(static crackling) - The separation of the races will be left intact and will still be in full force and effect in exactly the same manner and form as we know it today.

- [Narrator] The dawn of the 20th century marked a period of unprecedented unrest and fear for African Americans in many parts of the nation.

In the South, African Americans were living the harshest realities of Jim Crow segregation.

Resistance to discrimination and racial segregation received national attention as newspapers, especially the Black Press, radio, and eventually television documented the struggle to end racial inequality.

Education would soon become a defining issue of the resistance, and the courtroom would become center stage.

- The South isn't ready for that step, and I feel that that time should be decided by the South.

- [Narrator] The Civil Rights movement in Alabama introduced us to great Americans, like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, and John Lewis, who would go on to become an icon of the US Congress.

While they were among the giants of the movement, there are many others whose work is not as well known, but whose stories of courage and sacrifice are no less important.

One of them was Birmingham's civil rights attorney, Arthur Davis Shores.

This is his story.

- I may be poor.

- I may be poor.

- But I am.

- But I am.

- Somebody.

- Somebody.

- [Activist] There is a brand new Negro in the South.

with a new sense of dignity and destiny.

- I am.

- I am.

- That.

- That.

- Beautiful.

- Beautiful.

- Proud.

- Proud.

- [Speaker] I must be respected.

- [Crowd] I must be respected.

- [Speaker] And men will seek to destroy.

They have been generated through a tragic level of inhumanity and sin and evil.

(brooding music) - [Narrator] By the 1940s, some black families in Birmingham were trying to buy homes in white neighborhoods.

The local Ku Klux Klan began a terror campaign against black families who tried to move to the west side of Center Street, sometimes firing gunshots, setting front doors on fire, and even planting bombs.

In fact, from the late 1940s to the '60s more than 40 such bombings took place in Birmingham, and none were ever solved.

Two of those bombings damaged the home of Arthur Shores, who had become one of the very first black attorneys in the state of Alabama.

- My father was raised by an aunt and uncle.

His parents were from Montgomery, Alabama, and they felt that he could get a better education here in Birmingham.

He grew up here in Birmingham and attended the city schools here for a long time and went to Parker High School, which at that time, it was industrial high school.

I found pictures of him from high school and his graduation, and he was always a sharp dresser.

- [Narrator] After high school, Shores choice of colleges was limited because of his race.

- And during that time, several of his classmates also went to Talladega College.

- [Narrator] As a young man, Shores, like other black students, was barred from enrolling in any state colleges.

- We have absolutely no intention of integrating in the South, those areas which have been segregated for at least a hundred years.

- [Narrator] However, there were private institutions where black students could pursue higher education.

One of them was Talladega College.

In 1865, William Savery and Thomas Tarrant, two men who had survived slavery, began providing education to children of other families who had been enslaved.

It became the home of the state's first private liberal arts college dedicated to serving the black community.

- The end of the Civil War and during the beginnings of reconstruction, those people came south to help do what?

The first thing that had to be done with freed slaves was to ensure that they can read, write, and calculate.

And that's what they did.

Started, helped to start black schools all over the South.

Talladega College is one of those schools.

- This story is remarkable.

As slaves, they help build the first building.

And then with the support of and in partnership with the American Missionary Society, then come together.

Wow, right?

Attorney Arthur Shores is without question one of our most notable alums and brought great honor and lived up to the genius of our founder.

- [Narrator] Shores came from very humble beginnings.

And during his freshman year at Talladega, he ran out of money to pay for his education.

- And so the dean called him in and asked him, you know, what did he plan to do.

Because if he didn't have the money, he would not be able to continue school.

So my father asked if he could just have a little time to raise the money.

And what my father did, he started a business of washing, ironing, and mending the fellow's clothes in the dormitory, and he also started a shoeshine business.

- So I think he shined shoes and he said he had so many customers that he hired a few people, boys on the campus to help him work.

He was just an all around man.

He worked hard and he encouraged everybody else to work hard.

- [Narrator] But his business ventures became so profitable that he hired classmates as part of his workforce.

Soon, Shores would pledge Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Incorporated, the country's oldest African American fraternity.

- Arthur Shores is a Talladega man, Talladega graduate, and an Alpha man, Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity Incorporated.

"First of All, Servants of All, We Shall Transcend All."

