North side
To the memory of our World War heroes who died that civilization might not perish from the earth.
West Side
HONOR ROLL
WORLD WAR
Allbright Rufie PVT. Co. D. 167th Inf. KA
Bailey Andrew SGT. Co. D. 167th . . . — — Map (db m39928) HM
Bright Star
In 1907, Greek immigrant Tom Bonduris invested his savings and opened a small cafe with only a horseshoe shaped bar at First Avenue and 21st Street in Bessemer, Alabama. Outgrowing three locations, the Bright Star moved to this . . . — — Map (db m83797) HM
Organized September 5, 1818 in home of Isaac Brown 3 miles west of Elyton. Met in homes and schoolhouse near Old Jonesboro until 1824. First building erected on site now the 14th Street entrance to Cedar Hill cemetery. Canaan Association (now . . . — — Map (db m37218) HM
In 1840 he published his study, History of Rise and Progress of the Baptists in Alabama.
Also an evangelist and missionary.
In 1818 moved to Alabama from Carolinas, organizing five churches in vicinity.
President of Alabama Baptist . . . — — Map (db m27025) HM
A cotton plantation house
circa 1840, with about 2,000 acres.
Built by Thomas McAdory, Jr.,
the pioneer architecture was the
dog-trot style built of numbered
hand-hewn logs and wooden pegs.
Born here: Robert McAdory,
first mayor of Bessemer . . . — — Map (db m215904) HM
Thomas Hennington Owen,
grandson of Methodist
minister, David Owen and
Lucy McCraw, moved into
the 2 room rear wing with his
bride Malissa Rose Sadler in
1833. Second wife was Mary
Elizabeth Tarrant. The 2 story
addition in 1838 was . . . — — Map (db m215730) HM
This house was built in 1906 by architect William E. Benns for H. W. Sweet at a cost of $10,000. The house uniquely blended the Queen Anne and Neo-Classical architectural styles, featuring two identical pedimented entrance porticos supported by . . . — — Map (db m27024) HM
The Bessemer Site was the largest
indigenous mound site in what is now
Jefferson County, and it once dominated
a large territory in what became
north-central Alabama. Occupied from
about AD 1150 to 1250 during the early
Mississippian period, . . . — — Map (db m144908) HM
Thomas McAdory Owen, son of Dr. William Marmaduke
Owen and Nancy Lucretia McAdory Owen, was born
here on December 15, 1866, at the home of his maternal
grandparents, Thomas and Emily McAdory. A University
of Alabama graduate and lawyer, Owen . . . — — Map (db m215738) HM
Union Baptist Church was organized in 1834 by 18 or 20 members from Canaan Church. The Libscomb area was then known as East End. Members of the Rockett and Ware families donated the original two acreas of this site and a log cabin, which served as . . . — — Map (db m24352) HM
Evalina Brown Spencer founded Highlands Day School in 1958, expanding a daycare she operated in her family's backyard. In 1962, Highlands moved from rented space in St. Luke's Episcopal Church to this site, on land donated by Joseph and Virginia . . . — — Map (db m201032) HM
In honor of Julius Ellsberry of Birmingham
World War II Hero
First Jefferson County Citizen
to die for his country at Pearl Harbor while serving aboard the U.S.S. Oklahoma December 7, 1941 — — Map (db m70261) HM
From 1820 until 1878 this bell hung in the
belfry of the old Elyton courthouse, one-half mile northeast of this spot. In 1861
Jefferson County boys were mustered in
there and the bell tolled them off to war.
John Felix McLaughlin was one of . . . — — Map (db m216063) HM
(front): United Confederate Veterans Camp Hardee No. 39 Camp Hardee No. 39 was organized as a camp of the United Confederate Veterans on August 7, 1891. This cemetery plot was acquired by the camp to provide a final resting place for the men . . . — — Map (db m12487) HM
In 1818 before Alabama, Jefferson County, Elyton or Birmingham existed, The Elyton Methodist Church was established on Center Street. It was moved to 14 Second Avenue, and in 1909, to its present site. Renamed in 1910 for Corilla Porter Walker . . . — — Map (db m24348) HM
Gen. James H. Wilson, USA, having crossed the Tennessee River with a large force of well equipped cavalry, grouped them here at Elyton.
