A new city built on coal and iron ore mining, steel mills and railroads, Birmingham was violent from its beginnings in 1871, six years after the end of the Civil War. ‘It’s a dry forest’ with men throwing matches: A history of homicide in Birmingham:
“It’s dangerous work, hard work, dirty work; it’s also segregated work,” Jett said.“Even in the 1930s, people were using dynamite,” in criminal attacks, Jett said.“You are entering the 20th Century with a lot of pistol-packing people in Birmingham,” Bass said. “Violence, especially racial violence, is steeped in the culture.”“There’s saloons, whorehouses, daily gunfights in the streets, migrants, rural Blacks, rural whites, immigrants, all coming together,” Bass said.
“If illiteracy, police brutality, and the perversion of justice are factors in the Negro’s high homicide rate, the responsibility lies at the door of those communities which deny him the protection of the courts, adequate public schools, and a chance to live in decent surroundings,” wrote Barnhart, who was fired from Birmingham-Southern College for blaming the white community for Black violence.
White Birmingham police officers were often content to let violence play out in the Black community with minimal consequences and little interest in bringing justice to killers.“Black on white crime is going to be reported,” he said. “White on Black crime might be. You don’t see a tremendous amount of humanitarian concern about Black-on-Black crime from the white community.”“Black on white crime is punished the most,” Bass said. “Black on black crime is punished the least.
From the city’s beginnings, the Black community was reluctant to turn to police for help, knowing that police officers often employed methods as violent as the criminals.
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