The 16th Street Baptist Church
Bombing, 1963
Four Little Girls and the Civil Rights Movements Heights
of Enthusiasm, Depths of Despair.
Bombingham, Alabama, 1963
Birmingham, Alabama had been given this
troubling nickname due to the number of violent
incidents which took place here during the early
1960s.
From 1957 to 1963, Birmingham, Alabama saw
over 50 cross burnings and 18 bombings – often of
African-American churches, which were the
center of the community.
Cross Burnings were often carried out to
terrorize and harass African-Americans in
the Deep South. The Ku Klux Klan had
practiced these sorts of intimidating
methods since the time of the
Reconstruction. Surprisingly, Klan
activity was often organized through
Churches in the deep South. Churches
were usually segregated, and the Klan
would often arrange for picnics or other
social gatherings on Sunday afternoons in
Southern towns. Since the majority of
these town often held racist sentiments –
even if they were not all disposed to
acting out violently – these social
gatherings were often community
building events. Consensus was built at
these gatherings for certain rules – for
example, that no African-Americans
should be able to serve on jury or testify
against whites. Restricting the voting
rights of African-Americans was easily
agreed to as well.
Klan members set fire to a cross.
Since churches were often the
center of community life in
African-American culture during
the 1960s, they were targeted by
hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan.
Since the days of slavery, AfricanAmerican churches had voiced the
concerns of their community –
and served as a rallying point for
social protest movements. During
the 1960s, African-American
ministers were often at the heart
of protest movements – and the
social changes they were
advocating for were fiercely
resisted by the white majorities
in towns across the South.
Violent acts targeting churches,
therefore, were directed at the
most outspoken members of the
Civil Rights Movement. Church
burnings persisted into the 1990s
in many places.
A Church in Birmingham, AL, which was
partially burned down as a result of arson.
The Civil Rights Movement
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Since the Supreme Court decision of
Brown V. Board of Education, Topeka,
KS had established a precedent
condemning segregation in public
places, Martin Luther King had been
active in challenging racism and
segregation throughout the South.
When he took over the leadership of
the Montgomery Bus Boycott in early
1956, he was only twenty-five years
old. But his devotion to the cause –
and too non-violent, civil
disobedience – allowed him to win
over many, many followers, both
white and black. He founded the
Southern Christian Leadership
Conference to organize support for
the Civil Rights Movement.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott
The Progress of the Movement
Central High School, 1957
In 1957, Central High School in Little
Rock, Arkansas was integrated. When
outside agitators and angry white
residents of Arkansas objected to the
new students and Governor Orval
Faubus blocked the entry of black
students to the school, President
Dwight Eisenhower sent in federal
troops to bring students to class.
During the course of the school year,
all nine students were escorted to
school by an armored jeep, and each
student had a soldier assigned to
them in order to guarantee their
security in school each day.
The Little Rock Nine
“Jim Crow” Laws and
Segregation Continue
Despite the progress of the Civil Rights
Movement and the victories of groups
like the NAACP in the legal system,
African-Americans still faced
segregation, discrimination, and
violence.
Students in Greensboro, North
Carolina, decided to challenge
segregation laws in a local Woolworth’s
lunch counter in 1960. They were
refused service, but continued to stay
in their seats, effectively shutting down
the lunch counter – and beginning a
system of passive resistance in the
form of non-violent, Civil Disobedience.
In response, a new group, the Student
Non-Violent Coordinating Committee,
was formed.
Despite the non-violent protest methods
used by African-Americans and Civil Rights
supporters, the South often responded with
brutality and hatred when AfricanAmericans advocated for their rights. Even
non-violent offenses, such as sitting at a
lunch counter or picketing the government –
acts which are protected under the right to
assemble and the right to petition in the Bill
or Rights – were met with brutality, arrests,
and imprisonment in many cases. Faced
with this sort of obvious discrimination and
unconstitutional methods, African-American
protesters redoubled their efforts. They
boycotted businesses to cause economic
harm to segregationists. They committed
themselves to actions which would result in
massive arrests – overcrowding the local
jails and prison systems, and putting an
economic burden on the community in the
process. If Southern communities insisted
on enforcing racist laws, it would cost them
money, at least, to do so.
Non-Violent Protests were often put down by violence; nevertheless,
protester would not engage in any violent acts.
When a group of Civil Rights leaders
attempted to insure that federal
interstate transportation by bus
routes were integrated, their bus
was bombed, and many of the
“Freedom Riders” were brutal
beaten. The Freedom Riders were
an integrated – both black and
white – group of students who came
up with an amazing summer project
during their college years. They
attempted to travel from
Washington, D.C. to New Orleans,
LA by bus – and tested to be certain
that integration laws were being
upheld both on the busses and in
the depots along the way. The
violence they encountered was
significant; indeed, many of those
who started the trip did not make it
all the way to New Orleans. None
made it by bus. They were force to
fly the last stage from Jackson, MS.
The Freedom Riders
Despite this brutality and the
history of violence in the city of
Birmingham, Rev. Dr. Martin
Luther King decided in 1963, that
Birmingham, AL, perhaps the
most segregated city in America,
should be targeted by his
organization for change. So,
together with Minister Fred
Shuttlesworth of the 16th Street
Baptist Church in 1963, Dr. King
and his Southern Christian
Leadership Conference, arrived
in Birmingham to demand an end
to segregation and the start of a
voting rights campaign. The
marches he organized, not
surprisingly, were met with great
violence. The brutality was
unprecedented, and the
photography and film
documentation of the
demonstrations and repression
was broadcast globally.
