16th Street Baptist Church

16th Street Baptist Church
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.S. National Historic Landmark
Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage
16th Street Baptist Church in 2005
33°30′59.69″N 86°48′53.26″W / 33.5165806°N 86.8147944°W / 33.5165806; -86.8147944
Built	1911 / 1873
Architect	Wallace Rayfield; Windham Bros. Construction Co.
Architectural style	Romanesque
NRHP reference No.	80000696
Significant dates
Added to NRHP	September 17, 1980[2]
Designated NHL	February 20, 2006[3]
Designated ARLH	June 16, 1976[1]

The 16th Street Baptist Church is a Baptist church in Birmingham, Alabama, United States. In 1963, the church was bombed by Ku Klux Klan members. The bombing killed four young girls in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement. The church is still in operation and is a central landmark in the Birmingham Civil Rights District. It was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 2006.^[3][4] Since 2008, it has also been on the UNESCO list of tentative World Heritage Sites.^[5]

Beginnings

The 16th Street Baptist Church was organized as the First Colored Baptist Church of Birmingham in 1873. It was the first black church to organize in Birmingham, which was founded just two years before. The first meetings were held in a small building at 12th Street and Fourth Avenue North. A site was soon acquired on 3rd Avenue North between 19th and 20th Street for a dedicated building. In 1880, the church sold that property and built a new church on the present site on 16th Street and 6th Avenue North. The new brick building was completed in 1884 under the supervision of its pastor, William R. Pettiford,^[6] but in 1908, the city condemned the structure and ordered it to be demolished. Pettiford was pastor from 1883 to 1904.

The present building, a "modified Romanesque and Byzantine design" by the prominent black architect Wallace Rayfield, was constructed in 1911 by the local black contractor T.C. Windham. The cost of construction was $26,000. In addition to the main sanctuary, the building houses a basement auditorium, used for meetings and lectures, and several ancillary rooms used for Sunday school and smaller groups.

As one of the primary institutions in the black community, the 16th Street Baptist Church has hosted prominent visitors throughout its history. W. E. B. Du Bois, Mary McLeod Bethune, Paul Robeson and Ralph Bunche all spoke at the church during the first part of the 20th century.

Civil rights era and the 1963 bombing

During the civil rights movement of the 1960s, the 16th Street Baptist Church served as an organizational headquarters, site of mass meetings and rallying point for African Americans protesting widespread institutionalized racism in Birmingham, Alabama, and the South. The ministers Fred Shuttlesworth, who was the chief local organizer, Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)) leader Martin Luther King Jr., and SCLC leader James Bevel, who initiated the Children's Crusade and taught the students nonviolence, were frequent speakers at the church and led 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 basement of the church. At 10:22 a.m., they exploded, killing four young girls – Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley and Denise McNair. Twenty-two other victims suffered injuries. 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, white and black, but no city officials.

This was one of a string of more than 45 bombings within the decade. The neighborhood of Dynamite Hill was the most-frequently targeted area during this time. The bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church increased Federal involvement in Alabama. President Johnson signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act into law the following year; and in 1965 the Voting Rights Act was passed, making literacy tests and poll taxes illegal.

Following the bombing, more than $300,000 in unsolicited gifts were received by the church and repairs were begun immediately. The church reopened on June 7, 1964. A stained glass window depicting a black Jesus, designed by John Petts, was donated by citizens of Wales and installed in the front window, facing south.^[7]

Current status

The church was added to the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage on June 16, 1976.^[1] On September 17, 1980, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places. In 1993, a team of surveyors for the Historic American Buildings Survey executed archival quality measured drawings of the church for the Library of Congress. Because of its historic value on a national level in the moral crusade of civil rights, 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 submitted it to UNESCO as part of an envisaged future World Heritage nomination and as such it is on the so-called UNESCO 'Tentative List of World Heritage Sites'.^[5] In 2017, the church became part of the newly created Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument.^[8]

As part of the Birmingham Civil Rights District, the 16th Street Baptist Church receives more than 200,000 visitors annually. Though the current membership is only around 500, it has an average weekly attendance of nearly 2,000. The church also operates a large drug counseling program. The current pastor is the 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.