Their mission: to destroy Alabama's economic facilities for supporting the War.
From these headquarters he . . . — — Map (db m24358) HM
The Corey Land Company, a group of prominent local businessmen headed by Robert Jemison, Jr., developed Belview Heights as a neighborhood for the professional employees of U.S. Steel in the 1910's. Extending the grid system being used in Ensley over . . . — — Map (db m24351) HM
On Palm Sunday, 1963 Rev. N. H. Smith, Rev. John T. Porter and Rev. A. D. King led a sympathy march from St. Paul United Methodist Church down 6th Avenue North in support of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth and Rev. Ralph . . . — — Map (db m73023) HM
Built 1959-60, 1517 5th Ave. N.
The A. G. Gaston Building's second floor conference room was
the location of regular meetings of “Project C's” Coordinating
Committee. Here, they planned strategies for the April - May
1963 marches, boycotts, . . . — — Map (db m187976) HM
In 1963, Birmingham underwent a major political transformation. To
force Commissioner “Bull” Connor from office, progressive Whites and
Blacks plotted to change the form of government from Commissioners
to a Mayor-Council system. Mayor Albert . . . — — Map (db m187705) HM
Southern members of the U.S. Congress in 1956 issued the "Southern Manifesto” that called the U.S. Supreme Court's Brown decision an "abuse of judicial power." By forcing public school integration contrary to social custom,
the high court had . . . — — Map (db m187661) HM
Shuttlesworth began to dedicate himself to the ministry and enrolled
in Cedar Grove Bible College, a Baptist institution in the Mobile suburb
of Pritchard. He took classes at night while he worked during the day.
The young couple added two more . . . — — Map (db m187628) HM
Child protestors overwhelmed police, who found it hard to confine
them to the Kelly Ingram Park area. Organizers used clever methods
to get them to City Hall before police could stop them. Children were
sent out in pairs. When they got closer to . . . — — Map (db m187836) HM
Built 1947-50, 710 20th St. N.
Birmingham City Hall was the administrative center for the
enforcement of local segregation codes. Thus, this building was
one of the major destination points for the “Project C" marchers
in the 1963 . . . — — Map (db m187717) HM
Freddie Lee Robinson was born March 18, 1922, in Mt. Meigs,
Montgomery County, Alabama, to Alberta Robinson and Vetter Greene.
The unmarried couple also conceived a girl, Cleola. Because Vetter
could not provide for his growing family, Alberta's . . . — — Map (db m187631) HM
The Process
The boiler was the source of power for most of Sloss. The boilers burned blast furnace gas to provide the heat necessary for converting water into steam. The steam produced here powered the blowing engines and turbo-blowers, the . . . — — Map (db m43728) HM
Built 1924 (Extended in 1957), 1930 8th Ave. N.
In 1924, Municipal Auditorium was one of the South's largest
(6,000 seats) and most modern auditoriums. In April of 1956,
Ku Klux Klansman Asa Carter led an attack on Montgomery
native and . . . — — Map (db m187715) HM
The Process
The technology of casting molten iron into bars called pigs changed dramatically over the years. Prior to 1931 casting at Sloss took place inside the cast shed. Men cut molds into the sand floor of the shed, allowing the . . . — — Map (db m69083) HM
Celebrities of all races - but particularly Black singers and actors such as
Harry Belafonte, Sammy Davis, Jr., Eartha Kitt, Lena Horne, and Ossie
Davis with wife Ruby Dee - played important roles in the Movement.
