
By James L. Baggett
The story of the 1963 Birmingham civil rights demonstrations, and the brutal response from Birmingham officials has been told many times and often told well.
But missing from these accounts is an explanation for why and how Birmingham acquired police dogs, armored cars, and firefighters trained in riot control.
In the fall of 1959 the city’s public safety commissioner, Eugene “Bull” Connor picked up a copy of Reader’s Digest magazine and read an article about police dogs in London, England.
When Connor read the Reader’s Digest article, the Brown decision desegregating schools and the Montgomery Bus Boycott were recent events, and like other white supremacist leaders, Connor understood that preserving racial segregation would require battles in the courts and in the streets.
He needed new weapons, and acquiring dogs would be step one.
The Baltimore Police Department was the leader in the use and training of dogs, and Connor sent officers there to learn about the program and sent Birmingham’s first K-9 officer, Sargent M. W. McBride and his dog “Rebel” for training. Over the coming months, five more officers joined the K-9 corps.
The dog handlers had to meet specific criteria, including being under 32-years-old, physically fit, having an affinity for dogs, and must be married (preferably with children). The dogs lived at home with their handlers and while trained to maul a suspect, the dogs were portrayed to the public as gentle family pets when off duty.
Connor recognized the public relations value of his new K-9 corps and had himself photographed with the dogs. The handlers demonstrated their dogs for groups of school children and church groups who toured city hall. They visited schools and Connor made sure that powerful and influential members of the white community saw the dogs in person and in action.
He sent the dogs and their handlers to meetings of Civitan Clubs, Rotary, Kiwanis, and other groups. When his schedule permitted, Connor liked to accompany the dog handlers on these visits.
In addition to police dogs, Connor recognized an untapped source of additional personnel in the Fire Department. In March 1960, Connor announced that all Birmingham firefighters would undergo “riot training.”
He told reporters that he was taking this action in response to racial unrest in other cities. In an emergency, Connor said, Birmingham’s 433 firefighters could combine with the city’s 450 police officers to form the largest police force in the South.
For the final step in Connor’s plan, he acquired two armored cars (often described incorrectly as “tanks”). In March 1960, two police officers traveled to Biloxi, Mississippi to arrange for the transport of the military surplus World War II era armored utility cars to Birmingham. Built by Ford Motor Company between 1943 and 1945, the armored cars had bulletproof glass windows, and with six-wheel drive could reach a top speed of 55 miles per hour.
Each vehicle could carry four officers, including the driver. Originally a machine gun was mounted on the vehicles, but these had been removed. Each vehicle had eight small portholes through which the officers inside could fire shotguns. The two vehicles were taken to Birmingham on flatbed trucks, and then modified and painted white at the city garage.
Connor was confident that he had created an armed force that could crush any civil rights protests. He was wrong because he did not understand the nature of the nonviolent demonstrations he was about to face.
When Birmingham’s civil rights campaign began on April 3, 1963, it began just as Connor and other Birmingham whites had expected, with lunch counter sit-ins at downtown stores.
Between April 3 and May 8, when movement leaders suspended the protests in response to concessions from white Birmingham businessmen, two civil rights organizations, the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights, led by Birmingham pastor Fred Shuttlesworth, and the Southern Leadership Conference, led by Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., staged at least 21 sit-ins at downtown department stores and other locations; two sit-ins at the downtown Birmingham Public Library; and at least six instances of picketing outside stores and other locations.
Over four consecutive Sundays in April and May, small groups of African Americans conducted kneel-ins, visiting churches with all-white congregations and asking to be admitted and allowed to participate in the services.
The Birmingham campaign is most associated with large street protests. There were 11 of these, some small in size but some including hundreds of protestors and by-standers.
Over the course of the demonstrations, the dogs were deployed at least six times and unleashed on demonstrators and bystanders four times. Connor first ordered the use of dogs on April 7, when police used them to disperse bystanders watching a Palm Sunday march.
Connor did not order the use of dogs again until May 3, the second day of the phase of the campaign known as the Children’s Crusade. By this stage of the demonstrations there were too many demonstrators to arrest so Connor hoped to drive them from the streets.
