Most of the South's big citiesinfluenced by local businessmen, pressured by well-organized Negro communities, shaken by federal court orders, and sobered by the violent racial outbreaks that keep erupting from time to timehave gradually developed a new attitude toward segregation. To them, segregation is still preferable to integration, but not at the cost of self-destruction. A major exception to this trend is Birmingham, Ala. (pop. 340,887).
A grim, grimy, post-bellum steel town, Birmingham remains a backwoods with industrial chimneys. Its best-known citizen is Public Safety Commissioner Eugene ("Bull") Connor, a rambunctious segregationist. Rather than allow integration, Birmingham has shut...
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