Why did the city of Birmingham close all of its parks, swimming pools, playgrounds, and golf courses in 1962?

In 1961, a federal court decreed that Birmingham, Alabama, was acting unconstitutionally by racially segregating its public spaces and ordered the city to integrate all of those spaces.
Rather than enforce the court's ruling, Bull Connor (Birmingham's infamous city commissioner of public spaces) decided instead to close sixty-seven parks, six swimming pools, thirty-eight playgrounds, and four golf courses. He had the holes on the golf courses filled with cement and was even prepared to sell Birmingham's public spaces to private individuals rather than enforce racial integration. Bull Connor said that the majority of people in Birmingham did not want integration and argued that to enforce integration would exacerbate relations between Birmingham's black and white citizens.
Ironically—and rather satisfyingly—Bull Connor's unashamed racism actually contributed, indirectly, to the passing of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Television footage of fire hoses and attack dogs being directed against civil rights activists in Birmingham (on Bull's orders) helped to highlight the vicious racism in many parts of the country and, in turn, galvanized the civil rights movement to achieve major legal changes.