I think he was the epitome of that.

He was a servant.

And I think when it comes to Alphas, we have to serve.

But in serving, it requires us to lead.

Everything I know about being an alpha, and I'm proud to be an alpha, it is literally about serving others, but it's also about leading.

- From the moment he stepped on campus, he was an outstanding student.

He was a member of Alpha pHI Alpha fraternity.

He was an entrepreneur on campus.

- He was able to finish school.

And right before the graduation, my father and several of his friends were sitting on the steps of Sumner Hall and they were all talking about the aspirations as to what they planned to do once they finished school.

Well, some said they wanted to be doctors, educators.

And they said, "Well, Shores, what do you plan to do?"

And my father told him at that time he planned to be an attorney and practice in Birmingham, Alabama.

And they laughed and said, "Well, you may be an attorney, but you aren't gonna practice like the white attorneys here in Alabama."

(gentle brooding music) - [Interviewer] Why don't you tell us, Mr. Shores, how you started out to become a lawyer?

- Well, while I was in college, I was impressed by a member of the board of trustees of Talladega College.

This man was not only graduated of Talladega, George Gordon Crawford, but became an outstanding lawyer in New Haven.

He represented the New Haven Railroad.

Well, I was very much impressed with Crawford.

And although, even prior to that, I had made up my mind that I would like to be a lawyer.

And naturally after I finished college, I wasn't able to go right into law school so I took a job as an instructor, Dunbar High School Investment.

- He had a 15-year career as a teacher and a principal at a major black high school in the area where he grew up.

He also taught at Winona in the night school.

And this is where a lot of ore miners were getting education in the evening.

(machineries rattling) And so he was introduced to folks who were in the first integrated union.

- He began teaching school and became a principal, a leader.

During the time that he was an educator, he could not attend the University of Alabama and seek a law degree.

As a matter of fact, he couldn't attend any of the major universities, colleges in the state of Alabama that were limited and restricted to the white race.

- [Narrator] Due to extreme segregation laws, when Shores graduated from Talladega in 1927, a black man could not pursue a law degree at a state school in Alabama.

So the chances of a black man passing the bar were extremely low.

- In order for a black lawyer to go to court, he had to hire a white lawyer.

And he could not sit at the table with the lawyers.

He had to sit where the public sat.

- My father was very courageous and fearless and he would always try to step outside the line and trying to find some remedy for what was going on that was wrong.

And I think that was one reason why he went into law, because he wanted to see things change for the better for all people.

- [Narrator] It's the 1930s and the United States is struggling to stay afloat as it deals with the Great Depression.

- Most men did not have work.

Most working class men did not have jobs.

There was no money in circulation.

Jobs here in Birmingham were scarce because U.S. Steel had just shut down its operations.

So it was very, very difficult for a black man to pass the bar.

- [Mason] So he had to do something different if he wanted to be a lawyer.

- [Narrator] Shores would enroll in an extension program offered by La Salle University in Chicago.

- And he completed his course in the study of law and he began to take the Alabama bar.

- [Narrator] It was 1935, and Shores had recently finished law school.

His next steps included taking the bar in Alabama, but this would prove to be an arduous process for him.

- He started taking the bar in 1937.

The first time he went down to take the bar, he failed.

He had done all of his answers for the exam with his typewriter and put his paper right on top.

He failed the first time.

The second time, he did the same thing.

He went down, took the test, took his typewriter, typed out all of his answers, and he failed the second time.

The third time he went down, he didn't take the typewriter and he wrote out all of his answers like the white fellas who were taking the test.

The 19 people who passed, my father was one of the 19 who passed.

And he said that when he took the exam and got ready to turn his paper in, instead of putting it on the top of the pile, he sort of slid it in the bottom.

And he was able to to pass at that time.

- Arthur Shores was a very courageous, intellectual individual.

- Remember, we still coming out of the Great Depression.

He passed the Alabama Bar and began practicing law.

- [Narrator] Pride in being black.

Being proud of this is never before is at the heart of a continuing struggle for full participation in American society.

The struggle has often been militant, the struggle has sometimes been violent.

But rioting and destruction have not brought solutions.

- So when I think about the fact that Arthur Shores operated in a time in this nation that wasn't so removed from reconstruction, right?

