BBVA Stoked the “Same Fiery Furnace” of Segregation and Intolerance
During the Civil Rights struggles in the 1960s in the United States, racists brutally and violently attacked African-Americans.
Bull Connor
In 1963 in Birmingham, the Commissioner of Public Safety Eugene “Bull” Connor unleashed water hoses and vicious dogs on African-American children and adults.
The brutality of Bull Connor’s actions are now an ugly legacy of intolerance and unfathomable conduct.
And guess who supported and was an ally of Bull Connor during the unrest?
BBVA USA’s founding father and staunch segregationist Schuyler A. Baker, Sr.
In 1963, Bull Connor ran for Mayor of Birmingham and was supported by racist Governor George Wallace.
As The Birmingham News reported at the time:
Alike on segregation
AMONG THOSE KNOWN to be working quietly but strenuously for Connor are Frank M. Lynch…and Schuyler Baker, lawyer recently appointed to the ABC Board.
Underlying the [racist Governor] Wallace backing of Connor is the fact that the two are like peas in the same pod in what the governor considers the overriding, all-compelling issue of current times–integration and federalism vs. states’ rights. On segregation, the two men stoke the same fiery furnace. Bull Connor eventually lost his mayoral bid, but his deplorable, intolerant behavior has become a permanent and defining moment in the struggle of African-Americans who sought equality.
Bull Connor eventually lost his mayoral bid, but his deplorable, intolerant behavior has become a permanent and defining moment in the struggle of African-Americans who sought equality.
