Bull Connor was an ardent segregationist who served for twenty-two years as commissioner of public safety in Birmingham, Alabama. Using his administrative authority over the police and fire departments, Conner worked to ensure that Birmingham remained, as Martin Luther King, Jr. described it, “the most segregated city in America.” In 1963, the violent response of Connor and his police force to demonstrations in Birmingham propelled the civil rights movement into the national spotlight.
Connor was born on 11 July 1897 in Selma, Alabama. After the death of his mother when he was eight, Connor traveled around the country with his father, who moved from job to job as a railroad telegrapher. Connor never graduated from high school, but he learned telegraphy from his father and used this skill to gain employment at radio stations and eventually become a radio broadcaster.
Connor’s political career began in 1934 when he used his popularity as a Birmingham sportscaster to win a seat in the Alabama House of Representatives. After serving a term in the House, he was elected to the Birmingham City Commission and soon became known for his uncompromising opposition to integration. Upon his reelection as commissioner of public safety in 1957, he promised to uphold segregation in Birmingham “to the utmost of my ability and by all lawful means.” It was on Connor’s watch that the city earned the nickname “Bombingham,” with seventeen bombings of black homes and churches occurring between 1957 and 1963.
When Birmingham voted to convert from a city commission system to a mayor/council system in 1962, Connor announced his intention to run for mayor. Although he was defeated by Albert Boutwell in a run-off election the following spring, Connor refused to vacate his office and was still in control of the city’s police and fire departments when the Southern Christian Leadership Conference ( SCLC) and the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR) launched a massive direct action campaign in Birmingham in spring 1963 .
During the first days of the campaign, Connor avoided violent confrontations between police and protesters. Adopting the strategy that had successfully thwarted demonstrations in Albany, Birmingham police jailed wave after wave of protesters without incident. On 2 May, when campaign leaders called on young students to sustain the protest, police arrested more than 900 “Children’s Crusade” participants.
By 3 May, however, Connor could no longer maintain his restraint. He ordered firemen to use their hoses on protesters and onlookers; and as the demonstrators fled from the force of the hoses, Connor directed officers to pursue them with dogs. During the following days, television and newspapers across the country showed images of police and firemen using hoses, dogs, clubs, and cattle prods to force demonstrators from downtown Birmingham. “We were witnessing police violence and brutality Birmingham-style,” said activist John Lewis. “Unfortunately for Bull Connor, so was the rest of the world.”
National outrage pushed the Kennedy administration to send a negotiator, Burke Marshall, to Birmingham. The Birmingham campaign ended on 10 May when an agreement was reached between the SCLC and representatives of Birmingham’s business community.
On 23 May, the Alabama Supreme Court ordered Connor and the other city commissioners to vacate their offices. Within the year, Connor won election to the Alabama Public Service Commission, where he served as president until 1972. He died in 1973.