That he operated in segregated Birmingham, that he operated in a time when our value as human beings, black human beings wasn't even acknowledged.

- [Narrator] Just a couple of years later, in 1937, Shores finally passed the bar in Alabama and became the only black attorney in the state for the next decade, - Mr. Shores was ultimately licensed by the State Supreme Court, and he immediately began practicing law after that.

- Almost immediately, he filed his first civil rights case.

(spirited music) - There was a time when I first began the practice of law the first two or three years, I became associated with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Being the only black lawyer in the state, they retained me to represent their interest and to associate with the National Council here in Alabama.

- [Narrator] On the desegregation side at the 1956 Convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, a policy on desegregation suits was adopted.

- [Narrator] The NAACP was formed in 1909 to advance justice for African Americans using the legal system as its primary vehicle for change.

It was a leading organization led by outstanding attorneys.

(crowd cheering and applauding) - I think I know the people of Alabama, and I'll tell you now, you are not going to permit the NAACP to take over your suit.

(crowd cheering and applauding) - [Narrator] Still, Shores would take on radical cases that truly tested the strength of segregation law.

One such case was in 1939.

- [Barbara] Now, one of the first cases that he had was a police brutality case.

And we are talking about 1939.

- [Marjorie] And the case involves Will Hall being beaten by a Birmingham police officer, and Shores wins the case.

- This was unheard of for a black attorney to go to court where a black man had been beaten in jail by a white officer.

- [Arthur] Surprise of everybody, including myself, they found this officer guilty and suspended him for 30 days, put him on a year's probation.

Well, the courthouse was crowded.

In the corners of the hall, I was being congratulated.

- So they did not know that the police had sent a man to start an argument with my father.

And so when the man came up, my father thought that he was gonna congratulate him.

And when he reached his hand out, the man took a swing at him.

- [Arthur] And my friend beat him down in the corners of the courthouse, closed both of his eyes.

- [Marjorie] A scuffle breaks out in the core, and Shores and all his compatriots are arrested.

- They were all arrested when my mother got him out of jail for $5 for the bond.

But what that did for my father, people who did not know that he was practicing, found out that he was the only black attorney here in Alabama and people started coming in at that time.

- [Narrator] Despite his newly acclaimed popularity, Shores would remain a principal at the local high school.

It was here that he would meet Theodora Warren.

- First of all, they dated for nine years when they were teacher and principal at the school.

My mother was a teacher and she taught at Dunbar for years, and she was very creative.

My mother could go to town and see a dress in Loveman's window and come back without a pattern and make that dress.

She made a lot of our clothes and she made a lot of her evening gowns.

- [Narrator] She was a teacher at the local high school.

She stood out to Arthur for several reasons; her professionalism, her smile, and the way she carried herself.

But one thing stood out to almost everyone else.

Theodora's skin tone was lighter than most blacks, and she was often mistaken for a white woman.

Arthur and Theodora got married and had two girls, Helen and Barbara.

And while these girls only ever saw them as mom and dad, they were met with the harsh reality of their time.

- My mother could easily pass for white, but she did not want to.

My father was very dark skinned, my mother was very light-skinned.

And growing up, I would be teased.

They would say, "Your mother's sunshine, but your dad is midnight."

- [Narrator] As a young girl, the effects of segregation became apparent to Barbara.

- And that became a joke among some of my friends and all during that time.

Things were so segregated that blacks could not go in and try own shoes or sit down right in the front of the store.

But when she would go in, they would tell her to have a seat and my sister and I would go bouncing in after her and they would say, "Oh, you all can't sit there."

And my mother said, we're all together, and we would eventually leave.

Could not try on the clothes, but they would allow her to try on clothes, but she never would wanna take advantage of anybody thinking that she was white.

When she went to get her driver's license, they put her race as being white.

- [Narrator] Normal activities started to become a burden.

- One time we were taking a vacation down to Florida.

And when we were driving to Florida on this one occasion, a car kept trying to drive us off the road.

And so what happened, my father pulled off and this inebriated white man came into the car almost leaning in and said, "I just wanted to know what this black man," and I'm using that real polite, "was in the car with this white woman and these two pickaninnies in the backseat."

So I could see my father slowly moving his hand to the glove compartment where he kept the gun.

And my mother said, "Just leave, Shores, go on," in which we did.

