Civil Rights
Movement and Race Relations in Birmingham, page 6
Seibels, George
C., Jr.
Papers,
1967-1975
(AR 263)
George G. Seibels, Jr.,
the first Republican Mayor of Birmingham, was born in
1912 in Coronado, California. He grew up in Virginia
and graduated the University of Virginia with a degree
in history in 1937. Seibels moved to Birmingham in 1938
to work in the insurance business. He was elected to
the Birmingham City Council in 1963, served as Mayor of
Birmingham from 1967 to 1975, and represented Jefferson
County in the Alabama legislature from 1978 to 1990.
George Seibels died in Birmingham in March 2000. The
papers contain correspondence, memoranda, reports,
newspaper clippings, and photographs relating to
Seibels’ four years as a member of the Birmingham
City Council and his two terms as Mayor of Birmingham.
A major emphasis within the City Council Correspondence
is a study of African American police officers from
other Southern states. A major emphasis within the
Mayoral Correspondence is the Police Department files.
Topics include the department’s shooting policy,
police-community relations, and a wide range of
intelligence files.
Size: 51 boxes
Seibels, George
C., Jr.
Scrapbooks,
1967-1969
(AR 471)
Newspaper clippings
relating to the first two year’s of
Seibels’ term as mayor of Birmingham.
Size: 1 reel microfilm
Southern
Regional Council
Papers,
1940s-1960s
(AR 41)
The Southern Regional
Council was established in 1944 with an original
mission to promote economic development in the South
and work to improve opportunities for African Americans
within the system of "separate but equal"
racial segregation. The Council's membership,
representing 13 southern states, included college and
university presidents, labor leaders, clergymen, and
newspaper editors. In 1949 the Council announced its
opposition to racial segregation, and this shift in
policy led to a significant decrease in membership.
Based in Atlanta, Georgia, the Council collected
information relating to social conditions and racial
discrimination in the South and disseminated this
information through its publications. The organization
also helped to found state councils on human relations
in the southern states and assisted these state groups
with advice and funding. This collection contains
correspondence, memoranda, reports, and other material
created by the Southern Regional Council and the
Alabama Council on Human Relations (based in
Birmingham). The material relates primarily to race
relations and civil rights activity in Alabama (and to
a lesser extent the American South), the activities and
membership of the Ku Klux Klan and White Citizens'
Council, race and religious institutions, and economic
opportunities for African Americans.
Size: 4 boxes containing
4,727 pages
United States.
District Court, Northern District of Alabama, Southern
Division, Abraham Lincoln Woods et al vs. O. H.
Florence, et al, 1985
(AR 1124)
Size: 1 box
Underwood, Tony
Young
Men’s Business Club Research Files, 1946-1980
(AR 960)
The Young Men’s
Business Club was established in Birmingham, Alabama in
1946 and modeled on a similar organization in New
Orleans, Louisiana. The founders of the
Birmingham YMBC hoped to see their group develop into a
more progressive rival to the Birmingham Chamber of
Commerce. With a membership primarily made up of
businessmen and attorneys, YMBC sponsored speakers at
its luncheon meetings, presented an annual Man of the
Year award, and supported progressive causes including
the reapportionment of Alabama legislative districts.
Members of YMBC helped lead the campaign to change
Birmingham’s form of government from a
three-member commission to a mayor and council. This
collection contains oral history interviews, clippings,
minutes of meetings, correspondence, notes, and other
material relating to the Young Men’s Business
Club gathered by Tony Underwood while he was a graduate
student at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama.
The collection also contains drafts of papers on the
history of YMBC written by Underwood. The subject files
primarily contain material relating to YMBC and the
Civil Rights Movement, tax reform, the implementation
of daylight savings time, and the consolidation of the
City of Birmingham with adjoining suburbs.
Size: 1 box
United States.
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Alabama
Christian Movement for Human Rights Investigation
Files, 1956-1971
(AR 1875)
The Alabama Christian
Movement for Human Rights was established in 1956 in
Birmingham, Alabama. The Alabama attorney general had
recently banned the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) from the state,
and ACMHR was founded to help fill this void in
organized civil rights leadership. Founded by Rev. Fred
L. Shuttlesworth and other activists, ACHMR became the
dominate civil rights organization in Birmingham and
led campaigns against racial segregation on busses, in
schools and at the city’s railroad terminal. The
group supported sit-ins conducted by local college
students at downtown lunch counters in 1960 and the
Freedom Riders in 1961. In 1963, ACMHR worked in
conjunction with the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference and Martin Luther King, Jr. to stage several
weeks of nonviolent street protests against racial
discrimination. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s ACMHR
worked to secure employment for African Americans in
Birmingham area businesses and in the city government.
This small collection contains copies of memoranda,
clippings and financial reports complied by the Federal
Bureau of Investigation relating to the Alabama
Christian Movement for Human Rights. The memoranda and
clippings relate to the founding of the organization,
its activities (including protests) and the bombing of
the home of Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth (though
Shuttlesworth’s name is redacted in the memo).
Financial reports detail expenditures of the
organization for the years 1962 and 1965.
Size: 1 file containing
59 pages
United States.
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Alabama
“Freedom Riders” Investigation Files, 1961
(AR 111)
Photocopies of FBI
reports and memorandums documenting acts of violence
directed at the Freedom Riders in Alabama, the
investigations and trials stemming from the violence,
the activities of the Klan (primarily, the Birmingham
Eastview Klavern) and the activities of the Congress of
Racial Equality (CORE). Other material in the
collection includes internal FBI documents and
correspondence between the FBI and other organizations,
including correspondence to and from the Offices of
Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and FBI Director J.
Edgar Hoover.
Size: 7 boxes
United States.
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Asa Earl Carter
Investigation Files, 1956-1975
(AR 1726)
Asa Earl Carter was a
segregationist leader, politician, speech-writer, and
novelist. He was active in the Citizens’ Council
movement and the American States Rights Association and
founded the North Alabama White Citizens Council. This
collection contains F. B. I. reports, memos, letters,
newspaper clippings and photographs pertaining to
Carter. Some of the reports include interviews of
witnesses of his speeches and other activities,
investigations into terrorist activities of which he
was a suspect, written affidavits of informants,
interviews with Asa Carter himself and some of his
acquaintances, details of meetings of various
organizations that he lead or participated in, quotes
from his speeches and copies of some of his writings.
Size: 2 boxes
United States.
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Theophilus
Eugene ‘Bull’ Connor Investigation Files
(AR 1842)
Size: 1 box
United States.
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Jack Parker and
Johnny Brown Robinson Investigation Files, 1963
(AR 1843)
Size: 1 box
United States.
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Sixteenth Street
Baptist Church Bombing Investigation Files, 1963-1965
(AR 1308)
On the morning of
Sunday, September 15, 1963 a bomb planted by members of
the Ku Klux Klan exploded outside the Sixteenth Street
Baptist Church, an African American church, in
Birmingham, Alabama. The blast did extensive damage to
the church building and killed four girls inside.
Several other members of the congregation also suffered
injuries. This collection contains copies of reports
and other material prepared by the Federal Bureau of
Investigation relating to the bombing and to other
bombings, racial incidents, and the Ku Klux Klan. The
reports dated October 4, 1963 to April 9, 1969 consist
primarily of interviews. These reports are followed by
files relating to individual suspects and one file
documenting other bombings in Birmingham during the
years 1947 to 1956.
Size: 2 boxes
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