This interview was done for Henry Hampton's Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years (1954-1965). Melvin Bailey served as sheriff of Jefferson County, Alabama from 1963 till his resignation in 1996. Bailey was much more moderate than Birmingham's Commissioner of Public Safety Eugene "Bull" Connor. He helped shape the Birmingham police's relationship with civil rights activists in the early 1960s.
During the 1963 marches and protests, Bailey tried to minimize conflict between black protestors and white Klansmen. In his later years, he helped desegregate the police force, and remained popular with black and white voters until his retirement.