So we grew up having incidents like that happening.

- [Narrator] Personal experiences like these only helped galvanize Shores passion to fight segregation and discrimination within the courts.

- I think that we're very satisfied with the conditions as a rule along now, and we don't want a lot of change.

We like to keep it as it is.

Let each person stay on their own side of the fence.

- You wouldn't be for desegregation at all then, would you?

- No, I think segregation is the prophecy.

- What about this business that a lot of people say about being created equal?

What's your feelings about that?

- I don't think they are.

- I don't think words can really and adequately describe what the courage of Arthur Shores and so many of the civil rights lawyers had during that time to face just the opposition that was built up over decades and centuries.

Not just over a few years, but decades and centuries.

That's a lot.

That takes a lot.

- Another very important case here in Jefferson County was, at that time in the city and in the county, there was disparity between the salaries of black instructors and white instructors.

- [Narrator] Shores had seen firsthand the inequality and lack of fairness in the school system.

He would tackle a systemic problem with great precision and endurance.

- Ruby Jackson Gaines was a teacher in the Jefferson County school system.

And during that period of time, those that taught school, such as my father, were paid on a discriminatory basis.

The Birmingham Board of Education, the Jefferson County Board of Education and all the boards of education had two tiers of pay for their teachers, one for blacks and one for whites.

The whites made more money than the blacks.

- So we filed an action against the Jefferson County Board of Education.

When Judge Murphy came down to the court on crutches, he'd been ill and said, that's his case and he wanted to decide it.

So he decided that case in our favor, required the county to equalize salaries of blacks and whites with the same type of job.

- [Narrator] A change in legislature like this in Birmingham was unheard of.

But even so, resistance to this change was steady and subtle.

- The decree was entered, but we found a little later on we had some accountants to check the board's records and found out that they still had not equalized the salaries.

So we brought another contempt action against the Board of Education.

As a result of that, the salaries were actually equalized.

- First of all, it took a very brave and courageous person willing to bring a lawsuit.

- I don't like to use the term war, but it is almost like you have an army and you've got the Dr. Kings and the Reverend Shuttlesworth and all, and they were the kind of the public figures delivering the message.

But then you had people like Thurgood Marshall, who was the general, the commander of all of the generals.

And Arthur Shores was one of those generals that was leading the charge in the court of law.

And that's where the real difference was made, at least initially, is in the law.

Once you get the law changed, then it's gonna be up to others to get the hearts and minds changed.

- [Narrator] Two years later, in 1941, Shores would once again find himself persuading a courtroom of people who were adamant about keeping the status quo.

- One case that he was really proud of was a case involving L & N Railroad and a man by the name of Bester Steele.

- Bester was a labor leader.

He had been working with the L & N as a fireman, which is a very dirty job.

It's the highest black could reach in working on the L & N. He'd been working with the L & N for 31 years.

- And he taught a lot of the white young men coming in, but he could never get a raise or promotion.

So he took this case to court.

And this was a case that he argued all the way to the Supreme Court.

There were other attorneys with him, but he was the one to argue all the way to the Supreme Court, and one.

And this was in the '40s.

- The Steele case set a national precedent that was later solidified in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that basically banned racial segregation by race, religion, sex in the workplace.

- You think about the '50s and '60s, there was so much fighting going on here.

Well, prior to King actually visiting Birmingham for the 63 crusade.

The people that were on the front lines, including Arthur Shores, advocating for all these people who were creating these court cases.

And I think that's a testament to his character.

I think that's a testament to his courage.

I think that's a testament to the man who he was.

- [Narrator] If these cases indicated anything to Mr. Shores, it was that the fight for civil rights would be a steep uphill climb.

- [Reporter] Hammers are ringing, saws are singing, new plastering, plumbing, cement work, wiring, heating, bricklaying, painting, new work going on all over the country as the remodeling program sponsored by Uncle Sam.

- [Narrator] President Roosevelt started the Federal Home Administration with many committees formed within that structure.

- [Reporter] The Federal Housing Administration were charged against this first stage of the development.

It would've been an expenditure of only $2 and 32 cents of government funds to have provided each of these family heads with a paying job and renewed self-respect.

- [Narrator] They have the power to develop policies for developing communities, financing, and development of homes.

However, the committees established rules that did several things that hampered black people.

