For background reading on the civil rights movement and on Birmingham in particular, you may want to look at these books. One group deals with Birmingham, the other with the civil rights movement more generally.

The Mississippi Freedom Summer in 1964 forced the FBI to open an office in that state. Up until then the Bureau did nothing to protect civil rights workers, thought civil rights was subversive, and devoted its energies to surveillance of King and a series of dirty tricks. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was championed by LBJ, partly out of loyalty to Kennedy (who had been nervous about such legislation but was persuaded by the pressure of events in Birmingham to propose the bill), but primarily because LBJ was a New Deal Democrat with a commitment to justice for all.

Both Kennedy and Johnson knew that civil rights risked the Democratic Party's future among Southern whites; and as early as 1964 Wallace, Goldwater, and Reagan began working toward a major "realignment" of white voters by using the code language of crime and welfare.

The Children by David Halberstam (Random House, 783 pages, $18.95) covers the Nashville sit-ins during the winter of 1960, carefully prepared by James Lawson (Halberstam was a 25-year-old reporter for the Tennessean at the time). Then Halberstam goes on to show how Bull Connor in Birmingham and Jim Clark in Selma unintentionally discredited segregation before a worldwide TV audience. He also reminds us of the basic decency of Floyd Mann, Alabama commissioner of safety, who headed off much more violence.

Why the title? Kelly Miller Smith of Nashville called them "the children" (better than "students" or "agitators," he thought). They quickly moved ahead of their parents, who were accustomed to different rules. They quickly "grew up" in the arena of sit-ins and voter registration and direct action. The idiosyncratic and insightful James Bevel made Birmingham a children's crusade in May of 1963, rescuing a faltering campaign, because he knew that Bull Connor would overreact. The second half of the book traces many participants up to the present, including James Lawson and John Lewis, clearly the heroes; the erratic James Bevel; and Marion Barry, who got his start in the sit-ins.

On Birmingham in particular:

The richest and most recent book is Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama: The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution by Diane McWhorter (Simon & Schuster, 2001, 701 pages, $17), which received the Pulitzer Prize in 2002. The author was growing up in Birmingham during the crucial years, with almost no awareness of what was going on; the book, then, is a journey of discovery, looking into her own family and the many other people in Birmingham who were players in the civil rights battle. The 700 pages are only a portion of an original draft based on extensive research, much of it in the files of law enforcement agencies that had long sat in the Birmingham Public Library Archives.

In her judgment the good Christians of the city were really venerating the lame pagan god of fire, Vulcan, patron of the steel industry, whose statue still presides over the city. The book gets a running start with the earlier history of the city, the role of the Big Mules (later called Senior Citizens), and their imposition of the commission form of government with its limited representation (reversed by a referendum in the fall of 1962). She gives many details on the many links between the police and the Klan, and she has become an expert on the troubling career of Gary Thomas Rowe, an FBI informant who was directly involved in far too many incidents of violence.

J. Edgar Hoover was focused exclusively upon Communism (and in fact the most persistent champions of civil rights had been Communists or persons who, like Nelson Mandela, refused to scapegoat and break contact with supporters and advocates just because they bore an unpopular label). Hoover maintained his independent role in the Justice Department by letting John and Robert Kennedy know that he had compromising information on their personal lives. Negotiations over civil rights issues had to bypass Hoover, being carried out directly by Bobby Kennedy and his associates. In turn this enabled Hoover to apologize to state and local law enforcement officials for carrying out their directives.

The key local leaders were Pastor Fred Shuttlesworth and Lucius Pitts, president of Miles College, both of them masters at planning demonstrations. They knew that it was more effective to deal with business leaders than with office holders, and boycott threats were often effective. After Bull Connor discredited himself by turning the fire hoses on children, there was "Miracle Sunday," when firemen refused to use the hoses to quell another demonstration. Still the broken promises and the attacks kept up, requiring constant intervention and negotiation from the Kennedy administration.

Where does Diane McWhorter think we are now? She wrote a post-election piece suggesting that "morality" is the new "race." Crusades against homosexuality have the same "scripted" and authoritarian character as the old arguments about race. In the meantime, she says, the Fox network helps promote the "trash culture" that is, along with our freedom, what the terrorists hate us for.

