A New Organization is Born

A New Organization is Born. March Route for Moral Justice. Rev. Shuttlesworth and his fellow ministers agreed to call the replacement organization the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR) so that its reach was both statewide and its aims wider than the African American community. Adding Christian to the name meant that the organization was not based on communist values. In outlining the ACMHR's Declaration of Principles, they announced, “We express publicly our determination to press forward persistently for Freedom and Democracy, and the removal from our society any forms of Second Class Citizenship.” , Paired marker , June 5, 1956 , After the organizing meeting at the Smith and Gaston Funeral Home, Rev. Shuttlesworth called a general meeting at Sardis Baptist Church. According to the Birmingham News' report, the ACMHR"was formed here last night amid roars of an estimated 1,000 Negroes approving a 'march to complete freedom."" Rev. Shuttlesworth was named its president by acclamation. The ACMHR was headquartered at Bethe! Baptist Church, which provided meeting space, offices, rent and utilities free of charge to the ACMHR until 1961. For more than a decade, mass meetings were held at Bethel Baptist every Monday night and at other ACMHR-affiliated churches in the city. Thus, the Birmingham Movement began. , “We will echo our own convictions and will to be free so help us God.” , Original Declaration of Principles , Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights, Lesson F3: Research the role of the Black Church in the civil rights movement.