- One, a black developer could not secure a loan from the FHA to develop a community.

Two, a black purchaser of the house could not secure an FHA insured loan at that time.

Three, communities were redlined all over America in every major and even mid-size city where blacks lived.

The redline was a line that divided the communities, black on one side, white on the other side.

- [Narrator] But the FHA took things even further.

There was a policy that stated that if the majority of people living within a block were either white or black, then that neighborhood had to remain that way.

- This is a way of maintaining segregation.

- [Narrator] And this segregation only empowered those who strongly rejected any notion of integration.

Black people who built or purchased a home too close to a white neighborhood typically found their homes bombed.

- A black man bought a piece of property that was zoned for white and had a house built on it.

And when the house was completed, he applied for a certificate of occupancy, and the city refused.

- Arthur Shores filed a lawsuit in federal court and the federal district judge declared the Birmingham segregation or housing segregation ordinance to be unconstitutional.

- And the night after this certificate of occupancy was issued, that house was completely destroyed by dynamite.

- [Narrator] And this attack would not be the only one.

Any home that the KKK deemed too close to white neighborhoods or had a black owner upsetting the laws of that day found themselves in a similar predicament.

- So this is called a planimetric map, which shows all the houses.

On that, we've drawn the racial barrier that divided blacks and whites in this area.

So the map documents the location of bombs in this area.

Bombs that went off in the period of testing of the racial zoning from '47 to '50.

- [Randall] The red line in the community where Mr. Shores lived ran straight up Center Street, the middle of the street.

- Now in '52, my father felt that his practice was going pretty good and he decided that he would build up on Center Street in Dynamite Hill.

But instead of going across on the west side, we stayed right on the corner right across from Center Street and we built the home.

And that was in 1952.

My father was taking on a lot of cases, a lot of voter registration cases where blacks would go in to register to vote, but they were never given the right to vote.

You would have a line of white registrars where they could ask all types of questions.

They would say, how many bubbles are in a bar of soap?

How many stars are in the constellation?

Can you tell me how many jelly beans or peanuts are in this jar?

Well, blacks couldn't answer that.

- In order to keep the black man out as a voter, they instituted the process of requiring them to interpret the constitution.

- But one occasion, my father told the story of how this old gentleman came up in his Sunday golden meeting suit and tie.

He was on a cane and he walked up and they told him to recite the US Constitution.

So my father said, a little man straighten up, straighten his little tie up and everything and started reciting the Gettysburg Address.

The white registrar didn't know the difference between the Constitution and the Gettysburg address.

And after a few sentences, the old white man sped in the corner and said, "Well, I didn't know there was a negro in Alabama who knew the Constitution," and he got the right to vote.

- And that went on for a number of years.

When I went down to register to vote in 1958, I was a rising third year law student at law school at the State University of New York.

The question was asked me to explain the 14th Amendment.

Well, that was a very interesting question because I had just completed a year's study of constitutional law.

All of that was explained by me to the people that asked me the question, and they didn't have the slightest concept of what I was talking about.

The registrar who was asking me that question threw up her hands and she slammed them down on the table between the two of us and she said, "Oh, hell, just let the nigga vote."

- You know, when we talk about our greatest ideals, our greatest moments of country, it's not in our divisions, it's us being together, right?

That making sure that everyone has an opportunity to fully participate.

We know what it means when people feel empowered to participate, right?

That we know that just systems means that everyone is welcomed, everyone gets the same square deal, right?

That if there are inequities that we address, you know, those issues, there's a moral component to that, right?

There's a moral component that says, "We're not gonna let you be treated less than."

- [Narrator] It was this very sentiment that factored into the cases Mr. Shores took.

Not only was Shores fighting segregation and discrimination throughout Alabama, but his recent attack on the housing laws, combined with his moving on the edge of the red line in Birmingham, made him a target.

- The Klan was upset about Mr.

Shore's activities in the area of civil rights.

- [Narrator] And one case that rubbed the clam the wrong way was Lucy versus Adams.

- He argued one of the most consequential cases in civil rights history, the Lucy case, which provided opportunities for plaintiff, Lucy and others, to attend the University of Alabama.

- [Narrator] It was a chilly afternoon in February of 1957, and Arthur and Lucy had just become the first black student at the University of Alabama.

