The shooting of Jimmie Lee Jackson in nearby Marion, Alabama, transformed Brown Chapel from a sanctuary into a staging area for the Selma march, In a passionate sermon SCLC worker James Bevel suggested making a pilgrimage to the State Capitol to . . . — — Map (db m112364) HM
Confederate Army Captain James White was ordered to relocate the old Federal Arsenal from Mt. Vernon, Alabama. By 1865 it consisted of 24 buildings and had over 500 workers including men, women, boys, girls, FMofC and slaves. It made or contracted . . . — — Map (db m82750) HM
following the Battle of Selma, April 2, 1865. This occupation protected the hotel from the arson and looting in the first 24 hours that destroyed much of downtown. In the next week Wilson methodically burned the huge military/industrial complex that . . . — — Map (db m80792) HM
In January 1885, Dr. Edward M. Brawley, President, Alabama Baptist Normal and Theological School (now Selma University) formed Tabernacle Baptist Church to be an integral part of the students' Christian formation and education. Significant . . . — — Map (db m82034) HM
Tabernacle Baptist Church was founded in 1885, and in March of that year, the congregation purchased this site. Built in 1922 under the leadership of Dr. David Vivian Jemison, the current church features bricks from the original church building . . . — — Map (db m83677) HM
Honoring:
Leader of
The Selma-Montgomery March
"Bloody Sunday", March 7, 1965
"Get in the Way"
"When We Pray, We Move Our Feet"
Presented by:
The Evelyn Gibson Lowery . . . — — Map (db m111683) HM
(The Beginning)
The major civil rights protest, which focused national attention on the issue of racial discrimination in voting & led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, was centered in Selma.
In January of 1963 local . . . — — Map (db m37662) HM
By early 1964, the Dallas County Voters League (DCVL) and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee's (SNCC) efforts to organize for voting rights had reached a turning point. In July 1964 Judge James Hare, pressured by Selma law enforcement to . . . — — Map (db m112369) HM
The Lightening Brigade of the 2nd Division would spearhead the attack between Redoubts No. 13 - No. 16. Artillery covered all the approaches. At 5 p.m. General Long ordered the Second Division forward. "As Long's Second Division charged . . . — — Map (db m83682) HM
Established in 1816 by eight families from Rocky River Presbyterian Church in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina.
In 1859 this two-story brick building replaced original wooden structure.
Sanctuary and former slave gallery are on second . . . — — Map (db m83683) HM
Constructed in 1924 on five acres, this building was one of nine schools constructed in Elmore County with funding assistance from the Julius Rosenwald Fund. Between 1912-32, Julius Rosenwald, a Jewish philanthropist and CEO of Sears, Roebuck and . . . — — Map (db m70548) HM
W. B. Doby served as the first President of the Elmore County Teachers Association, Principal of Elmore County Training School, and as an ordained minister in the A.M.E. Church. Local leaders dedicated this school for African-American students on . . . — — Map (db m94614) HM
In 1834, the Wetumpka Toll Bridge Co. built the first of four bridges spanning the Coosa River at this site. It was destroyed in a flood in 1844. A second toll bridge was completed the same year by John Godwin whose slave, Horace King, designed . . . — — Map (db m69449) HM
In 1920, a wooden building was constructed as the Atmore Colored School and operated until 1925. In 1926, a new wood and a brick building was erected with assistance from Rosenwald School fund and it was renamed the Escambia County Training School. . . . — — Map (db m100835) HM
Lynching in America.
Thousands of Black people were the victims of lynching and racial violence in the United States between 1877 and 1950. The lynching of African Americans during this era was a form of racial terrorism intended to intimidate . . . — — Map (db m116817) HM
Established in 1826 as "The Colored Cemetery," this site is
the first and largest African-American cemetery in Gadsden.
In 1918, the Mosaic Templars of America, a fraternal
organization who provided African Americans with death and
burial . . . — — Map (db m167227) HM
Oldest church in Etowah County. Organized Saturday, April 2, 1831, at Harmony Meeting
House, which was built in 1821, by Edmond Jones at this location.
It was here that the Wills Creek Baptist Association was organized in 1836, Harmony
being . . . — — Map (db m205239) HM
The Countyline Missionary Baptist Church and adjoining cemetery were established in November 1882, on land donated by Shade Adams, Originally donated by way of a gentleman's agreement with the founding members, the land was deeded to the 'Countyline . . . — — Map (db m199425) HM
On this site, in January 1971, Thomas Earl Gilmore, Sr. was sworn in as Sheriff of Greene County. He was the first African American Sheriff in the county's history and served three consecutive terms until he retired from local politics.
