The 16th Street Baptist Church is a Baptist church in Birmingham, Alabama, frequented by African Americans. In 1963, the church was the target of a racially motivated bombing that killed four young girls in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement. The Church is still operating and is a major landmark in the Civil Rights District of Birmingham. It was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 2006. Since 2008, it has also been listed in the UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Video 16th Street Baptist Church
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The 16th Street Baptist Church was held as Birmingham's First Colored Baptist Church in 1873. This was the first black church to be held in Birmingham, founded only two years before. The first meeting was held in a small building on 12th Street and Fourth Avenue North. A site was soon acquired on 3rd Avenue North between 19th and 20th Street for a special building. In 1880, the church sold the property and built a new church at this location on 16th Street and 6th Avenue North. The new brick building was completed in 1884 under the supervision of its pastor, William R. Pettiford, but in 1908, the city condemned the structure and ordered it to be destroyed. Pettiford was pastor of 1883-1904.
The present building, "Romanesque and Byzantine designs modified" by prominent black architect Wallace Rayfield, was built in 1911 by the local black contractor T.C. Windham. The cost of construction is $ 26,000. In addition to the main shelter, the building has a basement auditorium, used for meetings and lectures, and some additional space used for Sunday schools and smaller groups.
As one of the leading institutions in the black community, the 16th Street Baptist has hosted prominent visitors throughout its history. W. E. B. Du Bois, Mary McLeod Bethune, Paul Robeson, and Ralph Bunche all spoke in the church during the first part of the 20th century.
Maps 16th Street Baptist Church
The civil rights and bombing era of 1963
During the civil rights movement of the 1960s, the 16th Street Baptist Church served as the headquarters of the organization, a meeting place of mass and a gathering point for African Americans protesting the widespread racism of Birmingham, Alabama and the South. Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, who is chairman of the local committee, James Bevel, SCLC leader who initiated Children's Crusade and taught nonviolent students, and Martin Luther King, Jr. is a frequent speaker in the church and leads the movement.
On Sunday, September 15, 1963, Thomas Blanton, Bobby Frank Cherry, and Robert Edward Chambliss, members of the Ku Klux Klan, planted 19 sticks of dynamite outside the church basement. At 10:22 am, they exploded, killing four young girls - Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley and Denise McNair - and injuring 22 others. They were there preparing for the Church's "Youth Day". A funeral for three of the four victims was attended by more than 8,000 mourners, whites and blacks, but no city officials.
This is one of a series of more than 45 bombings of the decade. The Dynamite Hill neighborhood is the area most often targeted during this time. The bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church increased the involvement of the Federal in Alabama. President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 the following year; and in 1965, the Voting Rights Act was passed, making literacy tests and illegal electoral taxes.
After the bombing, more than $ 300,000 of unsolicited gifts were received by the church and repairs soon began. The church reopened on June 7, 1964. The stained glass window depicting the black Jesus, designed by John Petts, was donated by the citizens of Wales and installed in the front window, facing south.
Current status
The Church was added to the Alabama Inquiry and Heritage List on June 16, 1976. On September 17, 1980, was added to the National Register of Historic Places. In 1993, a surveyor team for the US Historical Buildings Survey executed an archive that measures the quality of church images for the Library of Congress. Because of its historical value at the national level in civil rights moral wars, the church was officially designated a National Historic Landmark on February 20, 2006 by the United States Department of the Interior. On January 1, 2008, the US Government handed it over to UNESCO as part of a future World Heritage nomination and is therefore called the UNESCO World Heritage Site Tentative List.
As part of the Birmingham Civil Rights District, the 16th Street Baptist Church receives over 200,000 visitors annually. Although membership is currently only about 500, its membership averages nearly 2,000 per week. The church also operates a major drug counseling program. The pastor today is Reverend Arthur Price. Across from the church at Kelly Ingram Park is the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, which plans events that teach and promote the history of human rights.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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