Sixteenth Street Baptist Church and Parsonage

Sixteenth Street Baptist Church and Parsonage. Destination. , Built 1911, 1530 6th Ave. N. , Sixteenth Street Baptist Church was designed by Wallace Rayfield, a renowned Black architect. It was among Birmingham's most prominent African-American churches. By the time of the 1963 Birmingham Movement, it hosted mass meetings as African Americans organized and held strategy sessions there. “Project C” leaders used the church as a key departure point for the massive demonstrations of April - May 1963. On September 15, 1963, a bomb killed four girls in its basement. Two boys were also killed in separate incidents later that day. The six children's deaths shocked the nation and the world, and quickened the pace of far-reaching federal civil rights legislation. The church building and its parsonage, pictured here, are now National Historic Landmarks., "Our trials (and death) are a sacred installment on this American heritage for freedom.", Rev. Fred L. Shuttleworth , Birmingham Civil Rights Foot Soldier General from his sermon, , "The Social Gospel: The New Negro Church", Lesson C3: Since 1993, the Birmingham Historical Society has conducted archival research on significant Birmingham Civil Rights churches. Research its work on getting National Historic Landmark status for Sixteenth Street Baptist Church.