A Fire You Can't Put Out: The Civil Rights Life of Birmingham's Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth by Andrew M. Manis (University of Alabama Press, 541 pages, $22.95) tells about a leader who was more a doer than a talker, belonged more among the working classes than among the professionals, perfected the strategy of using pressure and keeping it up, and was always willing to be personally on the front lines. In the process he set much of the civil rights agenda, starting with the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights in 1956. The book tells about his confrontations with Bull Connor; his role in the landmark New York Times v. Sullivan libel case; his hosting of the Freedom Rides in Birmingham; his organizing of the 1962 Easter shopping boycott; the 1963 campaign which was joined by King after his failure in Albany, GA; his ongoing tensions with King about leadership and tactics; the Birmingham church bombings; and the Selma-to-Montgomery march. Without Birmingham the 1964 Civil Rights Act would not have been passed, and Shuttlesworth gets much of the credit.

Blessed Are the Peacemakers: Martin Luther King, Jr., Eight White Religious Leaders, and the "Letter from Birmingham Jail" by S. Jonathan Bass (Louisiana State University Press, 322 pages, $21.95) looks further at the eight clergymen to whom the letter is addressed. There were two Episcopal bishops, two Methodist bishops, a Catholic bishop, and a Jewish rabbi, all of whom had relative job security, plus Edward V. Ramage of First Presbyterian and Earl Stallings of First Baptist, who were more vulnerable to pressure from their congregations. Two of the oldest remained conservative in their social views until their deaths; others were strongly influenced by the events, and Catholic Bishop Joseph Durick became an advocate of affirmative action and supported the Memphis sanitation workers' strike that was the occasion of King's assassination.

King knew little about them; the letter made some misstatements about the positions they had taken; he never sought a meeting with them, and no one sent them copies of the letter, just as the letter never had a formal signature. It was conceived from the start as an open letter, a press release. The idea had been considered earlier, but King's arrest on Good Friday, 1963, his imprisonment in the "Birmingham Jail" made famous by Jimmy Tarlton's ballad, and the eight ministers' public letter written the same day, presented an opportunity not to be missed. King drafted his reply on the margins of their letter, then on paper smuggled in by a Negro trusty, then on a pad his attorneys brought in; it was patched together by King's secretary and Wyatt Tee Walker.

The ministers had indeed called for gradualism and negotiation by local leaders. King replied that he had been invited to Birmingham by local leaders, and he pointed out that non-violent "direct action" did not create tensions but brought them into the open, making genuine negotiation possible for the first time.

But for Birmingham: The Local and National Movements in the Civil Rights Struggle by Glenn T. Eskew (University of North Carolina Press, 434 pages, $21.95) is perhaps the most careful of the discussions, beginning as a doctoral dissertation. It is often mentioned as the place to get exact information. But that doesn't mean that it lacks passion. Like other books mentioned here, it traces the "background" of the civil rights movement, and especially of "Bombingham," long known as "the most segregated city in America." Three themes become predominant as the climactic events of 1963 are investigated.

First, many of the business leaders in Birmingham knew that the city's future depended on diversified economic growth, and that racial intransigence spelled economic suicide. Only the steel industry stood firmly by the old approach. So these business leaders quietly worked to change the form of government and ease Bull Connor out of power.

Second, John Kennedy and his brother Bobby acceded to the Justice Department's "federalist" approach to the civil rights struggle. While they were often in telephone contact with King and Shuttlesworth, they were convinced that local and state officials, with whom they were also in contact, were the ones responsible for defending the marchers. The protests and the answering violence forced the Kennedy brothers to take direct responsibility. Their first strategy was for them and various members of the cabinet to make phone calls to the business leaders of the city, urging negotiations. It was only when successful negotiations turned out to be no solution to the violence that they decided to propose a Civil Rights Act, which was finally passed after Kennedy's assassination.

Third, Shuttlesworth's criticisms of King are affirmed here. King was willing to settle for less than the local movement's original goals, which included equal access to job opportunities; he called off the marches and declared victory. The book concludes with the judgment that the traditional black business class continued to have the leading role, often on a token basis, and that the majority of blacks, while they had access to the ballot box, were still mired in poverty.