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
The first march to City Hall was organized in 1955 by Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth when he petitioned the city to hire Negro policemen. By 1963, thousands of Blacks marched on City Hall to protest Jim Crow laws that were a constant reminder of Blacks' . . . — — Map (db m73036) HM
People across the country took notice of the Birmingham demonstrations.
Donations began pouring in to help post bail for hundreds of marchers,
mostly children. Local leaders estimated the amount for bail at well over
$200,000. As anger grew in . . . — — Map (db m187835) HM
In dedication to Julius Ellsberry, the first Black Alabama man to die in World War II; born Birmingham, Ala, 1922.
Enlisted in the U.S. Navy, 1940; First Class Mate [sic] Attendant aboard battleship Oklahoma in the Battle of Pearl . . . — — Map (db m63761) HM WM
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
Built 1871 (renovated from 1979 to mid-1990s),
1601 & 1630 6th Ave. N.
Kelly Ingram Park was the main battleground in the 1963
Birmingham Campaign, dubbed “Project C" (with “C”
meaning "Confrontation"). The campaign was the . . . — — Map (db m187845) HM
Responsible for much planning and leadership, the clergy played a central role in the Birmingham Campaign--like the famous Palm Sunday incident in 1963 (see nearby plaque). Local clergy like Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth worked with out-of-town ministers, . . . — — Map (db m73080) HM
A key reason for Rev. Shuttlesworth's success was that he led the ACMHR
by example. He was the first to put himself, even his family, in harm's
way for the sake of the Movement. He did not ask ACMHR members to
do anything he was not willing to do . . . — — Map (db m189112) HM
Another goal of the ACMHR was school desegregation. ACMHR members
like barber James Armstrong filed lawsuits to put their children in
better-funded all-White schools after the U.S. Supreme Court's
landmark 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of . . . — — Map (db m189114) HM
1962
Segregation was still a way of life despite the ACMHR's heroic and
dangerous direct action campaigns and its multiple lawsuits.
Rev. Shuttlesworth knew he needed to put more pressure on the
city. He and other ACMHR leaders spent . . . — — Map (db m189137) HM
The non-violent marches for freedom in Birmingham inspired sympathy
demonstrations in Alabama, across the United States and around the
world. Average Americans began to insist that the federal government
step in to guarantee Blacks their rights . . . — — Map (db m187821) 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
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. replaced his initial reluctance to using
"children as foot soldiers' with approval. Thousands of newly recruited
child foot soldiers successfully marched toward the retail district, with
hundreds arrested for the . . . — — Map (db m187773) 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
Rev. Bevel and his SCLC team targeted high school students such as
cheerleaders, football players and other student leaders as foot soldiers
in the Movement. These popular teens could influence their peers to join
the sit-ins, pickets and . . . — — Map (db m188922) 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
On nightly news programs and in newspapers, the images of Birmingham
children under police attack shocked and sickened the nation. It was the
reaction that “Project C” organizers had hoped for. The "Children's Crusade” revived the Birmingham . . . — — Map (db m187837) HM
Built 1955, 1530 4th Ave. N.
Metropolitan AME Zion Church was one of the Movement
churches, hosting ACMHR mass meetings in 1962 and serving as
one of the starting points of the massive demonstrations of
April - May 1963. “Project C" . . . — — Map (db m188033) 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
The central principle of the American Civil Rights Movement was non-violence, based on the strategies of Mahatma Gandhi, who led India's independence struggle against the British Empire. Being non-violent did not mean being passive. Using "direct . . . — — Map (db m83833) HM
In Tribute to
Pauline Bray Fletcher
1878 - 1970
The First Black Registered Nurse of Alabama
Through self-sacrifice, perseverance founded in 1926 Camp Pauline Bray Fletcher.
Renewing the faith and the good health of all black . . . — — Map (db m27393) HM
Rev. Shuttlesworth was not completely satisfied with the settlement Dr. King
worked out with Birmingham's White power structure to end “Project C”
while he lay injured at the hospital. Even so, Birmingham's African Americans
finally won their . . . — — Map (db m187593) 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
Rev. Shuttlesworth recruited Dr. King and the SCLC to build publicity for
the Birmingham Movement, King invited popular jazz singer Al Hibbler,
one of the first celebrities to take part in the “Project C" marches. King
hoped Hibbler's arrest . . . — — Map (db m187782) HM
Birmingham Blacks had no love for police, who often harassed and brutalized them rather than protect them from bombings and violence.