Four years earlier, she had been denied admission solely based on her race.

For decades, the issue of segregation within Alabama school system remained a prominent political concern.

While several other states took steps toward integration, Alabama lagged significantly behind.

The NAACP was heavily involved and retained three of its top civil rights attorneys, Constance Baker Motley, Thurgood Marshall, and Arthur D. Shores.

- Those lawyers had a great national reputation and they agreed to come into the case that Mr. Shores had for Arthur and Lucy because his case attacked the public education system of the state of Alabama.

- [Narrator] The case revolved around the fact that Arthur and Lucy was accepted to graduate school at the University of Alabama.

But two weeks later, when university leaders realized they'd admitted a black woman, things changed.

- The board of trustees of the University of Alabama just behaved horrendously.

It's a horrendous travesty of justice.

- I graduated from a local college, Miles College in 1955.

Arthur and Lucy is Miles College graduate, but the entire black community watched that case.

We were all transfixed on that case of Arthur and Lucy.

- It was national, and dare I say, international news.

- [Narrator] Mr. Shores delivered a fiery defense and testimony of this fact.

And in the end, the federal judge cited with Shores, requiring the University of Alabama to never deny admittance based solely on race or color.

- Ultimately, Arthur and Lucy was admitted to the University of Alabama.

She was admitted for one day.

- [Narrator] The result of this four-year case created an absolute uproar among whites partial to segregation.

Following intense rioting, the university expelled Lucy despite the court's decision.

- [Reporter] These rioters created so much violence that the university expelled the negro girl.

- [Narrator] It would take almost a full decade before the University of Alabama finally became integrated.

And even then, George Wallace, the state's governor, would make his famous stand for segregation, (indistinct) the hand of President John F. Kennedy and the National Guard.

- We have a right to expect that the Negro community will be responsible, will uphold the law, but they have a right to expect the law will be fair.

- [Narrator] The intense media coverage of this case and the resulting rioting had inadvertently brought consequential attention to Mr. Schwartz.

- In the late '40s, as the Birmingham's racial segregation ordinance was tested, the Klan responded with cross burnings, fires and bombings of residences.

(crowd cheering) - Can you perceive such a thing?

(crowd cheering) Are you going to do something about it?

(crowd cheering) - [Narrator] Shore's success in fighting Jim Crow laws had upset the Klan.

He had become a real threat to their agenda.

It drew the attention of one man in particular who was equally invested in seeing justice come to his people, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. - Whereas a majority of the negro citizens of Alabama have refrained from riding city buses since December 5th, and because of the unconstitutional seating arrangement, be it therefore resolved that we, the Negroes citizens of Montgomery, Alabama, do now and will continue to carry on our mass protests.

(crowd cheering) It has been moved and seconded that the resolution, the red will be received and adopted.

Are you ready for the question?

All in favor, let it be known by standing on your feet.

(crowd cheering and applauding) - [Narrator] In April, 1963, Dr. King joined in a massive direct action campaign to attack the city segregation system by putting pressure on Birmingham's merchants during the Easter season.

It was a campaign that culminated in widely publicized confrontations between young black students and white civic authorities led by City Commissioner Bull Connor.

- I was directed to go to Alabama's largest department store, (indistinct), and take a drink of water from the white fountain only to have a security guard, white security guard come up and put a gun in my back and march me out of the store.

It was God's blessing that of the 15 or so times that I demonstrated, I was never arrested.

- [Narrator] The attacks drew the world's attention to racial segregation in the South, and it landed Dr. King in solitary confinement in the Birmingham jail for eight long days.

It would be Arthur D. Shores who assisted Dr. King during this time.

What made things worse for Bull Connor and the KKK was that the violent response from authorities only garnered sympathy for the African-American community.

- You had these images captured on film and television, live television in some instances, in which these kids, these teenagers, these young adults, were getting hit with fire hoses and dogs.

They just played right into Bull Connor.

And Bull Connor just had no clue.

He thought he was being the tough guy, but what he was doing was showing the world the absolute travesties, the inhumanity of Jim Crow with the fire hoses and with the dogs.

- [Narrator] So later that year, the KKK moved forward with a devious plan.

- By that time, he had attracted other lawyers.

They did not face the imminent, anywhere near the imminent threats that Arthur Shores did.

