Modern Era · North America · Politics

1963

Birmingham fire hoses and dogs

May 3, 1963

Police Commissioner Bull Connor ordered high-pressure fire hoses and police dogs turned on Black schoolchildren marching for civil rights in Birmingham, Alabama. The television footage, broadcast into living rooms across the nation, shocked Americans and finally moved the Kennedy administration to draft what became the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The movement had found its moment of undeniable moral clarity.

More from 1963 Modern Era

In context

Also in 1963 (5 other events on record)

March on Washington, I Have a Dream · North America · Politics
JFK assassinated in Dallas · North America · Politics
Valentina Tereshkova orbits · Central Asia · Science
Thich Quang Duc burns · Southeast Asia · Religion
Medgar Evers assassinated · North America · Politics

Before and after in North America

Before: 1962: Andy Warhol shows Campbell's Soup Cans
After: January 1964: Cigarettes declared dangerous

Before and after in Politics

Before: October 16, 1962: Cuban Missile Crisis
After: July 2, 1964: Civil Rights Act signed

Era

Modern Era (1901–2000), one of 590 events from that era on Saeculum.