Segregation ordinances

Birmingham's segregations ordinances were sections of the Birmingham City Code which required businesses and events to provide separate facilities for white and black patrons. Racial segregation was the custom in Birmingham from the beginning, but the city ordinances making it a matter of local law appeared mainly during the 1930s, and were enforced most strenuously during the long tenure of Birmingham City Commissioner Eugene "Bull" Connor.

Injustices arising from these local ordinances was one of the primary motivations for the organized Civil Rights Movement, which reached its head in the 1963 "Birmingham Campaign" aimed at desegregating downtown stores and lunch counters and opening up jobs as store clerks and municipal workers to African Americans. Various federal court decisions and the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 made the city's segregation laws unenforceable. The Birmingham City Council voted unanimously on July 23, 1963 to strike them from the city code. It was explained by city attorney J. M. Breckinridge that the action meant that "a private owner now has the freedom to decide whether he will or will not serve Negroes."

The Citizens Committee for Conservative Government opposed the repeal.

Codes

• Drug and Food, Section 309 was repealed. It had read, "It shall be unlawful to conduct a restaurant or other place for the serving of food in the city, at which white and colored people are served in the same room, unless such white and colored persons are effectually separated by a solid partition extending from the floor upward to a distance of seven feet or higher, and unless a separate entrance from the street is provided for each compartment."
• Gamblings, Section 597 was repealed. It had read, "It shall be unlawful for a Negro and a white person to play together or in company with each other in any game of cards or dice, or dominoes or checkers. Any person, who, being the owner, proprietor or keeper or superintendent of any tavern, inn, restaurant or other public house or public place, or the clerk, servant or employee of such owner, proprietor, keeper or superintendent knowingly permits a white person and a Negro to play together or in company with each other at any game with cards, dice, dominoes or checkers, or any substitute or device for cards, dice, dominoes or checkers, in his house or on his premises shall, on conviction, be punished as provided in section four."
• Offenses-miscellaneous, Section 859 was repealed. It had read:

"(A) It shall be unlawful for any person in charge or control of any room, hall, theater, picture house, auditorium, yard, court, ball park, public park, or other indoor or outdoor place, to which both white persons and Negroes are admitted, to cause, permit, or allow therein or thereon any theatrical performance, picture exhibition, speech or educational or entertainment program of any kind whatsoever, unless such room, hall, theater, picture house, auditorium, yard, court, ball park, public park, or other place, has entrances, exits, and seating or standing sections set aside and assigned to the use of white persons, and other entrances, exits, and seating or standing section set aside for and assigned to the use of Negroes, and unless the entrances, exits, and seating or standing sections set aside for and assigned to the use of white persons are distinctly separated from those set aside for assigned to the use of Negroes, by well defined physical barriers, and unless the numbers of each race are effectively restricted and confined to the sections set aside for and assigned to each race."

"(B) It shall be unlawful for any member of one race to use or occupy any entrance, exit, or seating or standing section set aside for and assigned to the use of members of the other race."

"(C) It shall be unlawful for any person to conduct, participate in, or engage in any theatrical performance, picture exhibition, speech or educational or entertainment program of any kind whatsoever, in any room, hall, theater, picture house, auditorium, yard, court, ball park, public park, or other indoor or outdoor place, knowing that any provision of the two preceding subdivisions has not been complied with."

"(D) The chief of police and members of the police department shall have the right, and it shall be their duty, to disperse any gathering or assemblage in violation of this section, and to arrest any person guilty of violating the same."

• Pool and billiard rooms and bowling alleys, Section 889 was repealed. It had read, "It shall be unlawful for a Negro and a white person to play together or in company with each other at any game of pool or billiards. Any person, who, being the owner, proprietor or in charge of any pool room, pool table, billiard room or billard table, knowingly permits a white person and a Negro to play together or in company with each other at any game of pool or billiards on his premises, on conviction, be punished as provided in Section Four."
• Sewers, drains and human wastes, Section 1110 was repealed. It had read, "Every employer of white or Negro males shall provide for such white or Negro males reasonably accessible and separate toilet facilities in such number that there shall be available a separate water closet for each 25 or lesser number of white or Negro males having access thereto during a single day. Such separate white and Negro toilet facilities shall be clearly marked to distinguish each from the other and it shall be unlawful for any person to use any facility not designated for such person's comfort."
• Sewers, drains and human wastes, Section 1111 was repealed. It had read, "Every employer of white or Negro females shall provide for such white or Negro females reasonably accessible and separate toilet facilities in such number that there shall be available a separate water closet for each 25 or lesser number of white or Negro females having access thereto during a single day. Such separate white and Negro toilet facilities shall be clearly marked to distinguish each from the other and it shall be unlawful for any person to use any facility not designated for such person's comfort."
• Ordinance 63-07: A new ordinance to prohibit "unlawful assemblages and breaches of the peace," was passed, consolidating various existing ordinances. The new law spelled out that no more than six individuals could participate in a demonstration, and that they must maintain a distance 10 feet between each other when in front of a business or public facility. Also, demonstrators were barred from, "shouting, singing, or engaging in any boisterous conduct 'in such a manner as to disturb the peace and tranquility of the community'."
• Building Code of Birmingham, Section 2002.1 was amended to remove a requirement that new buildings provide separate toilets for use by white and black users.

References

• "All city's segregation ordinances repealed" (July 23, 1963) The Birmingham News - via Birmingham Public Library Digital Collections