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- Key People: Martin Luther King, Jr. A. Philip R...Date: August 28, 1963Location: United States Washington, D.C.Context: American civil rights movement
- Rosa Parks (1913—2005) helped initiate the civil rights movement in the United States when she refused to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama bus in 1955. Her actions inspired the leaders of the local Black community to organize the Montgomery Bus Boycott.Jan 19, 2022
- The Birmingham church bombing occurred on September 15, 1963, when a bomb exploded before Sunday morning services at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama—a church with a predominantly Black congregation that also served as a meeting place for civil rights leaders. Four young girls were killed and many other people injured. Outrage over the incident and the violent clash between protesters and police that followed helped draw national attention to the hard-fought, often-dangerous struggle for civil rights for African Americans.Birmingham in the 1960sThe city of Birmingham, Alabama, was founded in 1871 and rapidly became the state’s most important industrial and commercial center. As late as the 1960s, however, it was also one of America’s most racially discriminatory and segregated cities.Alabama Governor George Wallace was a leading foe of desegregation, and Birmingham had one of the strongest and most violent chapters of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). The city’s police commissioner, Eugene “Bull” Connor, was notorious for his willingness to use brutality in combating radical demonstrators, union members and any Black citizens.Did you know? By 1963, homemade bombs set off in Birmingham's Black homes and churches were such common occurrences that the city had earned the nickname "Bombingham."Precisely because of its reputation as a stronghold for white supremacy, civil rights activists made Birmingham a major focus of their efforts to desegregate the Deep South.Letter from a Birmingham JailIn the spring of 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. had been arrested there while leading supporters of his Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in a nonviolent campaign of demonstrations against segregation. While in jail, King wrote a letter to local white ministers justifying his decision not to call off the demonstrations in the face of continued bloodshed at the hands of local law enforcement officials.His famous “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” was published in the national press, along with shocking images of police brutality against protesters in Birmingham that helped build widespread support for the civil rights cause.16th Street Baptist ChurchMany of the civil rights protest marches that took place in Birmingham during the 1960s began at the steps of the 16th Street Baptist Church, which had long been a significant religious center for the city’s Black population and a routine meeting place for civil rights organizers like King.KKK members had routinely called in bomb threats intended to disrupt civil rights meetings as well as services at the church.At 10:22 a.m. on the morning of September 15, 1963, some 200 church members were in the building—many attending Sunday school classes before the start of the 11 am service—when the bomb detonated on the church’s east side, spraying mortar and bricks from the front of the church and caving in its interior walls.Recommended for youMontgomery Bus BoycottSelma to Montgomery MarchCivil Rights Act of 1964Most parishioners were able to evacuate the building as it filled with smoke, but the bodies of four young girls (14-year-old Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley and Carole Robertson and 11-year-old Denise McNair) were found beneath the rubble in a basement restroom.Ten-year-old Sarah Collins, who was also in the restroom at the time of the explosion, lost her right eye, and more than 20 other people were injured in the blast.The bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church on September 15 was the third bombing in 11 days, after a federal court order had come down mandating the integration of Alabama’s school system.Aftermath of the Birmingham Church BombingIn the aftermath of the bombing, thousands of angry Black protesters gathered at the scene of the bombing. When Governor Wallace sent police and state troopers to break the protests up, violence broke out across the city; a number of protesters were arrested, and two young African American men were killed (one by police) before the National Guard was called in to restore order.King later spoke before 8,000 people at the funeral for three of the girls (the family of the fourth girl held a smaller private service), fueling the public outrage now mounting across the country.Though Birmingham’s white supremacists (and even certain individuals) were immediately suspected in the bombing, repeated calls for the perpetrators to be brought to justice went unanswered for more than a decade. It was later revealed that the FBI had information concerning the identity of the bombers by 1965 and did nothing. (J. Edgar Hoover, then-head of the FBI, disapproved of the civil rights movement; he died in 1972.)In 1977, Alabama Attorney General Bob Baxley reopened the investigation