Birmingham Pledge

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The Birmingham Pledge mural in 2020

The Birmingham Pledge is an oath aimed at eliminating racial prejudice. It was conceived in 1997 by Jim Rotch and has since evolved into a non-profit organization, the Birmingham Pledge Foundation which sponsors an annual Teen Conference, alliances with neighborhoods and communities, and organized Study Circles. Wade Black served as the foundation's director from 2006 until his death in 2014.

A Birmingham Pledge mural covers the east side of the Birmingham Police Headquarters building on 1st Avenue North.

To date, over 120,000 people worldwide have signed the Birmingham Pledge. In 2008 the foundation formed a partnership with the Cincinnatus Association which promotes good governance in Cincinnati, Ohio.

The 2011 class of Leadership Birmingham chose to renew efforts to publicize the pledge, with a goal of achieving 500,000 signatures before September 15, 2013, the 50th anniversary of the 1963 church bombing. The 2013 campaign was launched with a reading of the pledge at Hawk's View Overlook in the Ruffner Mountain Nature Preserve on January 1.

Text of the Birmingham Pledge

I believe that every person has worth as an individual.

I believe that every person is entitled to dignity and respect, regardless of race or color.

I believe that every thought and every act of racial prejudice is harmful; if it is my thought or act, then it is harmful to me as well as to others.

Therefore, from this day forward I will strive daily to eliminate racial prejudice from my thoughts and actions.

I will discourage racial prejudice by others at every opportunity.

I will treat all people with dignity and respect; and I will strive daily to honor this pledge, knowing that the world will be a better place because of my effort.

Civil Rights Movement (19561965)
Documents Segregation laws · ACMHR Declaration of Principles · Nonviolence pledge · Birmingham Manifesto · A Call For Unity · Appeal for Law and Order · Letter from Birmingham Jail · Birmingham Truce · Civil Rights Act of 1964
Events Freedom Rides · Who Speaks for Birmingham? · Selective Buying Campaign · Birmingham Campaign · Good Friday march · Children's Crusade · Police dogs and firehoses · List of racially-motivated bombings · 1963 church bombing · May 1963 riot
Organizations Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights · Birmingham City Commission · Ku Klux Klan · Miles College · NAACP · Southern Christian Leadership Conference
Activists Fred Shuttlesworth · Martin Luther King Jr · A. D. King · James Bevel · Frank Dukes · Edward Gardner · Lola Hendricks · Colonel Stone Johnson · Autherine Lucy · Vivian Malone · Joseph Lowery · James Orange · Nelson Smith Jr · John Porter · Abraham Woods Jr
Other figures Albert Boutwell · Robert Chambliss · Bull Connor · A. G. Gaston · Art Hanes · Lucius Pitts · Sidney Smyer · J. B. Stoner · "8 white clergymen" · Virgil Ware · "4 little girls"
Places Kelly Ingram Park · A. G. Gaston Motel · Movement churches
Legacy Birmingham Civil Rights Heritage Trail · Birmingham Civil Rights Institute · Birmingham Pledge

References

  • Rotch, Jim. excerpt of presentation to Operation New Birmingham on July 21, 1999. [1] - accessed April 6, 2006
  • Jaffe, Dana (September 14, 2008) "Ohio civic group takes notes on city pledge, racial history." Birmingham News
  • Crawford, Cindy F. (May 6, 2011) "Remember the Birmingham Pledge?" Birmingham Business Journal

External link