Far from controlling the demonstrations, the dogs—surrounded by crowds of people, bombarded by the sounds of sirens, high pressure hoses, and people screaming—introduced an added level of chaos.
So many people were bitten by the dogs that one African American physician, whose office was near the site of the demonstrations, earned the nickname “Dog Bite Doctor” for treating so many demonstrators and bystanders.
When the dogs performed as they were trained, their presence frightened some demonstrators, especially children, who ran away. But many demonstrators stood their ground against the dogs. And some black bystanders taunted and attacked the dogs.
Fire units with hoses were deployed during the final six days of the demonstrations, often several times in a single day, for a total of 42 times. On some occasions the hoses were deployed but not used.
The fire hoses were equally ineffective. There were two objectives behind the use of fire hoses, to break up groups of demonstrators and cause them to flee the scene, and to block demonstrators’ advance and confine them to a specific area.
Neither of these things worked consistently. The water caused pain and injuries, including fractured bones. But rather than breaking and running, many demonstrators held onto one another, held onto buildings and other stationary objects, and absorbed the painful impact of the water with their bodies. Others retreated, but often just out of range of the hoses. Some people danced in the spray and taunted the firemen.
The armored cars were less effective than the dogs and hoses. There is no definitive record of how many times the cars were deployed, and protestors and bystanders did sometimes flee from the street to the sidewalk when one of the armored cars approached. The loudspeakers atop the vehicles allowed the officers inside to issue orders and call out specific individuals.
But the cars are also seen in photographs and film footage of the demonstrations parked along a curb, with small crowds of African American adults and children—people clearly not intimidated by the car’s presence—curiously studying the vehicles from a few feet away.
The dogs, hoses, and armored cars were not effective in the way that Bull Connor and much of white Birmingham wanted them to be. They did not stop the demonstrations, and they did not prevent desegregation.
But their use was recorded by photographers and film crews and have become some of the most impactful and recognizable images of American history, images that resonate with people throughout the world.
James L. Baggett is a writer and historian. From 1997 until his retirement in 2023, he served as Archivist for the Birmingham Public Library and Archivist for the City of Birmingham. He can be reached at BirminghamBaggett@gmail.com.
David Sher is the founder and publisher of ComebackTown. He’s past Chairman of the Birmingham Regional Chamber of Commerce (BBA), Operation New Birmingham (REV Birmingham), and the City Action Partnership (CAP).
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I have read many times about “unleashed” dogs (Mr. Baggett’s words) during the civil rights demonstrations, but of all the pictures of the dogs I have ever seen, I have never seen one where a dog was not under the full control of a handler — i.e., the leash, handle, or whatever was still held in the policeman’s hands, with the full ability to maintain control of the dog.
I would like to ask Mr. Baggett if he has ever seen a picture, video, or film of any dog(s) that was/were fully released from the control of an officer and let free to attack any demonstator(s) during the Birmingham demonstrations.
Mr. Stanford:
While the definition of the word “unleash” can be broader than “to be let loose from a leash,” I will concede your point that, to the best of my knowledge, the dogs were not set free from their leashes during the 1963 demonstrations (police dogs are sometimes let loose to chase suspects).
So, yes. When the dogs tore their teeth into the flesh of Birmingham citizens who wanted nothing more than their rightful seat at the table of democracy, when the dogs lunged toward and terrorized small children, when the dogs left painful wounds that required stitches to repair, the dogs were at all times on leashes and controlled by Birmingham police officers.
Thank you for your interest in my work, and all the best.
JB
Mr. Baggett,
Thank you for your response!
Dick Stanford
Leashed or unleashed, they were not dealing with animals but human beings who were fighting for justice and equal rights. I’m not sure if any leashed or unleashed were let loose on any of your people. Reading your response speaks volumes and less about your sensitivity.
If my friends, Jim Baggett and David Sher, don’t object, I’d like to post here my Facebook post for MLK Day yesterday. It might serve as an interesting footnote to Jim’s very illuminating column about Bull Connor and the Birmingham Police Department in the 1960s. (It doesn’t merit a full Comeback Town guest column like Jim’s. But I’m proud of my late sister-in-law. And her diary entry is both amusing and revealing about law enforcement in the city at the time.)
