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Summary:

Interview with Connie H. Pitts, a Navy veteran and law enforcement officer, concerning his experiences while serving with the Birmingham, Alabama, Police Department during the civil rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s. His youth in a rural segregated community in Alabama; contacts with African-American servicemen while a member of the SeaBees during World War II; decision to join the Birmingham Police Department, 1946; lack of proper law enforcement training; his promotion to detective; attitudes of policemen toward the African-American community; abuses by the police department toward the African-American community; attitudes of the African-American community toward the Birmingham Police Department; zoning problems, housing, and bombings in the 1950s; attendance at the FBI Academy, Washington, DC, 1956; school desegregation incidents; comments about Birmingham's Commissioner of Public Safety, Eugene ("Bull") Connor; dealings with the Citizens Council of Alabama and other white supremacist groups; sit-ins and demonstrations; freedom riders; tactics used for crowd control; comments about Alabama Governor George Wallace; bombing of the Gaston Motel, May, 1963; comments about Martin Luther King, Jr., and other civil rights leaders.

Author/Creator:

Pitts, Connie H., 1921-

Contributors:

Pitts, Stanley

Alabama Community History Oral History Project

Languages:

English

Language Notes:

Item content: English

Main Work:

Oral history interview with Connie H. Pitts, 2000 October 30 and 31 [by Pitts, C.H.]

Related Works:

University of North Texas oral history collection

Related Series:

Oral History; [volume] 1392

Subjects:

Carter, Asa E., 1925-1979

Wallace, George C. (George Corley), 1919-1998

Connor, Eugene, 1897-1973

King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968

Shuttlesworth, Fred L., 1922-2011

Abernathy, Ralph, 1926-1990

Pitts, Connie H., 1921- — Oral history

United States Navy — Seabees — Oral history

Birmingham (Ala.) Police Dept — Oral history

FBI Academy — Oral history

Citizens Council of Alabama — Oral history

Ku Klux Klan (1915- ) — Oral history

A.G. Gaston Motel (Birmingham, Ala.) — Oral history

Sixteenth Street Baptist Church (Birmingham, Ala.) — Oral history

African Americans — Civil rights — Alabama — Birmingham — Oral history

African Americans — Segregation — Alabama — Birmingham — Oral history

African Americans — Alabama — Birmingham — Social conditions — Oral history

United States — Race relations — Oral history

Birmingham (Ala.) — History — Oral history

Genres:

Oral history — Examples

Birmingham (Ala.) oral history — Examples

General Notes:

Interview conducted in 2000 for the Alabama Community History (Birmingham) Oral History Project. Interviewer: Stanley Pitts.

Physical Description:

95 leaves ; 29 cm

Call Numbers:

OH 1392

OCLC Numbers:

406626096