Some, including comedian Dick . . . — — Map (db m187822) HM
Birmingham's Black schoolchildren played an important role in moving the
city toward ending legal segregation. Under the leadership of SCLC field coordinators, thousands of children left their segregated schools to join the
marches in the downtown . . . — — Map (db m187682) HM
On Mother's Day, May 14, 1961, a group of black and white CORE youth on a "Freedom Ride" from Washington, D.C. to New Orleans arrived by bus at the Birmingham Greyhound terminal. They were riding through the deep south to test a court case, "Boynton . . . — — Map (db m83809) HM
This building was constructed in 1908 by Louis V. Clark (1862-1934), who also built the historic Lyric Theater located nearby on 18th Street. The Clark Theater on Caldwell Park is named in honor of Mr. Clark’s generosity to the Birmingham Little . . . — — Map (db m27515) HM
To Be Opened March 1, 2022
Dedicated at the construction completion March 1, 2002
Project Team
Owners - BLH Group, LLC
Brookmont Investors II, LLC
Spire Holdings, LLC
Developer - Brookmont Realty Group, LLC
General . . . — — Map (db m27010) HM
Many African Americans continued to push for the right to an equal
education that the 1954 Brown decision gave them. Despite angry
threats of violence and intense economic pressure, those first few African American families in Birmingham who chose . . . — — Map (db m187693) HM
Community civil rights leaders who helped organize the Movement and embraced the philosophy of nonviolence looked for well-disciplined children with good moral character who would at retaliate if they encountered bullying or violence by White . . . — — Map (db m187690) HM
The two commercial buildings on this corner lot are some of the earliest surviving business houses in Birmingham. The Dewberry building appeared on the corner about 1881, and it housed the first and longest surviving drug store in the city, starting . . . — — Map (db m36740) HM
The Duncan House was build in 1906 as a home place for James and Lelia Duncan and their eight children in what is now Tarrant City, Alabama. Duncan worked throughout his life in the nearby shops and yards of the L&N Railroad (know CSXI) as water . . . — — Map (db m86613) HM
Black leaders debated how best to educate their children to live in a racially segregated society. Former slave Booker T. Washington, founder
of Tuskegee Institute, was America's leading Black spokesman at the
turn of the 20th century and promoted . . . — — Map (db m187636) HM
Built 1939, 1901 3rd Ave. N.
The F. W. Woolworth department store was one of the first sites targeted for the ACMHR and SCLC's economic boycotts and lunch counter sit-ins of “Project C” during the April - May 1963 mass demonstrations in . . . — — Map (db m188183) HM
Despite being dominated by black labor the industrial workplace was rigidly segregated
until the 1960's. Men punched separate time clocks and bathed in separate bath houses. Following the implementation of desegregation laws in the 1960's the black . . . — — Map (db m173370) HM
[Note: a portion of the wording on the first panel of the marker has been torn away.(See photo #1)]Paired marker
September 9, 1957
In 1957, Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth and his followers in
the Alabama Christian Movement for . . . — — Map (db m187702) HM
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP) used its Legal Defense and Educational Fund and its team of
skilled lawyers to attack the "separate but equal” education laws. Beginning in the 1930s, the NAACP filed lawsuits . . . — — Map (db m187658) HM
As Birmingham's civil rights leaders pushed to desegregate city schools, radical opponents in Birmingham pushed back, sometimes violently. Responses against school integration included death threats by telephone to parents who dared send their . . . — — Map (db m187686) HM
After White business leaders failed to remove segregation signs and
hire African Americans, by 1963 Birmingham Blacks felt betrayed by
broken promises. Many Whites wanted the change that Blacks
demanded to be gradual. Some Whites reasoned that . . . — — Map (db m187824) HM
The Industry That Built A City
The minerals needed to make iron-iron ore, coal, and limestone-are abundant in the Birmingham area, and for ninety years men turned these materials into pig iron at Sloss. Sloss pig iron was sold to foundries, . . . — — Map (db m43973) HM
The county seat of Jefferson County was moved from Elyton to Birmingham in 1873. On this site stood the first Courthouse in the City of Birmingham. The Italianate style structure was designed by architect W. K. Ball. Completed in 1875, the . . . — — Map (db m27095) HM
Territorial legislature designated home of Maj. Moses Kelly (in Jones Valley) as site of first court in this area of Alabama, 1818.
