Sixty-three years after Black students propelled 16th Street Baptist Church to the heart of the Civil Rights Movement, the historic church is launching a center dedicated to educating the public on the fight for justice.
Directly adjacent to the church building, the new 16th Street Education and Visitor Center aims “to honor those who sacrificed, to teach the truths that shaped the fight for justice, and to inspire every visitor to carry that work forward.”
In 1963, more than a thousand Black students skipping school and wearing their Sunday-best poured out of the front doors of 16th Street Baptist Church and marched along the streets of downtown Birmingham, Ala. The “Children’s Crusade” was part of Martin Luther King Jr.’s and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s aggressive desegregation campaign in Birmingham. The images of children running and shielding one another from fire hoses and police dogs in Kelly Ingram Park, across from the church, horrified the nation and captivated activists.
Then, a few months later, the Ku Klux Klan bombed the basement of the church. The blast shook the entire building, blowing out most of its stained-glass windows and damaging structures along the street. Four of the five young girls closest to the blast were killed. Their deaths became national news, with people across the globe donating to help rebuild the church.
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