On this day in Alabama history: Kennedy sent troops to Birmingham

May 12, 1963   

After bombs damaged the Gaston Motel and the home of A.D. King, riots broke out across 18 blocks in Birmingham, injuring more than 50 people. President John F. Kennedy sent U.S. troops trained in riot control to military bases near Birmingham and pledged to preserve order in the city. Kennedy said, “It is my hope, however, that the citizens of Birmingham themselves maintain standards of responsible conduct that will not make outside intervention necessary.” However, then-Mayor Art Hanes told The Times that Robert Kennedy and King were among those to blame for the riots. Then-Gov. George Wallace said that violence would not be tolerated: “If it takes 1,000 or 10,000 law enforcement officers … order will be maintained.”

Read more at Encyclopedia of Alabama.

In spring 1963, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. led demonstrations in Birmingham. Police Commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor had King and other leaders arrested, prompting King to pen his famous Letter from Birmingham Jail. (From Encyclopedia of Alabama, courtesy of The Birmingham News)

Photograph showing the wreckage of a bomb explosion near the Gaston Motel where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and leaders in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference were staying during the Birmingham campaign of the civil rights movement. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Wikipedia)

A.G. Gaston Motel, Birmingham, 2010. (The George F. Landegger Collection of Alabama Photographs in Carol M. Highsmith’s America, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division)

For more on Alabama’s Bicentennial, visit Alabama 200.