After creation of Jefferson County, 1819, court held at Carrollsville (Powderly) until county seat established . . . — — Map (db m25743) HM
Built 1926-27, 701 Richard Arrington Jr. Blvd. N.
The Birmingham Public Library was the city's main branch for
57 years. It was one of several protest target sites during the
1963 Birmingham Campaign. Like the city parks, Birmingham's
most . . . — — Map (db m187712) HM
Immediately after the Civil War, Northern church groups funded by
sympathetic Whites rushed to the South to start elementary schools
and colleges to educate freed slaves. Soon afterward, Blacks took the
lead in educating their own children. . . . — — Map (db m187635) HM
While working his first job after high school at the Southern Club in
Birmingham, he fell in love with a fellow co-worker, Ruby Lanette
Keeler (b. May 30, 1922). He was smitten with her beauty, complete
with dark brown skin and long wavy hair. . . . — — Map (db m187629) HM
Built 1934-35 (remodeled into science center 1997), 216 19th St. N.
The Loveman's Department Store (originally Loveman, Joseph, &
Loeb), was a high-and retail store targeted for economic boycotts, pickets. "Project C" coordinators . . . — — Map (db m188173) HM
National Register of Historic Places
In many ways, the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision fueled the modern Civil Rights Movement. The NAACP's legal team strategically chipped away at the “separate but equal" doctrine to end . . . — — Map (db m188205) HM
Created 1972 by the Jefferson County Historical Commission, the district is based on this avenue. Morris Avenue was named for one of the founders of Birmingham, Josiah Morris, who paid $100,000 for 4,157 acres of the original site of the city in . . . — — Map (db m27156) HM
Music was as much a tool in the Birmingham Movement as the marches
themselves. The Movement Choir organized by the ACMHR performed
regularly during the Monday night mass church meetings. The choir
sang songs such as "God Will Make a Way Some How" . . . — — Map (db m187820) HM
Built 1916, Remodeled as an IMAX Theater in 1997, 200 19th St. N.
The former Newberry's Department Store was also one of the
first major retail stores where "Project C" demonstrators staged
economic boycotts and lunch counter sit-ins to . . . — — Map (db m188072) HM
Built 1923, 2316 7th Ave N.
Phillips High School was the flagship school in the center of Birmingham. It was named for John Herbert Phillips, the city's highly-esteemed first school superintendent, who served from 1883 until his death in . . . — — Map (db m187704) HM
Birmingham's first public school was named for Colonel James R. Powell, the city's first elected Mayor. This energetic promoter also served as the first President of the Elyton Land Company (now Birmingham Realty), which founded the city in 1871. . . . — — Map (db m83835) HM
Some of the marchers in the Movement also went to the main Birmingham Public Library, where Blacks were not allowed to go. As always,
separate did not mean equal in Birmingham. Its Black citizens had a
small library located in rented space at the . . . — — Map (db m187830) HM
A grateful nation remembers Raymond Weeks, founder and director of National Veterans Day.
(Lower plaque)
November 11, 2007, commemorating the 60th Anniversary of America's first National Veterans Day, Birmingham, Alabama. . . . — — Map (db m188212) HM
Built in 1937, Birmingham’s S. H. Kress Five-and-Ten Cent Store was the second completed of the three great mercantile buildings on this intersection. Its construction reflected Kress’s confidence in Birmingham’s economy and marked a break by its . . . — — Map (db m38557) HM
Built 1937, 301 19th St. N.
The S. H. Kress store was another site of economic boycotts
and lunch counter sit-ins during the student-led protests of
Miles College students and their leader Frank Dukes in 1962 and
“Project C” in 1963. Retail . . . — — Map (db m188176) HM
Birmingham had the well-earned reputation of being America's deadliest
defender of segregation in the 1950s and 1960s. Civil rights leaders Rev.