- [Doug] If you became a symbol of the civil rights movement in Birmingham in 1963, you also became a target.

- My mother and I had decided to go to the movies, the Carver Theater.

Halfway through the movie, a neighbor came and touched us on the shoulder and said something had happened at the house and we needed to come home.

(brooding music) (explosion resounding) So Mr. Crest, the neighbor, drove us from downtown and we got as far as Center Street and 8th Avenue.

And it was a mob of people.

I'd never seen so many people crowded into that area.

We couldn't drive the car up and we had to walk.

And what should have taken about eight or 10 minutes took us about 30 minutes to get through the crowd.

The blacks were throwing rocks, bricks, bottles, everything at the police.

The police were shooting up in the air and we had to just sort of inch our way up.

Well, when we got to the house, part of the fence had been blown down, the roof was half off, the garage doors were down.

I ran in the house and saw that my father was okay, and I immediately went running in the backyard.

And I saw a neighbor, Mr. Lay, putting a towel over one of my dogs that had been blown to pieces.

Parts of his body was scattered around.

And I remember running in the house telling my dad I hated them.

I hated who killed my dog because I loved animals all my life.

And he said, "You can't hate them, Barbara.

That will only destroy you."

- [Narrator] A timed bomb made of dynamite was placed directly outside a room where the KKK believed Mr. Shores and his family would be.

It was the room that housed many parties and get togethers.

It was the room where Thurgood Marshall, Constance Baker Motley and others, spent time planning, strategizing, and formulating effective defenses in their cases.

And it would be the one room where no one happened to be at that particular moment.

- They said it had anybody been in the den, that the pressure from the bomb would've killed them.

And if that had not killed them, we used to have one solid picture window that the glass went through the walls.

It would've been like a machine gun going through the body.

- [Narrator] The local paper reported that no one was injured during the blast as everyone was on the other side of the house.

Armed with this information, the KKK planned a second bomb.

- I was a junior at Talladega College.

I hadn't seen my mother.

We talked on the phone and she said, "Look, you come home this weekend."

I got home right before dusk, walked into the house, didn't get any further than the front window of the living room.

She looked at her baby and said, "You're not eating right."

Before I could get a response out, this big boom went off.

Obviously, with the history of bombs going off in Smithfield, I knew exactly what it was.

- [Barbara] So when he heard the bomb, he was getting ready to run across the street.

And when he opened the door, a police car was already in his driveway.

- Police officer was fully dressed in all of his riot gear with a sawed-off shotgun on his lap, sitting on the passenger side of the vehicle with the door wide open and his feet on the ground.

- And they told him to go back in the house.

If not, they were gonna shoot him.

And he said, "You're gonna have to shoot me."

- As I got in front of the house, I saw that there was a police cruiser in front of the house on Center Street with the police dressed and seated in the same position as was the officer in front of my house.

And I looked down the hill and it was sealed off already.

And I looked up the hill and it, both of them was sealed off.

- My father was in the living room reading the Wall Street Journal and my mother was recuperating from a surgery and in bed.

When the bomb went off, the house was filled with dynamite smoke.

The smoke was so intense, it was like somebody took a needle and shot it up my nose to my eyes.

But I knew what my father had said.

"If anything happened, hit the floor and crawl to safety."

So I crawled from the kitchen into the living room and he had been sitting in the chair.

And he was on his way to get up and it had blown him back in the chair.

But I saw that he was okay, so I went to see if my mother was okay, and she had been knocked unconscious.

- And in the midst of all of this absolute violence, he's not angry.

He's not...

He's not cussing and fussing and pointing his finger at anybody.

He's concerned about his wife.

- This was the second bombing that took place at our house.

It was planted at the north side of the house at the time.

And they had armed guards who had already patrolled and set off a perimeter of police cars before the bomb even went off.

- We both walked back out.

And in the vestibule, already was the chief police.

And that's when I saw Hank.

- Again, the Klan was doing the only thing that they thought they could do, and that was to try to bully, to try to intimidate with violence.

- The Birmingham Police Department often consisted of Klansmen.

Sometimes blacks would be beaten up by Klansman at night, and the next morning in court, see those who beat 'em in blue uniform.

- It had to be frightening.

I can't think of it any other way.

Not knowing when your home might be the next one, it had to be a frightening time.