“I’d like to honor my wife Lida’s late older sister, Ellen Beaumont Ballard. Ellen was active in improving race relations in Birmingham as a teenager and college student in the late 1960s—a time when the city was still finding its way in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement just a few years earlier. She helped to desegregate her church, established relationships with Black students, and served as director of the first integrated neighborhood youth program in Birmingham.
Local Klan members repeatedly moved her Volkswagen Bug by hand from its parking place at the youth program office where she worked in Norwood. As she wrote in her diary, “I was threatened with bodily harm but when I reported it to the police I was told ‘Honey (it was always honey or sugar) there’s a file on you in the mayor’s office as thick as my arm. No one’s going to believe you.’” Neither the Klan nor the cops liked what Ellen was up to. “
Bob:
That’s a great story and a reminder of how much good one person can do.
JB
Did Bull not know the history of enslaved Africans in America since 1619 some say started in Virginia? You do not and cannot enslave GOD’s people. 1963 in Birmingham was an international year of tragedy! This city and county and state has yet to fully recover. The vestiges are alive and well, but we are encouraged and engaged each day of the week . A very long and loud KUDOS Brother Jim Baggett for keeping it real in 2025.
I will always believe that if we do not remember our history we may be forced to relive it. Knowing true history helps to avoid the repeat of bad events. This is an excellent example. For Birmingham it has additional significance, and that is the record of change that has happened since. It should be understood how tough a rod that was to travel.
I recall there was to be build a Forum for Peace on block near the 16th Street Baptist Church. An outstanding design concept had been created by one of the most renowned architects in the world, British Sir Norman Foster. I hope progress is being made on that project. Along with the museum nearby all that could be a truly magnificent concentration of places and events that could help Birmingham take a world leadership position.
Jim, thanks for adding insight and details to a story that has been repeated countless times. Very interesting stuff!
And thank you for your service as “our” archivist for all those years. Dr. Whiting was a mentor of mine—and I’m sure you made him proud.
Wow great article but I have to understand why you like but VOTE people in office that say this shouldn’t be taught in school??? why in whites in Alabama embarrass about what. they did my mom an dad endured the. FIGHT TO HAVE TO. TRUTH TOLD!!!!!! AN STOP VOTING FOR PEOPLE WHO AFRAID OF THIS HISTORY AN JUST WANT IT TO GO
THOSE WHO FORGET HISTORY IS DUMED TO REPEAT!!!! an maybe that’s fine for alot for youll
I echo Mr. Ivey’s appreciation for your article and for your long time service as archivist. The history of our city bears witness to a terrible injustice in the name of one group claiming superiority to another, a pattern that has repeated itself throughout the story of our species. Of course, we also have the capacity to see ourselves in each other and the universe and work toward a world that reflects that. History helps us understand both choices.
The dogs, fire hoses, and armored cars may not have been achieved the desired result. White flight began shortly afterward. The same type people who fought to preserve racial segregation are the people from Over The Mountain trying to tell Bham how it should govern itself.
This is why the meer idea of consolidating communities that purposefully broke away from Birmingham in pursuit of racial segregation will NEVER work. The Birmingham metro area is deeply divided, mostly along racial identity. All the feel good stories in the world aren’t going to change that racial identity matters in this part of the world, in this state, in this community, to the people of metro Birmingham. There are OTM people who are actively seeking to furhter breakaway from Birmingham by forming their own water works.
Division is not always a bad thing. I would be willing to bet you can’t find 10 people in Mountain Brook, Vestavia, and Homewood that thinks their community schools would be better off by combining with Birmingham city schools. Look at the communities that have flurished over the last 50-60 years. I would say without a doubt those communities that are overwhelmingly white and broke away from Birmingham are doing better that Birmingham city. Which communities have experienced the most growth?
It’s time to be real and stop kidding ourselves into thinking there is no racial component of our communities…that’s the largest component of our neighborhoods…racial identity.
Be Real Y’all