The Albany Campaign 1961-2

• Local white police chief Laurie Pritchett had studied MLK's methods and understood the need to avoid violence
• He did this by ensuring the police treated civil rights demonstrators peacefully in public while arranging for enough jails to be available to permit mass arrests of marchers
• He ensured MLK was speedily released after he was arested twice, understanding that making him a martyr would boost the campaign
• MLK knew he was getting nowhere with the campaign and so had to leavw

This showed:

• Peaceful protests were not always successful
• MLK's dominance of the civil rights movement with poor attendance at meetings he was not speaking at and the fact the campaign petered out when he left
• His dominance was resented by SNCC radicals, who resulted to violence after realising that peaceful protests did not always work
• MLK realised he needed more specific aims and a stupid police chief who would respond with violence, causing media coverage and therefore more symapthy for the movement