Gilmore, . . . — — Map (db m203630) HM
In 1867 a group of African American men and women laid the foundations for Freetown. William, John, Albert, George, Richard, and Peter Collins; Susan and Lawrence Moore; Thomas Jeffries; the children of John Jeffries; and Louisa Conway and her . . . — — Map (db m38192) HM
Tuskegee educator Booker T. Washington and Julius Rosenwald, Sears, Roebuck & Company president, initiated one of the most ambitiuous school building programs for African Americans in the United States. The Oak Grove School is one example of the . . . — — Map (db m83753) HM
Organized 1823 by Rev. James Hillhouse
of South Carolina, with
Patrick Norris and William Hillhouse,
veterans of American Revolution,
as founding elders.
Original wooden structure replaced
by brick building in 1841
under pastorate . . . — — Map (db m33746) HM
Founded by Laura L. Ward. Building designed and constructed by Jim McCauley on land given by Glass Maybin. Classes began Sept., 1917. Principals who served school were: J. H. Jackson, W. R. Rosser, Felix Blackwood, Sr., and William B. Ward, Sr. . . . — — Map (db m71809) HM
Civil rights pioneer Rosa McCauley Parks was born on February 4, 1913 in Tuskegee, Alabama. Shortly after her birth her parents James and Leona McCauley, moved here to a 260 acre farm owned by her grandparents, Anderson and Louisa McCauley. Her . . . — — Map (db m241312) HM
Newville High School
The first known school in Newville was at Center Church in 1881. When Grange Hall was built in 1891, church services and school were held on the first floor. In 1913, Grange Hall was torn down and the wood was used to . . . — — Map (db m71812) HM
On this site in 1877 Gaines Chapel Church was organized. A wooden structure was erected adjacent to an existing graveyard. In 1891 and 1901 additional land was purchased.
In 1908 the present building was dedicated. This structure was of early . . . — — Map (db m73362) HM
(side 1)
The History of Paint Rock, Alabama
Originally Camden circa 1830, the post office was renamed Redman in 1846 and became Paint Rock on May 17, 1860. After the Memphis and Charleston Railroad Co. built a depot and water . . . — — Map (db m69756) HM
Marker front:
Constructed in 1911-1912 and designed by architect Richard H. Hunt, the Jackson County Courthouse is a Neo-Classical, brick building situated on a town square in Scottsboro, the county seat of Jackson County. The front, . . . — — Map (db m22264) HM
The Memphis and Charleston Railroad Company constructed the Scottsboro Railroad Depot in 1860-1861 as a passenger and freight facility. The rail line ran throughout the Confederacy and the Union considered its capture vital to cutting off supplies . . . — — Map (db m22258) HM
During the Reconstruction Period following the Civil War, a freedmens community was established in this area called Averyville, named for the Pennsylvania minister and successful businessman Charles Avery, a longtime and faithful champion of Negro . . . — — Map (db m108803) 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
This cemetery is the final resting place of three of the four young girls killed in the September 15, 1963 church bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church. Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley and Carol Robertson are buried here. The fourth victim, . . . — — Map (db m61197) HM
The Fourth Avenue "Strip" thrived during a time when downtown privileges for blacks were limited. Although blacks could shop at some white-owned stores, they did not share the same privileges and services as white customers, so they created tailor . . . — — Map (db m26985) 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
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
The ACMHR used nonviolent direct action as its preferred method of
attacking racial segregation. This was a clear break from the tactics and
strategies of the traditional black middle-class leadership that focused
on petitions and lawsuits. Under . . . — — Map (db m188978) 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
Rev. Shuttlesworth returned frequently to Birmingham to lead the
ACMHR in a strategic alliance with the SCLC to bring national attention to
Birmingham and the need to end racial discrimination in America.
ACMHR staff worked with the SCLC's . . . — — Map (db m189139) HM
Because of his fearlessness, college student activists who staged
sit-ins and integrated bus rides in the 1960s knew they could depend
on support from Rey. Shuttlesworth and the ACMHR. He supported
Miles College student leader Frank Dukes and his . . . — — Map (db m189134) HM
Built in 1935, remodeled 1945 (corner 4th Ave. N. & 17th St. N.)
The Carver Theatre for the Performing Arts was built in 1935 and
refitted in 1945 with all of the modern comforts and features of the
day, including 1,300 theatre chairs and . . . — — Map (db m188189) HM
Built 1913, 310 18th St. N.