Birmingham, 1963
Birmingham, 1963
When Dr. King organized a
march of school children
against the segregated city,
the police commissioner used
fire hoses to pound children,
elderly men and women, and
any Civil Rights leaders
present to the ground. Many
were grievously injured.
Americans who witnessed the
scene were embarrassed at
the unbelievable racism and
cruelty. At the height of the
Cold War, the Soviet Union
broadcast images of the police
crackdown to show people in
Africa, Asia, and Latin America
the “true nature of American
Democracy and freedom.”
The Arrest of The Rev. Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King was arrested
and imprisoned for his role in
leading the march, for sponsoring
the meeting without a city permit.
(They would not grant him one.)
From prison, he wrote the famous
“Letter from a Birmingham Jail.”
The letter was an address to white
and black ministers in the city,
many of whom criticized King for
his leadership. In their view,
having young people arrested was
damaging the community, causing
chaos and disorder, and probably
disrupting the futures of the
children. What college,
university, or employer would
want to enroll or hire a youngster
with a criminal record? King went
to jail with his followers to show
that devotion to God’s laws was
more important that the unjust
laws created by mankind.
“When you are forever
fighting a degenerating
sense of ‘nobodiness’-then you will understand
why we find it difficult to
wait. There comes a time
when the cup of
endurance runs over, and
men are no longer willing
to be plunged into the
abyss of despair.”
“Letter from a Birmingham
Jail”
The summer of 1963 in
Birmingham, Alabama was
an extraordinarily violent
one, filled with conflict and
hatred. While in jail,
Martin Luther King penned
his famous “Letter From a
Birmingham Jail”, in which
he tried to explain why all
of the disturbances were
worthwhile.
A Letter From A Birmingham Jail
“You express a great deal of anxiety
over our willingness to break laws.
This is certainly a legitimate concern.
Since we so diligently urge people to
obey the Supreme Court's decision of
1954 outlawing segregation in the
public schools, at first glance it may
seem rather paradoxical for us
consciously to break laws. One may
want to ask: "How can you advocate
breaking some laws and obeying
others?" The answer lies in the fact
that there are two types of laws: just
and unjust. I would be the first to
advocate obeying just laws. One has
not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws.
Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I
would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all."
“ I Have a Dream”
After being released from
prison in the summer of 1963,
the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr. was the keynote
speaker at the March on
Washington for Jobs and
Freedom, an event organized
by the labor leader Asa Philip
Randolph. There, in what
many considered the high
point of the Civil Rights
Movement at the time, he
delivered the famous “I Have
a Dream Speech” on August
28, 1963.
The 16th Street Baptist
Church Bombing
It was just about two weeks after the
famous “I Have a Dream “ speech, and
only a few days before the schools in
Birmingham, AL were about to open,
integrated, that the 16th Street Baptist
Church bombing took place. Sunday
school students had already started to
arrive, and church would soon begin.
All of the victories of the Civil Rights
Movement to date – all of the happiness
and joy of accomplishment, all of the
hope and optimism of progress – would
be brought to a crashing halt on that
Sunday Morning in Birmingham, AL.
Four Little Girls
Four children were murdered in the
blast, which had been carried out by
members of the Ku Klux Klan, in
order to intimidate the black
community in Birmingham and delay
the integration of public schools.
That fall, schools were scheduled to
open, and segregation was going to
come to an end. The man who
bombed the 16th Street Baptist
Church hoped to prevent integration
by frightening the African American
community.
There were five girls in the basement
of the 16th Street Baptist Church that
morning. Four were crushed to
death when the church collapsed. A
fifth girl, who was underneath a solid
plumbing fixture at the time,
miraculously survived. The girls who
lost their lives in the blast are
pictured to the left.
The 16th Street Baptist Church
Bombing of 1963
The young girls who were murdered on September 15,
1963 became martyrs to the cause of Civil Rights in
America. Their brutal murders demonstrated to most
Americans the ruthlessness and hatefulness which racist
agitators would use to deny African-Americans equality,
liberty, and dignity under the law. As the news spread
across the nation and across the world, embarrassment
that anyone could condone such arbitrary malice caused
many Americans to re-evaluate their nation, and
recommit themselves to the basic, core values the
United States was founded upon – the proposition that
“all men are created equal;” the preservation of “life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
The Legacy of the Movement
The Civil Rights Act of 1964
Two laws were enacted during the 1960s
which would dramatically increase the role
of the national government in protecting
the rights of all citizens. The Civil Rights
Act of 1964 forbid discrimination based on
religion, race, skin-color, or sex. Although
he had proposed the act, John F. Kennedy
would be assassinated before he could sign
it into law. Lyndon Johnson did, though, in
1964. The following year, the Voting
Rights Act insured that threats and
intimidation against African-American
voters, grandfather clauses, literacy test,
poll taxes, and the like would no longer
prevent African-Americans from
participating in America’s democracy.
These laws are still considered the
crowning moments of the Civil Rights
Movement.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965