Behind the Magic Curtain: Secrets, Spies, and Unsung White Allies of Birmingham's Civil Rights Days
T. K. Thorne (NewSouth Books, 2021)
There was no chance I wouldn't want to read Behind the Magic Curtain: Birmingham's history has always held a fascination for me, particularly the story of the years when I lived there but was too young to follow the world-changing events. In addition to familiar mayors, bishops, and department store owners, the book is full of people I knew growing up there, including friends of my parents or the parents of my friends.
I'm sorry I can't report better of it as a reading experience. It's clearly the product of extensive research, but the notes and quotes don't necessarily add up to a satisfying narrative, any more than a stack of boards make a house. There may actually be too many characters, some of whom are brought in for a single anecdote, then forgotten. Given that, a better final editorial pass would have been a big improvement, as would a more sedulous indexing job. (How do you quote Bear Bryant in the text, and omit him in the index?)
There is a central character, however, and I didn't know about him before. Tom Lankford was the police beat reporter for the Birmingham News, reporting to Vincent Townsend, Sr., the general manager and assistant to the publisher. Townsend assigned Lankford, just a couple of years out of journalism school, to shadow Eugene "Bull" Connor and the Birmingham Police Department. This put him in a position to exchange favors with City Hall staff and police officers at all levels, and T. K. Thorne is not loath to admit that some of what he did fell outside the bounds of journalistic ethics. His first loyalty was to Townsend, but information flowed in nonstandard ways; he used hidden microphones and taping systems to find out about both the Ku Klux Klan and the civil rights leaders, often to the benefit of the police or Bull Connor. Lankford was on the spot when the Freedom Riders arrived at Birmingham's Trailways bus station, avoiding a Klan beating only because one of their number (who was an FBI spy, to boot) recognized him as "Bull's boy."
The whole story features strange bedfellows, and people who could have been allies but weren't. On the Black side, the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth had lawsuits and protests going before Martin Luther King ever came to town, only to have King getting the lion's share of attention in 1963. Thorne reprints the Birmingham Ministers' Letters of January and April of 1963, to which King's Letter from the Birmingham Jail was a response; she assumes the reader knows or can look up King's letter. In the climate of violence caused by White supremacists, the pastors, bishops, and one rabbi were offering utterly insufficient solutions for their Black neighbors: "When rights are consistently denied, a cause should be pressed in the courts and in negotiations among local leaders, and not in the streets." Even this was enough to stir up protests from their white parishioners, and they were utterly wounded when King said he needed much more, much sooner.
The other development in the spring of 1963 was an electoral impasse. The preceding November, voters had narrowly endorsed a change of governance from a system with three commissioners – Bull Connor was one of these – to a mayor and city council system. The mayoral election of March fifth resulted in a runoff between Bull Connor and Albert Boutwell; on April second, Connor lost, and refused to accept the results. The next day, Black students from Miles College began a program of sit-ins and boycotts directly challenging segregation. It was to be a long and raucous summer of marches, to the consternation of White moderates. David Vann, a lawyer who would later be mayor, said, "This is the most cruel and vicious thing that has ever happened in Birmingham." Well, no, sir, there were beatings, bullets, and bombs you could put up against it, if you really wanted to talk about cruelty.
The inconvenient timing of the protests was part of the point, not least because the Black leadership reckoned correctly that Bull Connor would not respond with moderation. Police dogs and fire hoses wielded on national television against schoolchildren would have more impact in Washington, D.C., than all the lawsuits and committee meetings of the preceding years. The September bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church, which notoriously killed four young girls, would make more of a difference to the consciences of White Birmingham. There was still a very long way to go.
Other books that I liked better:
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Any Good Books, January 2022
published by email 1/1/22
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