The Alabama Penny Savings Bank, founded by Sixteenth Street
Baptist Church pastor Rev. William R. Pettiford, was Alabama's
first Black-owned bank and the second-largest Black bank in the
country by 1907. He . . . — — Map (db m188950) HM
Pearl Harbor
May 31, 1941
Dear Friend,
I hope all is well with you. I am doing well but due to the present state of emergency the Pacific Fleet is held in a place known as Hawaiian Territory.
Would you do me a . . . — — Map (db m27409) 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
During the first 30 years of his 54-year-old practice, Attorney Shores practiced all over the State of Alabama - from the Tennessee line to the Gulf of Mexico at Mobile Bay, and from the Mississippi borders to the Georgia limits. During the period . . . — — Map (db m26720) 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
Built 1940, 1420 7th Ave. N.
The Ballard House honors a time when thriving
neighborhoods; businesses, churches, social, cultural,
and civic organizations; made up a dynamic
African-American community during the first half of
the 20th . . . — — Map (db m187886) HM
Alabama's chapters of the National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People (NAACP) were particularly effective in filing federal
lawsuits that challenged racial segregation laws and advocating for
voting rights. NAACP members also . . . — — Map (db m188970) 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
Built 1992, 520 16th St. N.
The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute contains permanent exhibitions and photo galleries, offering visitors a self-directed
journey through the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and
1960s to the human rights . . . — — Map (db m187515) 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
In January 1957, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., called ministers of the
church-led movements in Southern cities, including Montgomery and
Birmingham, to a meeting in Atlanta to form a national organization to
help them all. Civil rights activist . . . — — Map (db m189109) HM
Civil rights activist and pastor, the Rev. Calvin Wallace Woods Sr. was born in Birmingham in 1933. The son of a Baptist preacher, Woods attended historic miles college and various seminary institutions. He distinguished himself as a leader during . . . — — Map (db m187533) 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
The economic center of the Black retail district was on nearby Fourth
Avenue North. This historic area also served as the main cultural, social
and religious center of Black Birmingham. Blacks felt more relaxed
among their own people in and . . . — — Map (db m187761) 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
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 Brock building was established in 1915, located at the intersection of Fourth Avenue and 18th Street North, was built while the area was residential. The three-story building housed a hotel upstairs that catered to professional musicians and . . . — — Map (db m26723) HM
In Tribute to
Carrie A. Tuggle
1858 - 1924
Scholar, Teacher and Christian.
A life of unselfish service
to the troubled and the
homeless black boys and girls.
In 1903, she founded
a school and orphanage,
the Tuggle . . . — — Map (db m27391) 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
1961
Black middle-class families who moved to North
Smithfield included the Davises, the Coars, the
Monks, the Browns, the Coles, the Adamses, the
Wesleys, the Gaillards, the Powells, the Halls, the
Nalls, the Browns, the Nixons, the . . . — — Map (db m189181) HM
The use of schoolchildren in the Movement unnerved Police Commissioner "Bull Connor, as well as the rest of Birmingham. But the success
of D-Day led to a second day, Double D-Day," where more children,
about 2,000, skipped school to protest. . . . — — Map (db m187838) HM
Rev. Bevel gave Birmingham children a chance to play important roles in
the struggle for equality. As their field marshal, he turned hundreds of
recruits into an effective non-violent army that Project C" unleashed
on the retail district. Images . . . — — Map (db m187767) 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
Built 1922, 1630 4th Ave. N.
Built and designed by African Americans, the Colored Masonic
Temple served as their only major business and social meeting
place for decades. The Temple's gilded auditorium hosted many elegant social functions . . . — — Map (db m188188) HM
In the 1940s and 1950s, the NAACP filed a stream of lawsuits against Jim
Crow laws that had given Whites political, economic and social
superiority over Blacks for more than 100 years. Most of Birmingham's
NAACP cases, filed by local Black . . . — — Map (db m187775) HM
Rev. Shuttlesworth often said he expected to die at an early age in his
toe-to-toe battles with violent White segregationists who were bent on
maintaining power. But he outlived Dr. King and Rev. Abernathy, the last of
"the Big Three." He lived . . . — — Map (db m187571) 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
Leaders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) learned they could apply economic pressure to White businesses with more effective results than moral persuasion alone. Therefore, the central strategy of the Birmingham Campaign . . . — — Map (db m73037) HM
Born Jan. 15, 1929 Assassinated Apr. 4. 1968 "...yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice; say that I was a drum major for peace..." His dream liberated Birmingham from itself and began a . . . — — Map (db m73007) HM
Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth invited Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to Birmingham in 1962. Shuttlesworth saw potential in the young minister, and their combined efforts were instrumental in Birmingham's desegregation. The campaign catapulted King into the . . . — — Map (db m73031) HM
Dedicated to
Dr. Ruth J. Jackson
1898-1982
This woman of strength and vision graduated from the Poro School of Cosmetology, the first black registered school in the State of Alabama. At the vanguard of the Civil Rights Movement, she was . . . — — Map (db m27090) HM
Built 1917, 1701 4th Ave. N.