No matter how courageous young people had to especially be consuming, I would think.

- Arthur Shores was not a victim once.

He was a victim twice, and he lived to tell his story both times.

- 99% of lawyers don't have to worry about their lives being threatened when they engage in their work, right?

It's pretty routine, mundane and the like.

However, Arthur Shores absolutely had to think about his life.

- [Narrator] That second bombing of his home had an impact on Arthur's life.

But just two weeks later, everyone's focus shifted to a brazen act that was even more despicable, painful, and ultimately revealing of the hatred in the hearts of the KKK.

- [Barbara] With the bombing of 16th Street Church, I knew three of the girls that were killed, Mrs. Wesley, who lost Cynthia, had just come down to comfort my mother when our house was bombed, and then my mother went up to comfort her with Cynthia who was killed in the bombings.

- This was perhaps the worst year of my life.

The 16th Street Baptist Church was bombed, and I lost children whose families were very, very close to my families.

And you could probably call them extended family.

That was so difficult, I wouldn't even talk about it for years.

- I think the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing was the bomb that was placed where the Klan and others had said, "We've had enough."

"We have had enough trying to warn people about this.

We need to do something more destructive and something more lethal."

And that's why they placed that bomb to go off in the middle of Sunday school and church.

And sadly, four children wore the brunt of the bomb that were in the ladies' lounge that morning.

- [Randall] That was terrorism.

Let's call it what it is.

He faced head on.

He never wavered.

- [Narrator] One step forward, two steps back.

Will there ever be any real forward movement for black people in the South?

It would seem that with every major case, Mr. Shores found himself facing the immense effects of the very reason he'd been fighting in the first place.

But the tragedy did help bring about legislative change.

One year later, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

It is the nation's benchmark civil rights legislation, and it continues to resonate in America.

Passage of the act ended the application of Jim Crow laws.

- At the end of the day, the nonviolence wins out, even though you go through a series of bombings that culminated in September 15th, 1963 when a bomb exploded at the 16th Street Baptist Church killing four young girls.

And that was really the final blow, so to speak.

And it really woke up, not only the conscience of America, it woke up the conscience of a Congress and a President who decided that it was time.

It was time to move forward on the Civil Rights Act and civil rights laws and changing those.

- We are better and stronger as a people because he was an amazing stereotype and role model for young black people, especially young black lawyers from Alabama.

You know, I... Yeah, I get to do what I do every day because of the wisdom, strength, tenacity of an Arthur Shores.

- That's the other thing.

There's so much credibility when you're like, "Look, I'm here.

I'm not going anywhere.

I'm here."

And so that willingness to put your everything on the line, how do we live together as brother and sister?

His legacy just lives on.

He certainly remains a role model for me.

- [Narrator] Mr. Arthur Shores had fought a good fight, but he wasn't slowing down quite yet.

He would make history when he was appointed Birmingham's first black city council member, an office he would eventually be elected to by popular vote.

- Having an actual seat at the table, having a voice at the table of law and policy that affects all Birminghamians but representing a district that had its share of black voters and black residents, I'm trying to find the words.

It's extremely powerful and it was extremely important, the platform that he represented and what he laid out, and then every black person to come after him and What's that meant for Birmingham.

- [Narrator] Councilor Shores was part of the team of leaders who helped establish affirmative action for the hiring of black people in the city.

- Mr. Shores was the drum major for justice because as a lawyer, he led the way.

He was the lawyer who had the cases under his control, and he's the one who argued the cases in the courts, in the trial courts, and in the appellate courts that ultimately brought justice to black people.

- To whom much is given, much is required.

And it's not enough that you take the baton.

You have to run the race the very best race you can.

You have to advance the progress that we've made because we realize that progress is elusive.

Old battles become new again.

Who would've ever thought that I would be in Congress 58 years after John Lewis and those foot soldiers were bludgeoned on a bridge, and that my cause would be to save and restore the Voting Rights Act of 1965?

Every generation has to fight and fight again to hold onto the progress that was made in the previous generation.

- [Narrator] Arthur Shore's legacy has impacted several generations in the United States.

African Americans were given a fighting chance for equality, fairness, and justice because one man years ago decided that his calling would be defending freedom.

(gavel clacking) (spirited music) (spirited music continues) (pensive music) (pensive music continues)