 The Birmingham campaign , or 1963 Birmingham movement , was a movement organized in early 1963 by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference ( SCLC ) to bring attention to the integration efforts of African Americans in Birmingham , Alabama . Led by Martin Luther King , Jr . , James Bevel , Fred Shuttlesworth and others , the campaign of nonviolent direct action culminated in widely publicized confrontations between young black students and white civic authorities , and eventually led the municipal government to change the city 's discrimination laws . 