From 1900 to 1960, the Fourth Avenue area west of 18th Street in
downtown Birmingham was the business, social and cultural center
of the city's African-American community. Every major historical
and cultural . . . — — Map (db m188039) HM
Marker Front:
Founded in 1886 on 600 acres of land, East Birmingham was the agricultural area consisting primarily of dairy farms extending to the present Birmingham airport. The East Birmingham Land Company that developed the area was . . . — — Map (db m83827) HM
Eddie James Kendrick, nicknamed "cornbread", was born the eldest of five children to Johnny and Lee Bell Kendrick in Union Springs, Alabama.
After attending Western-Olin High School in Ensley, Alabama, Eddie was persuaded by his childhood . . . — — Map (db m26724) HM
Built 1999, SW corner of 4th Ave. N. & 18th St. N.
Urban Impact worked with artist Ronald McDowell who wanted
to create a public park along Fourth Avenue to honor Eddie
Kendricks, Birmingham native and a lead singer of the
legendary Motown . . . — — Map (db m188036) 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
Emory Overton Jackson was born on September 8, 1908 in Buena Vista, Georgia to Will Burt and Lovie Jones Jackson. E. O. Jackson and his seven siblings were raised in the middle-class Birmingham enclave of Enon Ridge, located on the west side of town . . . — — Map (db m64736) HM
Constant mistreatment by a brutal police force, a racist state government
and a White community that was either hostile or unconcerned pushed
many Blacks in Birmingham to the breaking point. Many were stuck in
low-paying, low-level jobs. Most . . . — — Map (db m187785) HM
Built 1928, 1717 4th Ave. N.
During the entertainment boom of the 1920s, The Famous, an
African-American movie theater, joined the Frolic, Lincoln,
Champion, Dixie and Savoy Theaters as places of entertainment
for African-Americans who . . . — — Map (db m188038) HM
September 1963
The increasing number of new African American
families moving onto Dynamite Hill required the
building of a new school. The city's segregation
laws prevented their children from attending
all-White Graymont Elementary, even . . . — — Map (db m189184) HM
This sculpture is dedicated to the Foot Soldiers of the Birmingham Civil Rights Movement.
With gallantry, courage and great bravery they faced the violence of attack dogs, high powered water hoses, and bombings. They were the fodder in the . . . — — Map (db m27394) 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
Prior to 1900 a "black business district" did not exist in Birmingham. In a pattern characteristic of Southern cities found during Reconstruction, black businesses developed alongside those of whites in many sections of the downtown area. . . . — — Map (db m174706) HM
The Fraternal Hotel Building was built in 1925. Some of the businesses that were located in this building included:
1925 - 1980 Fraternal Hotel
1925 - 1970 Fraternal Cafι
1950 - 1966 Monroe Steak House
1985 - 1994 Grand Lodge Knights of . . . — — Map (db m27518) 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
Businesses that occupied this building between 1908 - 1970
1908 - 1913 Southern Bell Telephone Company Stockroom
1915 - 1926 OK French Dry Cleaning Company
1927 - 1938 George Kanelis Billiards
1940 - 1945 Alexs Steak House
1946 - . . . — — Map (db m27521) HM
Built 1950 (Remodeled in the 1970s), 618 19th St. N.
The Greyhound bus station was a stop of the 1961 Freedom Riders, a
group of Blacks and Whites who rode buses together across state
lines to disobey segregation laws in the Deep South. A . . . — — Map (db m187718) HM
You are standing at Ground Zero of the 1963 civil rights struggle in Birmingham. When African-American leaders and citizens resolved to fight the oppression of a strictly segregated society, they were met with vitriol and violence despite their own . . . — — Map (db m73015) HM
Unfair laws forced Birmingham Blacks to create their own distinctive
world of economic and social self-reliance. The historic Black business
district extended several blocks around Kelly Ingram Park and contained
a concentration of Black-owned . . . — — Map (db m187760) 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
Birmingham's rise to national prominence in the modern American
Civil Rights Movement began several years after Rev. Fred L.
Shuttlesworth arrived in March 1953 to pastor Bethel Baptist Church,
founded in 1904. The church's prior pastors were . . . — — Map (db m188962) HM
11493 entries matched your criteria. Entries 101 through 200 are listed above. ⊲ Previous 100 Next 100 ⊳