and Klan leader Robert E. Chambliss was brought to trial for the bombings and convicted of murder. Continuing to maintain his innocence, Chambliss died in prison in 1985.The case was again reopened in 1980, 1988 and 1997, when two other former Klan members, Thomas Blanton and Bobby Frank Cherry, were finally brought to trial; Blanton was convicted in 2001 and Cherry in 2002. A fourth suspect, Herman Frank Cash, died in 1994 before he could be brought to trial.Lasting Impact of the Birmingham Church BombingEven though the legal system was slow to provide justice, the effect of the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church was immediate and significant.Outrage over the death of the four young girls helped build increased support behind the continuing struggle to end segregation—support that would help lead to the passage of both the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In that important sense, the bombing’s impact was exactly the opposite of what its perpetrators hURLLast UpdatedJanuary 25, 2021Original Published DateJanuary 27, 2010BLACK HISTORYBY HISTORY.COM EDITORSFACT CHECK: We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us!VIDEOSPlayBirmingham Church BombingPlayFred Shuttlesworth - Leading BirminghamPlayConfederate Bomb PlotPlayMcNamara on the Bombing of North VietnamSIGN UP FOR MORE HISTORY!Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present.SIGN UPRELATED CONTENTRemembering the Birmingham Church BombingBirmingham became the center of the civil rights movement in spring 1963, when Martin Luther King Jr. and his supporters in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference arrived with a plan they called “Project C”—for confrontation. At that point, Black Americans were forced to ...read moreThe Children's Crusade: When the Youth of Birmingham Marched for JusticeToward the end of April 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and fellow leaders in the civil rights movement faced a grim reality in Birmingham, Alabama. With diminished support and fewer volunteers, their campaign to end segregationist policies was teetering on failure. But when an ...read moreOrangeburg MassacreThe Orangeburg Massacre occurred on the night of February 8, 1968, when a civil rights protest at South Carolina State University (SC State) turned deadly after highway patrolmen opened fire on about 200 unarmed black student protestors. Three young men were shot and killed, and ...read moreChurch of England - History, Religion & LegacyThe Church of England, or Anglican Church, is the primary state church in England, where the concepts of church and state are linked. The Church of England is considered the original church of the Anglican Communion, which represents over 85 million people in more than 165 ...read moreCivil Rights Movement TimelineThe civil rights movement was an organized effort by Black Americans to end racial discrimination and gain equal rights under the law. It began in the late 1940s and ended in the late 1960s. Although tumultuous at times, the movement was mostly nonviolent and resulted in laws to ...read moreBlack History in the United States: A TimelineIn August of 1619, a journal entry recorded that “20 and odd” Angolans, kidnapped by the Portuguese, arrived in the British colony of Virginia and were then were bought by English colonists. The date and the story of the enslaved Africans have become symbolic of slavery’s roots, ...read moreBombing of DresdenFrom February 13 to February 15, 1945, during the final months of World War II (1939-45), Allied forces bombed the historic city of Dresden, located in eastern Germany. The bombing was controversial because Dresden was neither important to German wartime production nor a major ...read moreThe 1960s HistoryThe 1960s started off as the dawn of a golden age to most Americans. On January 20, 1961, the handsome and charismatic John F. Kennedy became president of the United States. His confidence that, as one historian put it, “the government possessed big answers to big problems” ...read moreBoston Marathon BombingThe Boston Marathon Bombing was a terrorist attack that occurred on April 15, 2013, when two bombs went off near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three spectators and wounding more than 260 other people. After an intense manhunt, police captured one of the bombing ...read moreSEE MOREAd ChoicesAdvertiseClosed CaptioningCopyright PolicyCorporate InformationEmployment OpportunitiesFAQ/Contact UsPrivacy NoticeTerms of UseTV Parental GuidelinesRSS FeedsAccessibility Support© 2022 A&E Television Networks, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
- His final autopsy findings, issued June 1, found that Floyd's heart stopped while he was being restrained and that his death was a homicide caused by "cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression".
- As a result of the protests, numerous controversial forms of symbolism were either changed or removed. In the United States, changes focused on removing and prohibiting displays of the Confederate battle flag; the flag of Mississippi was changed to remove a Confederate battle insignia.
- On March 12, 2021, Minneapolis agreed to pay $27 million to settle a wrongful death lawsuit brought by Floyd's family. On April 20,
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