Some policemen were suspected Ku Klux Klan members or sympathizers.
Public Safety Commissioner Eugene “Bull” . . . — — Map (db m73032) HM
Built 1952, 1501 7th Ave. N.
Poole Funeral Chapel served as a “safe haven” for demonstrators during “Project C's” mass civil rights demonstrations in
April - May 1963. In 1957, its owners, brothers John and Ernest
Poole, came to the rescue . . . — — Map (db m187905) 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
Racial Terrorism and Convict Leasing. Thousands of black people were the victims of lynching and racial violence in the United States between 1877 and 1950 Lynching was
a form of racial terrorism that went beyond only hanging, . . . — — Map (db m173372) HM
April 1916
On April 10, 1916, the U.S. Supreme Court heard a
case from Louisville, Kentucky, where it was illegal
to sell homes to Blacks in areas where Whites lived.
The high court's 1917 decision in Buchanan v. Warley
said Louisville's . . . — — Map (db m189158) HM
Throughout May 1963, the pressure continued to build. The downtown business district was closed, a prominent black-owned motel was bombed, and 3,000 federal troops were dispatched to restore order before Birmingham was officially desegregated. This . . . — — Map (db m73021) HM
1960
This Center Street Historic District was carved from the
plantation of Joseph Riley Smith, who subdivided 600
acres that became Smithfield in 1886. In 1898, the
Smithfield community was home to many Whites,
including Italian and . . . — — Map (db m189177) HM
No one did more to bring about positive change in Birmingham than the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth. In his struggle for equal rights, he survived a series of assaults, including the bombing of his home and a brutal armed beating by the Ku Klux Klan. . . . — — Map (db m73025) HM
Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth's tenure as pastor of Bethel Baptist Church (1953-1961) was marked by demonstrations, bombings and passionate sermons critical of segregation laws. His activism earned him a house bombing, frequent beatings, arrests, and . . . — — Map (db m83836) HM
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s ‘Letter From Birmingham Jail’
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter From Birmingham Jail"
is the most important written document of the Civil Rights Era. His
eloquent justification of the movement and . . . — — Map (db m173404) 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
Built by local industrialist A. H. "Rick" Woodward, this park opened on August 18, 1910. It is the oldest surviving baseball park in America. Rickwood served as the home park for both the Birmingham Barons (until 1987) and the Birmingham Black . . . — — Map (db m22526) 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
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
White businessmen failed to integrate their stores and remove "Colored”
signs from water fountains and dressing rooms as promised in 1962. As
a result, Miles College students led by Frank Dukes organized a boycott
against the stores. They . . . — — Map (db m187758) 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
Built 1924 (remodeled for offices in 1995), 413 16th St. N.
Judge Helen Shores Lee bought this one-story building, a
garage from the U.S. Post Office, in 1995 and turned into a law
center to honor her father, pioneer civil rights lawyer . . . — — Map (db m188192) 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
Although Rev. Shuttlesworth resigned from his positions within
the ACMHR and the SCLC in 1969, his dedication to the cause of
equality for African Americans continued for decades after the
height of the American Civil Rights Movement. A split . . . — — Map (db m187576) HM
"Project C” and the bombing of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church were
powerful motivators to end racial discrimination in America, but they
were not enough a year later. Even after the assassination of President
Kennedy on November 22, 1963, . . . — — Map (db m187591) 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
One of the last major battles in the struggle for African American civil
rights came in Selma, Alabama. Despite the new Civil Rights Act of
1964, African Americans still faced difficulty voting. Although they
had the right to vote under the . . . — — Map (db m187587) HM
Birmingham's new leaders were much kinder to Rev. Shuttlesworth than their
predecessors. In 1978, officials renamed one of the city's main roads in his
honor. The city's first African-American mayor, Richard Arrington, Jr.,
requested his return . . . — — Map (db m187573) HM
In 1961, Rev. Shuttlesworth finally gave in to his wife Ruby's wishes to leave
Birmingham to become pastor of Revelation Baptist Church in Cincinnati.
But he returned to Birmingham often to organize the Monday night mass
meetings and lead the . . . — — Map (db m187597) 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
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
Sixteenth Street Baptist Church
has been designated a
National
Historic Landmark
This property possesses National Significance in commemorating the history of the United States. In 1963 it was the staging ground for the . . . — — Map (db m63733) HM
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 . . . — — Map (db m187523) HM
Built 1959, 1410 & 1414 6th Ave. N.
