 Wyatt Tee Walker wrote that the Birmingham campaign was " legend " and had become the Civil Rights Movement 's most important chapter . It was " the chief watershed of the nonviolent movement in the United States . It marked the maturation of the SCLC as a national force in the civil rights arena of the land that had been dominated by the older and <unk> NAACP . " Walker called the Birmingham campaign and the Selma marches " Siamese twins " joining to " kill segregation ... and bury the body " . Jonathan Bass declared that " King had won a tremendous public relations victory in Birmingham " but also stated pointedly that " it was the citizens of the Magic City , both black and white , and not Martin Luther King and the SCLC , that brought about the real transformation of the city . " 
