Bull Connor: History’s Unsung Hero

Looking back on my childhood, I remember the names of men put forth as men that were worthy of looking up to. I remember the story of how Lincoln freed the blacks and how Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act and was told that these men were heroes for their heroic deeds. Upon further examination though, it is not these men that are heroes, it is the men who stood against them that are the real heroes. Men who stood up against the tide of, not only federal overreach, but the breach in contract with the laws of nature – blacks are lesser thans and, if anything, should be subjugated. When opposition to the “muh Civil Rights” movement comes to mind, one can think of none other than Bull Connor.

Theophilus Eugene “Bull” Connor was born in Selma, Alabama on July 11, 1897. He was one of two boys born to Hugh King Connor and Molly Godwin Connor. His father worked as a train dispatcher and telegraph operator, so even though Alabama is where he was born and would later call his home, he moved around frequently as a child, living in several states in the process. They traveled as a family for a few years until, when he was eight years old, his mother passed away from pneumonia.

After his mother passed, he went to live with various relatives while his father continued to travel and work. He lived and went to school in (although he never graduated) Plantersville and Birmingham.

In 1920, he married Beara Levens, the daughter of a lumber mill operator, and settled permanently in Birmingham in 1922. They had two children. As he began his family life, and in the years after they settled in, he found work as a telegraph operator and on the side he would forward reports from the baseball games to  local pool halls using a megaphone. This, and the similarity between his name and a local newspaper cartoon character, Dr. B.U.L Conner, actually gave birth to the name he would identify with his entire life, Bull.

Due to his familiarity with reporting baseball, he was able to get a job as a radio announcer for the Birmingham Barons. Known for his booming voice and “ability to stretch the word out for two syllables” he gained the popularity necessary for his first run into politics.

In 1934, he entered and won the race for a seat on the Alabama House of Representatives on the Democratic ticket. During his term as a legislator he opposed increasing the state sales tax and increasing licensing fees, while voting to raised the poll tax (a measure to keep poor whites and blacks from voting. Hallelujiah).

In 1936, he decided not to stand for re-election, instead deciding to run for the head of the Birmingham Public Safety Commission. A position he won and would hold for twenty three years until 1963. The math doesn’t add up because he took time away in the early 50’s due to an extra marital affair.

During his time in this position, he did many things I consider to be badass (to say the least). In 1938, he ordered the attendees of the Southern Conference for Human Welfare at Municipal Auditorium not to “segregate together” causing a scene with the-then First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt (who was intensely disliked in the South at the time).

In 1948, his officers arrested a U.S senator from Idaho, Glen H. Taylor, who was running for Vice President on the Progressive ticket alongside Henry Wallace, for attempting to speak with the Southern Negro Youth Conference, thereby violating the city’s segregation laws. This is pretty fucking sweet if you ask me.

Also in 1948, he led a walkout at the Democratic National Convention by southern delegates in protest of Harry Truman’s civil rights policies. He also ran unsuccessfully for governor in 1950.

It gets better though. He hated commies. He is stated to have said, “There isn’t enough room in this town for Bull and the commies.” In 1950, he helped get an ordinance passed in the city making “communication or voluntarily association” with a communist party member a misdemeanor punishable by a 100 dollar fine and 180 days in jail. FUCK YEAHHHH! He also told those commie scum they had 48 hours to vacate the city (for real).

However, his time in office wasn’t without scandal. He was arrested after being found with his 34 year old secretary, Christina Brown, a few days after a Christmas party. He claimed to have been set up by members of the police department in Birmingham as a product of internal dissension. He was convicted in the city’s police court and sentenced to 180 days in prison. His impeachment was halted when the conviction was thrown out by the Alabama Court of Appeals in 1952. The veracity of this scandal is up in the air to me.

He came back in 1956 and was not fucking around. He organized a raid on that agitating scumbag Fred Shuttlesworth’s house during a “destroy the white mans country” meeting and arrested them for vagrancy, a crime you can be held without bail for the first three days of imprisonment. The federal government was all like, “Hey, were going to investigate.” Bull says “Fuck you.” As Bill The Butcher says, “That’s how you stand up against the rising of the tide.” Bill The Butcher also did nothing wrong.

Afterwards, he was elected as Democratic National Committeeman for Alabama in 1960.

In 1962, in an attempt to have the city portrayed in a better light on the national stage, the voters changed the form of government in the city by having the mayor work with a separate city council, instead of with two other city commissioners. This push was spearheaded by none other than Chamber of Commerce President (((William Smyers))) after he said he was in Japan and saw a picture of a bus in flames near Anniston, Alabama. He was just so traumatized that the white man was standing against integration and the destruction of their way of life.

Before leaving office, he held court with the agitators once more. In May of 1963, Martin Luther Coon was planning protests citywide, Bull was not having it. He ordered police to arrest and jail hundreds of  violent black adults and children, let the dogs loose on them and employed the use of fire hoses to quell the disturbance brought about by those actively and openly disrupting the way of life of white southerners whose ancestors settled the land and made it prosperous.

When asked if he could maintain segregation in its current capacity in Birmingham, he responded, “I may not be able to, but I’ll die trying.”

The public outcry nationwide against the events in Birmingham led to the hastening of civil rights laws by our malevolent federal government. With the cucking of the entire country secured, the powers-that-be pushed through their legislation and court mandates ended commonsensical segregation in the South. A sad day indeed.

After he left the post he held for twenty three years, he was again elected to office in June of 1964 as the head of the Alabama Public Service Commission.

In 1966, he suffered a stroke that left him bound to a wheelchair for the remainder of his life. His political career ended at this time and concluded a life of public service.

He was present for in the Haleysville police station when 911 was first used as an emergency number in the United States in 1968.

He suffered another stroke weeks before his death rendering him unconscious the remainder of his life before passing away on March 10, 1973.

Bull Connor foresaw the problems we face today. He did all that he could to keep Birmingham free from these problems and in the end came up short. The fact he was never willing to cuck to the federal powers and was relentless in his pursuit of the preservation of the southern way of life should make him a hero to all.

For what is it about the American spirit that makes us different?

It’s the will to stand up and be defiant in the face of those who abuse their power. To seek the best life for your people as there is possible. He remained constant and consistent. Theophilus Eugene Connor was, is, and always will be a hero in my eyes.

BULL CONNOR DID NOTHING WRONG!