The 16th Street Baptist Church engaged in a $3 million restoration of the building in the first decade of the 21st century. Persistent water damage problems and exterior brick facing failure were addressed. The first phase of restoration, mainly below-grade waterproofing, was completed in 2007, followed by work on the exterior masonry. Additional funds were sought to handle unexpected problems uncovered during the work and to provide for ongoing physical maintenance.

See also

• List of Baptist churches in Alabama
• List of National Historic Landmarks in Alabama
• List of national monuments of the United States
• Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument

References

• Branch, Taylor (1988). Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954 -1963. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-671-68742-5.
• Corley, Robert G. (1979). The Quest for Racial Harmony: Race Relations in Birmingham, Alabama, 1947-1963 (Ph.D. Dissertation ed.). Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia.
• Eskew, Glenn T. (December 1997). But For Birmingham: The Local and National Movements in the Civil Rights Struggle. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 0-8078-4667-8.
• Fallin, Wilson (July 1997). The African American Church in Birmingham, Alabama, 1815-1963: A Shelter in the Storm. New York: Garland Publishing. ISBN 0-8153-2883-4.
• Hamlin, Christopher M. (April 1998). Behind the Stained Glass: a History of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. Birmingham, AL: Crane Hill. ISBN 1-57587-083-5.
• Henderson, Jesse (May 21, 2021). "Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, Sunday Worship: Redefining History and Reaching Community." Magic City Religion.
• McWhorter, Diane (2001). Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama, the Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-684-80747-5.
• Norris, Toraine (February 17, 2006). "Sixteenth Street Baptist named U.S. landmark." Birmingham News

Further reading

• Michael S. Harper's poem American History talks about the church bombing
• Anders Holm (August 29, 2023). "When Jesus Christ is the MAIN ATTRACTION! Glimt fra et studieophold i Alabama". TEOL-information (in Danish). 68: 22–25. ISSN 2596-8165. Wikidata Q122064121.

External links

Events
(timeline)

Prior to 1954	Journey of Reconciliation Executive Order 9981 Murders of Harry and Harriette Moore Sweatt v. Painter (1950) McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents (1950) Baton Rouge bus boycott
1954–1959	Brown v. Board of Education Bolling v. Sharpe Briggs v. Elliott Davis v. Prince Edward County Gebhart v. Belton Sarah Keys v. Carolina Coach Company Emmett Till Montgomery bus boycott Browder v. Gayle Tallahassee bus boycott Mansfield school desegregation 1957 Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom "Give Us the Ballot" Royal Ice Cream sit-in Little Rock Nine Cooper v. Aaron Civil Rights Act of 1957 Ministers' Manifesto Katz Drug Store sit-in Kissing Case Biloxi wade-ins
1960–1963	New Year's Day March Sit-in movement Greensboro sit-ins Nashville sit-ins Atlanta sit-ins Savannah Protest Movement Greenville Eight Civil Rights Act of 1960 Ax Handle Saturday Gomillion v. Lightfoot Boynton v. Virginia University of Georgia desegregation riot Rock Hill sit-ins Robert F. Kennedy's Law Day Address Freedom Rides Anniston bombing Birmingham attack Garner v. Louisiana Albany Movement Cambridge movement University of Chicago sit-ins "Second Emancipation Proclamation" Meredith enrollment, Ole Miss riot Atlanta's Berlin Wall "Segregation now, segregation forever" Stand in the Schoolhouse Door 1963 Birmingham campaign Letter from Birmingham Jail Children's Crusade Birmingham riot 16th Street Baptist Church bombing John F. Kennedy's speech to the nation on Civil Rights Detroit Walk to Freedom March on Washington "I Have a Dream" Big Six St. Augustine movement
1964–1968	Twenty-fourth Amendment Chester school protests Bloody Tuesday 1964 Monson Motor Lodge protests Freedom Summer workers' murders Civil Rights Act of 1964 Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States Katzenbach v. McClung 1964–1965 Scripto strike 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches "How Long, Not Long" Voting Rights Act of 1965 Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections March Against Fear White House Conference on Civil Rights Chicago Freedom Movement/Chicago open housing movement Loving v. Virginia Memphis sanitation strike King assassination funeral riots Civil Rights Act of 1968 Poor People's Campaign Green v. County School Board of New Kent County Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co.

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