Eugene "Bull" Connor in Civil Rights Movement: Desegregation
Eugene "Bull" Connor (1897–1973) was a police chief in Alabama during the anti-segregation protests in downtown Birmingham.
In the spring of 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. launched a series of nonviolent anti-segregation protests in Birmingham, Alabama. In response, Eugene "Bull" Connor ordered his police department to use fire hoses, police dogs, and night sticks to break up the demonstrations. Images of this violent episode were disseminated worldwide and to this day symbolize the most brutal aspects of white resistance to Black civil rights.