Don't Tread on Me

Don't Tread on Me. March Route to Retail. Leaders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) learned they could apply economic pressure to White businesses with more effective results than moral persuasion alone. Therefore, the central strategy of the Birmingham Campaign targeted the City's retail base. "Project C" (the "C" stood for "confrontation") started with sit-ins at Birmingham lunch counters and continued with marches, pickets and boycotts of Birmingham retail stores. Movement leaders used these non-violent direct actions to disrupt White businesses and hurt their profit margins. The SCLC's goal was to create an economic crisis, forcing Whites to negotiate with Blacks who demanded equal rights and an end to segregation., May 1963 , A female protestor remains defiant as police drag her away from a demonstration in Birmingham's nearby retail district. Activists in Birmingham-led for seven years by Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth before the 1963 Birmingham Campaign-put their lives on the line to rebel against the City's unjust and unconstitutional segregation laws. One such law, City Code Section 369, said, "It shall be unlawful to conduct a restaurant in the city at which White and Colored people are served in the same room...." Many Blacks march to the retail district to protest such laws with sit-ins and boycotts of downtown stores. There, some Whites spit on or verbally attack the protestors; but the non-violent protestors do not strike back. , "Get up, stand up, stand up for your rights." , Bob Marley , Musician and activist, Lesson B1: Explain the purpose of rules and laws. Do they apply equally to everyone?