Wyatt Walker Character Analysis

Wyatt Walker was a Baptist minister who came to Birmingham, Alabama in 1960 to work with Martin Luther King, Jr. An intelligent and cunning man, Walker enjoyed tricking racists like Bull Connor, the city’s public safety commissioner. Because of this, Dr. King asked him to create a situation that would trick Connor into doing something unwise, hoping this might help them show the nation the terrible racism of Birmingham’s segregationist policies. In keeping with this, Walker capitalized on the fact that the white members of the press couldn’t distinguish between black protestors and black bystanders, making sure that everyone in the black community knew when a protest would be happening—in turn, black people would flock to the streets simply to watch the march go by, but the white members of the press would assume that everyone present was a protestor. Later, Walker and Dr. King enlisted the help of black schoolchildren to fill up the Birmingham jails, forcing the police to resort to more aggressive measures of handling protests. As a result, a picture circulated nationally of a chaotic scene in which a police dog is attacking an innocent young black man. This photograph incited rage throughout the country and kickstarted the civil rights movement. Gladwell tells this story as a way of illustrating the fact that underdogs are often forced to think outside the box in creative, beguiling ways.