Sixth Avenue Zion Hill Baptist Church hosted strategy and mass meetings during the Birmingham Movement. It also served as the departure points for the April 12, 1963, Good Friday march to City Hall, led . . . — — Map (db m244958) HM
This residential area was carved from the Joseph Riley Smith plantation, a 600 acre antebellum farm, one of the largest in 19th century Jefferson County. Smithfield lies to the west of Birmingham's city center on the flat land & hills north of . . . — — Map (db m26990) 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
Built 1973, 708 15th St. N.
St. John AME Church and Day Care Center are on the site of
the former church that hosted Monday night mass meetings
during the early 1960s. It was also a center where “Project
C" leaders came to strategize about . . . — — Map (db m187892) HM
Built 1904; Renovations 1948-51, 1500 6th Ave. N.
St. Paul United Methodist Church was the site of the first
mass meeting held on Dec. 26, 1956, following the ACMHR's
(Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights) first
major direct action . . . — — Map (db m187868) HM
Built 1949, 1622 4th Ave. N.
This small, one-story, brick commercial taxi stand building was
constructed after the passage of a 1930 City of Birmingham
ordinance that required separate taxi services for Blacks
and Whites. Rev. George . . . — — Map (db m188185) HM
1946
This two-story Queen-Anne-style house at the
corner of Center Street and 11th Court North was built
around 1900 for the Hayes family. White neighbors
objected when they learned the Hayes family sold
their house to a Black couple, . . . — — Map (db m189180) HM
A key player in the Birmingham civil rights drama was Public Safety
Commissioner Theophilus Eugene Connor. He earned the nickname
"Bull” because of his booming voice as a radio sports announcer. White
voters who supported his politics of racial . . . — — Map (db m187780) 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
On May 2, 1963, more than 1,000 students skipped school and marched on downtown, gathering at the 16th Street Baptist Church. Bull Connor responded by jailing more than 600 children that day. So the next day, another 1,000 students filled the park . . . — — Map (db m73017) HM
After nearly a month, “Project C” seemed on the verge of collapse. The
presence of Dr. King and the SCLC did not rally Black Birmingham behind
the Movement as leaders hoped. The media began to lose interest and
the White community basically . . . — — Map (db m187840) HM
Rev. Bevel and his team worked with popular disc jockeys "Tall Paul”
Dudley White and Shelley “The Playboy" Stewart, whose jive talk on the
radio was actually a secret code that told young foot soldiers when it
was time to "move out.” Despite . . . — — Map (db m187770) HM
In November 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed segregated buses
in Montgomery, handing the bus boycott and the growing Civil Rights
Movement a major victory. As a result, Rev. Shuttlesworth led the
ACMHR to target Birmingham's segregated . . . — — Map (db m189098) HM
When notoriously racist police commissioner Eugene "Bull" Connor sicced dogs on the "Foot Soldiers" of the movement, civil rights leaders hoped it would shine a national spotlight on their plight, but the country at large remained woefully ignorant. . . . — — Map (db m73398) HM
Built 1925, 1616-1622 4th Ave. N.
Located in the Historic Fourth Avenue Business District next to
the taxi stand and Colored Masonic Temple, this building
housed one of Birmingham's few hotels for Black travelers. It
also housed restaurants . . . — — Map (db m188186) HM
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., hoped to gain more national attention for the
Birmingham campaign by planning marches during Holy Week - on Palm
Sunday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday. But "Bull” Connor created serious problems for King. Connor got a . . . — — Map (db m187834) 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
The Christmas night bombing by White terrorists was intended to kill
Rev. Shuttlesworth, or at the very least, to scare him into leaving town
and his new organization. A police officer who came to the bornbed
house and church told Rev. . . . — — Map (db m189105) HM
In late 1958 and the summer of 1959, a series of articles in Time
magazine and the New York Times addressed the dangers Black
church leaders and others involved in the Movement faced as angry
pro-segregation Whites took more and more violent . . . — — Map (db m189131) HM
The New Pilgrim Baptist Church
Civil Rights Gathering Place.
