Activists being attacked by a police fire hose
The Birmingham campaign was a major activist campaign undertaken by the Civil Rights movement from 3 April to 10 May 1963, with African-American activists and sympathetic whites protesting against segregation in the city of Birmingham, Alabama. The campaign began with a boycott of stores that refused to give equal hiring opportunity to blacks, and students became involved in the protests as many adults were arrested by the racist police under Bull Connor. Connor used attack dogs, fire hoses, and police brutality against protesters, but the nonviolent protests caused national outcry against segregation. The imprisoned Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote "Letters from Birmingham Jail" to speak out against segregation, and calls for a March on Washington were made; President John F. Kennedy gave a civil rights address in response to the campaign, and the Civil Rights movement had its voices heard on a national scale.