This video features photos and video footage from our civil rights trip. We dedicate this blog and this video to all of the Foot Soldiers whose names are often forgotten, but played a huge role by participating in the Civil Rights Movement.
Tag Archives: 16th Street Baptist Church
Birmingham: Kelly Ingram Park
Entrance to Kelly Ingram Park
Kelly Ingram Park is named after a white Birmingham firefighter who was the first Navy sailor to die in World War I. City officials have debated changing the name to honor the Civil Rights leaders of the area, but decided to keep the name because of the events that happened there. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had come down to Birmingham to find a victory because of the unsuccessful demonstrations that he had organized further north. Dr. King was arrested and in response to a newspaper column, wrote A Letter From Birmingham Jail. His arrest led to news reporters coming to Birmingham which was a tactic placed by MLK and Shuttlesworth to highlight the upcoming events. Dr. King decided that involving the children of Birmingham would be the best idea to prevent the adults from losing their jobs or houses. On May 2nd, 1963, the children of Birmingham decided to march through Kelly Ingram Park.
At a certain time during the school day, these children left school while the teachers pretended not to notice. Dorothy Cotton and James Bevel led the children that day throughout the march. In the words of several Civil Rights experts, Eugene “Bull” Connor “set the movement on fire.” Bull Connor was a brutal police chief who terrorized the black population of Birmingham. That day, May 2nd, Bull Connor sent policemen with aggressive dogs into the marchers and sprayed them with water hoses; both of which are reflected in sculptures throughout the park. These actions were broadcast on national television; the world saw children and teenagers being attacked by dogs and sprayed by water hoses. Injured children were rushed to the 16th Street Baptist Church until the black ambulances; the hearses came to pick them up.
The park serves as a reconciliation gesture from the town of Birmingham to those treated horrifically during and before the movement. The park portrays various events of Birmingham like the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing that took the lives of four little girls. The statue honoring these girls faces and is diagonal from the church.
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- Statue of two children getting hit by water hose.
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- Further on the right side of the park, there is a statue of a policeman holding a protestor by his collar while a dog nips at his legs
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- The other part of the four pools center
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- In the center of four pools, a circle repeating the words “Revolution” and “Reconciliation” is etched in the stone
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- Statue honoring the four little girls who were killed in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church
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- The last statue has prison bars on one side of the sidewalk and two individuals on the other that align to show them behind bars. Etched below them is the quote, “I ain’t afraid of your jail.”
Birmingham: 16th Street Baptist Church
The Civil Rights Movement drew much of its strength from the church. Clergymen became the voices of the movement and the churches served as central meeting places for community organization. Our tour guide at the Civil Rights Institute of Birmingham, Sam Pugh, said “the church was the CNN of that time”. The 16th Street Baptist Church was an instrumental part of the Civil Rights Movement in Birmingham. In 2006 it was recognized as a national landmark. The church has withstood the test of time and bombing. Today it continues to function as a staple of the Birmingham community.
The land for the 16th St Baptist Church was purchased in 1880. The church was erected soon after, becoming the first church for African Americans in Birmingham. Fearful that the church would promote the mentality of upward mobility among Blacks, angry White citizens had the church to be destroyed. It then took $26,000 to reconstruct the church. Over the first half of the 20th century the church became a staple of black culture in Birmingham.
On September 15, 1963 the church was immortalized when a bomb exploded killing four young girls: Addie Mae Collins, Carole Roberston, Denise McNair, and Cynthia Wesley. The bomb went off at 10:22am during Sunday school. More than a couple dozen people were injured. The bomb was placed on the outside of the church in a tunnel at its rear. The girls killed were congregated in a bathroom located in the church’s basement. Ironically, the sermon that Sunday was “A Love That Forgives”. The church and community was forced to pick up the pieces and move forward. All of the church’s stain glass windows on the side where the bomb was planted were blown out; except one. The center window depicting Jesus survived the blast. All that was shattered was Jesus’ face. Supporters of the movement believed this was a sign that said Jesus didn’t condone the act of hatred and sin.
The church was restored, the community rallied, and faith never wavered.
The Foot Soldiers 