This church served as a gathering place and strategic hub for Birmingham's Civil Rights Movement in 1956 under the leadership of Rev. Nelson H. Smith, Jr., . . . — — Map (db m188891) HM
By the end of April 1963, the national media and local Whites were
losing interest in “Project C.” Fewer Blacks volunteered to be arrested at
downtown stores and lunch counters. So, Rev. James Bevel, a field
Secretary with the SCLC, turned to a . . . — — Map (db m187765) HM
Ministers in 60 Black churches across the city played key roles in the
Birmingham Movement. In the mass meetings, ministers fired up their
working-class members and encouraged commitment to the struggle
against segregation with revival-style . . . — — Map (db m187529) 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
1937
Starting in the 1920s, demand for all housing in
Birmingham increased year after year as the
population grew. Residential areas zoned for
"Negroes,” however, remained the same. By the
1940s, surging Black demand and a postwar . . . — — Map (db m189168) 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
June 1958
Rev. Shuttlesworth called 1958 “a year of harassment” as terrorist
violence against the ACMHR's movement grew worse. Bethel
Baptist Deacon James Revis offered his home near the new
parsonage as a guardhouse. Other men from the . . . — — Map (db m189119) 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 "sudden" emergence of the ACMHR ministers left White leaders
"dumbfounded” and deeply concerned about how they could be
controlled. At first, they called Rev. Shuttlesworth and his fellow
ministers “radicals” and “Communists," "outsiders” who . . . — — Map (db m189084) HM
Built in the 1940S, 4th Ave. N. & 19th St. N.
On Mother's Day in 1961, the Freedom Riders, Black and White
members of the Congress for Racial Equality (CORE), arrived at
Birmingham's Trailways bus station. Though integrated . . . — — Map (db m187994) HM
"Tuxedo Junction" was the street car crossing on the Ensley-Fairfield line at this corner in the Tuxedo Park residential area. It also refers to the fraternal dance hall operated in the 1920's and 1930s on the second floor of the adjacent building, . . . — — Map (db m25623) HM
1936
Slum clearance became another facial zoning
Weapon. City health officials described. "Negro
quarters” as the unsanitary source of diseases that
threatened community health: Civic leaders used this
reasoning to win millions in federal . . . — — Map (db m189164) HM
C28 Side
Built 1921, 1800 5th Ave. N.
Lawyers like Arthur Shores and Thurgood Marshall (shown
with Autherine Lucy, the first Black student to integrate the
University of Alabama) filed numerous lawsuits challenging
racial . . . — — Map (db m188003) HM
On Aug. 18, 1915, Alabama
Equal Suffrage Association
and Birmingham Barons
hosted suffrage day here in
support of women's suffrage — — Map (db m188885) HM
Bull Connor ordered the fearless "Child Crusaders" to be blasted with high-pressure fire hoses, and he once again loosed the dogs on the young demonstrators. When the media finally exposed the nation to the cruel scene, President John F. Kennedy . . . — — Map (db m73019) HM
Wilson Chapel was built in 1916 as a memorial to James and Frances Wilson by their daughters, Rosa Wilson Eubanks and Minerva Wilson Constantine. At the time of its construction the area was developing into a community of country homes known as . . . — — Map (db m26681) HM
For seven years before the 1963 Birmingham Campaign, Rev. Shuttlesworth
and other leaders of the ACMHR taught masses of Black citizens how
to take direct but non-violent actions to gain first-class American
citizenship. Inspired by faith, these . . . — — Map (db m187787) HM
Mt. Zion Baptist Church began burying here in the mid-1800s. On June 2, 1970, New Grace Hill Cemetery, Inc., a subsidiary of the Booker T. Washington Insurance Company in Birmingham, purchased this cemetery and officially named it Zion Memorial . . . — — Map (db m35602) 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
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 m101159) HM
Miles College Leaders. Students Active During Civil Rights Era
The Colored Methodist Episcopal Church founded Miles College in
Fairfield in 1898. During the 1960s, President Lucius Pitts
encouraged students, faculty and staff to become . . . — — Map (db m153232) HM
Racial Terrorism and Criminal Justice
Racial terror lynching between 1865 and 1950 claimed the lives of thousands of African Americans and created a legacy of injustice that can still be felt today. After emancipation, white Southerners . . . — — Map (db m167223) HM
The story of “steel drivin’ man” John Henry is one of America’s most enduring legends. The strong ex-slave became a folk hero during construction of the Columbus & Western Railroad between Goodwater and Birmingham. He drilled holes for . . . — — Map (db m22207) HM
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