Fred Shuttlesworth, head of the local Alabama Christian Movement for
Human Rights (ACMHR) and Dr. . . . — — Map (db m187681) HM
Many social scientists of the early 20th century promoted the false
belief that Blacks were intellectually and socially inferior to Whites and
fit only for service jobs. Blacks, therefore, did not deserve to be educated on the same level as . . . — — Map (db m187633) HM
The mass demonstrations of “Project C” forced White Birmingham's
elite business leaders and downtown merchants back to the bargaining
table in May 1963. Once again, leaders of Black Birmingham's power
structure presented a list of demands in . . . — — Map (db m187828) HM
1955
After arriving in Birmingham, Rev. Shuttlesworth
became active with the local NAACP and became its
membership chair. He organized 76 Birmingham
ministers to petition Birmingham's commissioners to
hire Black police officers. The petition . . . — — Map (db m187625) HM
By mid-1956, the Montgomery Bus Boycott was crippling that city's economic
base. To stop its success, pro-segregationists searched for a legal loophole to block the NAACP, one of the boycott organizers. That loophole was that it had failed to . . . — — Map (db m187605) HM
The newly formed ACMHR continued Rev. Shuttlesworth's battle to hire Black
Birmingham police officers, mainly as a way to stop White officers from
harassing, beating and, in some cases, even killing Black citizens. When the
city rejected the . . . — — Map (db m187602) HM
On February 1, 1960, four Black college students in Greensboro, North Carolina, sat down at Woolworth's "Whites Only" lunch counter. This started a national movement where Blacks used sit-ins as a direct, non-violent action to combat segregation . . . — — Map (db m187827) HM
Sloss Blast Furnaces has been designated a National Historic Landmark.
This site possesses national significance in commemorating the history of the United States of America.
1981.
ASM International has designated Sloss Furnaces an . . . — — Map (db m173375) HM
The crossing of railroads in 1872 adjacent to this site gave rise to the industrial city of Birmingham. In 1881 Alabama railroad magnate and entrepreneur James Withers Sloss, capitalizing on the unusual coincidence of coal, iron ore and limestone in . . . — — Map (db m23498) HM
In response to oppressive jobs and livelihoods such as sharecropping and tenant farming during post-Civil War Reconstruction, large numbers of African American and poor families from the Black Belt regions began to migrate towards northern, more . . . — — Map (db m220602) HM
The Birmingham Movement was a defining moment for African
Americans determined to win equal citizenship in their own country.
Pictures and stories from the Birmingham struggle touched the hearts of
the nation and the world. Often injured by . . . — — Map (db m188908) HM
In Alabama, White parents used the 1956 Alabama Pupil Placement Act that
let them “choose” which public schools their children would attend. When
Black parents in Birmingham tried to use the same law to send their children
to White schools, . . . — — Map (db m187685) HM
Temple Wilson Tutwiler, II
“Tutwiler Green”, this section of Birmingham Green was so named in a resolution passed by the Birmingham City Council to honor the life and work of Temple Tutwiler II, who contributed greatly to the . . . — — Map (db m27525) HM
This row of buildings from 2009 to 2017 Second Avenue dates from the early years of the 20th century and has undergone a variety of changes and modernizations over the years. Originally part of a larger building that burned in 1944 (now the site of . . . — — Map (db m38563) HM
Birmingham’s first library was organized in 1886 and in 1891 became a subscription library for the general public. In 1908 the Birmingham Public Library Association established a free public library, and the City created an independent Library Board . . . — — Map (db m83856) HM
In the blast furnace the combination of iron ore, flux (limestone and/or dolomite), coke, and hot air produced molten iron and two waste products: molten slag and blast furnace gas. The molten products collected in the bottom of the furnace and . . . — — Map (db m69078) HM
The blast furnace required a tremendous amount of air - about two tons for every ton of iron produced. These three rooms, known collectively as the blower building, house the equipment used to pump air to the furnaces. Workers called this blast of . . . — — Map (db m43628) HM
Young Fred loved pulling pranks with the aid of his younger siblings
and friends. He enjoyed going to church every Sunday and began
teaching Sunday School. Because he was so mischievous, his siblings
could hardly believe that his secret goal was . . . — — Map (db m187630) HM
has been entered in the
National Register of
Historic Places
by the National Park Service
United States
Department of Interior
1983 — — Map (db m216137) HM
At the turn of the 20th century, Birmingham was a small town of two and three story buildings with a few church steeples punctuating the skyline. During the industrial boom from 1902 to 1912 which made Birmingham the largest city in the state. Four . . . — — Map (db m27500) HM
Thirteen years after the American Civil War, the U.S. Supreme Court
began to uphold Jim Crow segregation laws that kept African Ameri-
cans from enjoying their 14th Amendment rights. Its famous Plessy v.
