Those of us who have been around the track more than a few times are familiar with the feeling that comes in response to certain patterns of experience: “I think I’ve seen this movie before.”
More than 60 years ago, in the decade-long process of nonviolent demonstrations calling attention to the injustice of racial segregation, Birmingham was a hotbed of bombings, burnings, and other forms of violence against Black citizens and businesses. It was also a focal point of the movement to demonstrate an increasing public commitment to correcting the patterns of discrimination that had crippled the human family since the days of Reconstruction.
The scenes from that demonstration have joined the images that have preserved that era—the earlier bus boycott in Montgomery that ignited the current season of resistance and advocacy, the events at Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge, and the massive gathering in Washington and its “I Have a Dream” speech.
Birmingham was to be another component of that long campaign, which had been met by resistance at every turn. It resulted in a clear and powerful expression that the nonviolent exposure of injustice was an effective counter-resistance to its appeal to people of conscience.
After long and careful preparation, marchers moved along peaceably, as intended. However, they were met by fire hoses and police dogs, which brutally attacked adults and young people in full view of television cameras and on full display to the broader public.
This encounter, fueled by the passions of a culture of white supremacy and a commitment to segregation, placed before a national audience the brutal face of racial injustice. It has been described as a turning point in the collective mind—one that would lead to more widespread support for political and social measures focused on repairing the longstanding damage of racial injustice.
The “point man” for that response was Eugene “Bull” Connor, whose role as public safety commissioner put him in a position to unleash a violent effort to disrupt and disperse the well-organized and focused demonstration. He was deeply committed to white supremacy and an opponent of any effort to afford rights to Black citizens.
He did not act alone, however. He was a product of his time, which for generations had normalized a perspective that supported the structures of racial injustice and made any attempt at redress something to be opposed. Widespread acceptance of that perspective had enabled his success in the politics of the era.
The unleashing of fire hoses and dogs on innocent citizens exercising their right to speak and march against an unjust system, in full view of a national audience, was met with the beginnings of a public voice that would increasingly say, “We can’t have this.” Many have suggested that, while this was one of many significant steps in the long struggle for racial justice, it was nevertheless a kind of turning point that accelerated progress toward major legislation and broader transformation.
History’s Rhyme
It has been hard for me not to connect this history to recent events involving ICE and its senior administrators. For months, the brutal tactics used by apparently poorly trained officers have exposed patterns that strain both the legality and the morality of their identity and mission. The consistent lying by ICE officials that has framed the public narrative is almost a caricature: “Are you going to believe what I tell you or what you see for yourself?”
Then came the events in Minneapolis.
On top of everything else that has become their trademark behavior, we have ICE’s killing of Renee Good and Alex Pretti—two killings so brazen that even carefully crafted counterinterpretations cannot conceal the reality that is there for all to see.
These killings—murders, actually—are terrible tragedies, as are all fatal acts of brutal injustice. But they may be catalysts for something more.
Is it too much to hope that they may become ICE’s “Bull Connor moment,” when the public consciousness, in one way or another—or perhaps in many ways—comes to say, effectively, “We can’t have this”?
- About the Author
- Latest Posts
Professor emeritus of religious studies at Mercer University, a member of Smoke Rise Baptist Church in Stone Mountain, Georgia, and the author of Keys for Everyday Theologians (Nurturing Faith Books, 2022).
