I guess basically it was due to the efforts of the power structure here
in Birmingham to portray any black other than Arthur Shores as being a
wild radical. There's a group in Birmingham known as Operation New
Birmingham, which consists of the business and considered political
leaders in the city. It represents, for want of a better word, the
establishment. In the runoff, Operation New Birmingham, which is partly
funded by the city of Birmingham . . . It has as a goal the creation of
a new image for the city, formed sometime after the '63 demonstrations
and the image of Birmingham that was carried forward in those days. It
is, you know, being partially funded by the city. But the leaders, or
the officials of Operation New Birmingham created a new group called
BAG, Birmingham Action Group. And the Birmingham Action Group, which
operated out of the headquarters of Operation New Birmingham, embarked
on a campaign, by telephone and personal contacts, to arouse the white
voters in the city to the prospect of Birmingham being controlled by
radical blacks. They had these telephone centers and they distributed
literature in the white communities. And basically urged the whites to
come out and vote or less the city would revert, probably, into the
hands of irresponsible blacks. And, you know, the effort paid off
because whites did come out in large numbers. And the support I had
gotten in some white boxes in the general election was not there in the
runoff. Birmingham, unlike many other cities in the South and other
parts of the country, has not arrived at the point where a majority of
the voters in the city are black. So that whites can still outvote
blacks here in Birmingham. And that's what happened in the city council elections back in the fall.