeanor.

The Birmingham Legal Codes Summing up Directions: Use this handout to record responses during the class discussion on the Birmingham Legal Codes.

“What do you think was the psychological effect of the “Legal Codes” on the population – both Black and White – in Birmingham?” I feel that the effect on black people is very extreme because it makes them feel smaller than white people and makes them think they are not equal. By limiting the freedom of black people. It shows a clear dominant race, which is not how it should be. The effects of white people could have also been that they are not able to completely choose who they are with, however, they probably felt more powerful and obviously like the dominant race like they are above African Americans.

How else might the African-American population be impacted? They are also impacted because they have so many laws and rules to follow that they are more likely to go to jail. If they break any of these segregation laws then they would go to jail. This breaks apart families and make stop people serve time in prison for no reason.

: Letter From Birmingham Jail Document #1: Primary Source Letter Directions: While reading Dr. King’s “Letter from a Birmingham City Jail”, use the Primary Source Document Analysis Tool to analyze the document.

Excerpts from a "Letter from a Birmingham Jail” 16 April 1963 My Dear Fellow Clergymen: . . .We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God given rights. . . . Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, ‘Wait.’ But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on

television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five year old son who is asking: ‘Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?’; when you take a cross-country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading ‘white’ and ‘colored’; when your first name becomes ‘nigger’, your middle name becomes ‘boy’ (however old you are) and your last name becomes ‘John,’ and your wife and mother are never given the respected title ‘Mrs.’; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of ‘nobodiness’ – then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience. You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court's decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may well ask: ‘How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?’ The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust… Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? …An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. Sometimes a law is just on its face and unjust in its application. For instance, I have been arrested on a charge of parading without a permit. Now, there is nothing wrong in having an ordinance which requires a permit for a parade. But such an ordinance becomes unjust when it is used to maintain segregation and to deny citizens the First-Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and protest. Yours for the cause of Peace and Brotherhood, Martin Luther King, Jr.

MLK’s Letter From Birmingham Jail: Primary Source Analysis Tool Title of Document:

Date (when it was produced):

1. What kind of primary source document is this? A letter. 2. Who produced this document and when? How do you know? Martin Luther King junior produced this document in 1963 when he was in jail. I know because it says that he did and it is written from him from his point of view/ to the people, from him. It is also signed at the bottom of it by him. 3. Who was it produced for? How do you know? This letter was produced for white people , I know this because he's writing to them and explaining what black people have to go through. It is also called “Letter to Birmingham” which was the most racist place which shows that he was talking to white people. 4. What can you infer about the author of this document? I fear that the author of this document is African American and that he's an activist who will not stop and wait because discrimination has gone for too long . I can infer that he is a leader in that many people choose to follow him because he's doing what needs to be done. 5. What does the document say? Create a summary of the document. This document says that they will no longer wait, and that way people are wrong for saying that because they've never been in a black person's position. They have never had to go through that pain that they have and therefore do not understand the fact that they can no longer wait. It says many ways in which black people have been segregated and then goes to explain that why people have never had to deal with that at any point, especially at young ages. He goes on to explain that there are just and unjust laws and that the difference is in whether or not the law uplift human personality. He says that unjust laws give a sense of superiority to a certain group.

6. Why did the author create this document? What did he want to communicate? I think that the author created this because he wanted to show that going to jail was not the end and that he was not going to stop what he was doing. He wanted to communicate the fact that his people should not stop either and that they should not wait. Overall, I think he wanted to let white people know that this was not going to stop him so it should not stop them either. 7. Choose a significant line from the document and explain why you think it is significant.

“There comes a time when the Cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair”. I think this line from the document is significant because it shows that black people are tired of waiting and are now doing something about racism. It signifies that they have done their fair share of waiting but will no longer be ignored.

MLK’s Letter from Birmingham Jail: Summing up Directions: From the class readings, write down responses to the questions below.

1. What imagery or language was the most powerful in the letter? I think the most powerful language and imagery in this letter which when he went on to explain what black people have gone through. “But when you have seen vicious mobs Lynch your mothers and fathers at will and round your sisters and brothers at whim”.

Why? I think that this part was most powerful because it really put into perspective about how bad black people have it, and how much they have to go through every single day. It shows just how discriminated against they are and that they cannot take it any longer.

2. What techniques does King use to persuade his audience? (Students may refer back to Types of Propaganda) I think that doctor King used loaded words as a technique to persuade his audience. He put a lot of negative words to show just how bad black people have it and what they have to live through....