Ferguson decision in 1896 supported a . . . — — Map (db m187632) HM
On May 10, 1919, soon after its completion, this 21st Street Viaduct was named the Rainbow Viaduct in tribute to Alabama's famous 167th Infantry of the Rainbow Division, renowned for Bravery and Honor. The 167th was the Nation's only regiment in . . . — — Map (db m83860) HM
Another strategy of “Project C” was voter registration for Birmingham
Blacks. At the time, only 12,000 of 150,000 voting-age African-Americans
in Jefferson County could vote. White state and local officials used such
methods as reading tests and . . . — — Map (db m187708) HM
Southern governors, mayors and elected officials employed every means to
resist public school integration, even famously using armed state guards to
block Black students from entering. For example, Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus
called the Arkansas . . . — — Map (db m187680) HM
"Bull” Connor's police force still tried in vain to stop the marches to
City-Hall. The number of well-organized protestors overwhelmed
the police. Some marchers actually made it to Woodrow Wilson
Park (now Linn Park) that connects City Hall and . . . — — Map (db m187706) HM
The Tutwiler Hotel
In 1913, George Gordon Crawford, President of Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company, complained to Robert Jemison Jr., that when friends and officers from U.S. Steel came to town they had no decent place to stay. . . . — — Map (db m99317) HM
Designed by William C. Weston and erected in 1902, the Title Building was the second skyscraper built in Birmingham. It was the first building to supply its tenants with electric power with its own power-generating plant and the water supply was . . . — — Map (db m27501) HM
1949
For four decades, Shores was deeply involved in civil
rights challenges handling dozens of cases primarily
for the Birmingham branch of the NAACP on behalf of
African Americans. In the 1940s, the Birmingham
NAACP had grown to more . . . — — Map (db m189188) HM
1937
Most of Birmingham's housing started as cheap,
poorly built living quarters that large coal and
mining companies created near their factories for
their workers. Living in camp town housing
carried a stigma that many Blacks and . . . — — Map (db m189162) HM
1955
By the 1950s, North Smithfield was the residential
area of choice for a new generation of Black
middle-class families, despite the terror bombings
meant to scare them away. This new generation of
African American leaders included A. . . . — — Map (db m189171) HM
As both a lawyer and Smithfield real estate developer,
Arthur Davis Shores' story is also the story of Dynamite
Hill. He played a central role in African Americans' legal
fight to build and buy houses where they wished,
including the “White . . . — — Map (db m189185) HM
On September 4, 1963, Graymont Elementary
School was the first public school in Birmingham
to be racially integrated. Two brothers, nine and
eleven years old, accompanied by their father,
James Armstrong, along with Reverend Fred . . . — — Map (db m153229) HM
The explosions in August and the deaths of the girls
and two boys in acts of violence on September 15,
all attached to school integration in 1963, deeply
shook Birmingham. The violence stoked deep
resentment and anger in the Black . . . — — Map (db m189191) HM
1953
During the early 1950s, moderate White business
leaders pressured city officials to find and prosecute
the Dynamite Hill bombers and explore racial
reforms. In April 1951, some worked with moderate
Blacks to form the Interracial . . . — — Map (db m189176) HM
August 1963
The Shores daughters said their father handled civil
rights cases across Alabama and across the South. As he
advanced the African American struggle against unfair
segregation through the courts, angry White militants
turned . . . — — Map (db m189189) HM
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 . . . — — Map (db m188971) HM
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