Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-63

by Taylor Branch

From the beginning, it was no secret that their model was the 1960 march at the climax of James Lawson’s sit-ins in Nashville. This three-year-old event had become a new inspiration in Birmingham, since Bevel had been showing his film copy of an NBC special report on Nashville, narrated by Chet Huntley and David Brinkley. “Four thousand Negroes marched on the City Hall in Nashville, Tennessee,” Andrew Young announced at the mass meeting. “We would like to have that many here in Birmingham.” In their private strategy sessions, however, the leaders recognized that they faced crippling disadvantages. Nashville had jailed none of its marchers, whereas Birmingham had a consistent record of jailing them all. There had been no injunction against demonstrations in Nashville, nor any Bull Connor. Most critically, the Nashville march line had been formed mostly of students, whereas the Birmingham movement had been a grim war waged by Negro adults.