Birmingham

This was the first full week of work. I read four books on Bull Connor and Birmingham to better understand place and protagonist. I have four more books to look at to fill in the blanks. There are similarities between the Bull Connor of Birmingham and the Jim Clark of Selma. They crossed paths at least once when Clark brought his posse to Birmingham in early May 1963 to assist Connor with the civil rights demonstrations. I still have my notes of last year analyzing Jim Clark so this week will be a writing week as I try to synthesize the two men in the context of their words and actions. I must frame my reasons for selecting these particular men as my primary examples of excessive racial violence. As my adviser says, I must begin to crystallize that all important connection between these two men and the European response to black Africans during the fifteenth century. That connection will be an intellectual link rather than a trans-historical causal relationship. The latter would require years of reconstructing historical events.