Sixteenth Street Baptist Church (Birmingham)

DATE Organized in 1873 as the First Colored Baptist Church of Birmingham, Alabama

SIGNIFICANCE: This church is known worldwide for the September 15, 1963, bombing that killed four little girls (Denise McNair, Cynthia Wesley, Addie Mae Collins, and Carole Robertson) who were attending Sunday school. This senseless act of racial violence became a turning point in the struggle for civil rights in the city and in the United States as a whole.

LOCALE: Situated in the heart of downtown Birmingham; Kelly-Ingram Park is located diagonally across from the church, and a statue of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute are nearby

The Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, has been ensured a place in history due to its infamous bombing on September 15, 1963, in which four young Black girls lost their lives. However, the church, placed in 1980 on the National Register of Historic Places by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and designated a National Historic Landmark in 2006, has had a rich church calling since its inception in 1873 as the First Colored Baptist Church of Birmingham. Its mission statement aims to advance the gospel, to serve the community at large, and to witness to the ends of the earth, according to the Reverend Dr. Christopher Hamlin in Behind the Stained Glass (1998). Also, this church was pivotal for the planning of civil rights activities and mass demonstrations that would impact future legislation and the national tone on desegregation. Furthermore, a proliferation of commemorative works of art resulted from the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church as a source of aesthetic and moral inspiration. This historic landmark, most important, went on to serve as a beacon of hope for oppressed people throughout the world.

The History of the Church

The Elyton Land Company chartered Birmingham in December 1871 and assisted in developing it as “the Magic City” with the construction of carefully planned rail lines in the heart of the city, which added to the natural coal-producing raw materials of limestone, coal, and iron, according to Hamlin’s research. This company also donated land to industrial firms, the county and city for schools and parks, and White and Black Christian religious sects. After the US Civil War (1861–5), the church was an important institution for combating mounting racial discrimination by creating community-family outreach programs for African Americans who worked in the mines. Therefore, on September 1, 1873, James R. Powell, president of the Elyton Land Company, received one dollar from the trustees of the First Colored Baptist Church for land for their building. As recorded in Behind the Stained Glass, the church later had to relinquish land in Birmingham city center—reserved for White denominations—but in July 1882, the congregation purchased its known address at Sixth Avenue North and Sixteenth Street and later officially changed its name to Sixteenth Street Baptist Church (because a previous congregation established in 1881 assumed the name of the Sixth Avenue Baptist Church). By 1884, a beautiful building in the Gothic revival style was finalized to serve as both a church of worship and a facility for religious education.

However, in the early 1900s, the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church was considered structurally unsound. Trustees complied with the city’s order to raze their building while simultaneously vowing to erect one of even greater stature. Therefore, in 1909, Black architect Wallace Rayfield’s design for a new facility was accepted, and Thomas Cornelius Windham, both a member of the church and a builder, constructed the new Sixteenth Street Baptist Church facility. It consisted of a Romanesque-Byzantine architectural design with twin towers and pointed domes, a cupola over the sanctuary, and a large auditorium with rooms in the basement. The new church was dedicated in 1911 and, according to the National Park Service’s 1993 Historic American Buildings Survey, “The prominence of the structure—a reflection of the prominence of its congregation—coupled with its size and downtown location made Sixteenth Street Baptist Church a focal point for various activities in the Black community.” Throughout the twentieth century the church, under various pastors, became a stronghold for political debates, cultural activities, and diversified civic events, earning its nickname of “Everybody’s Church.”

Civil Rights Activities

Despite Birmingham’s national and international reputation as “the Pittsburgh of the South” (symbolized by its mighty Vulcan statue), African Americans called their city “the Johannesburg of America,” as quoted in George Cantor’s Historic Landmarks of Black America (1991). In spite of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church’s concentration on youth programs and community outreach assistance, it could no longer evade racial disparities, such as Birmingham’s segregated waiting rooms and lunch counters, White- and colored-labeled drinking fountains, frequent bombings of Black homes in North Birmingham, and the racism of Birmingham Public Safety Commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor and the Ku Klux Klan.

The Sixteenth Street Baptist Church opened its large doors for the mass meetings of the civil rights strategists and movement, especially for “Project C” (Confrontation)—a nonviolent approach that aggressively encouraged more all-public services and facilities to be open equally to Black and White people. From the time of its earliest meetings in the 1960s organized by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, bomb threats ensued, marches in downtown Birmingham continued, and demands to open segregated businesses augmented. Reverend King’s April 16, 1963, Letter from Birmingham City Jail and ongoing mass demonstrations were assisted by the children’s movement and freedom walks—the children receiving instruction from the church first. In May, tensions heightened in the city as the children’s marches were met by Bull Connor’s vicious dogs and water hoses. The homes of activists and the nearby Gaston Motel, which housed civil rights leaders, were bombed frequently, leading to Birmingham’s pejorative nickname: “Bombingham.” The Sixteenth Street Baptist Church was a definite contributor to the training and spirit of civil rights activism through voter registration clinics at the church, Dick Gregory’s leading of children from the church, and even child pickets and incarceration, as Glenn T. Eskew describes vividly in But for Birmingham: The Local and National Movements in the Civil Rights Struggle (1997).

The September 15, 1963, Bombing

The moment in time most associated with the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church is 10:22 AM on September 15, 1963: the Sunday bombing of the church (under the exterior stairs) and the resulting tragic deaths of four little African American girls. Fourteen-year-old Addie Mae Collins, eleven-year-old Denise (Carol) McNair, fourteen-year-old Carole Robertson, and fourteen-year-old Cynthia Wesley were all pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital. Also, according to a 1963 Washington Post article, dozens of people were injured and twenty victims were treated at the hospital; two Black teenagers, James Robinson and Virgil Ware, were also shot dead during the racial riots that followed. Ironically, according to authors William Rogers, Robert Ward, Leah Atkins, and Wayne Flynt in Alabama: The History of a Deep South State (1994), the bombing occurred on the church’s annual Youth Day, and the earlier morning’s sermon was entitled “The Love That Forgives.” Furthermore, the only remaining stained glass window was one depicting Christ leading a group of children—with the face of Christ blown out.

Tensions that prefaced the horrific bombing had been mounting throughout the months of 1963 in Birmingham. In fact, Frank Sikora, in Until Justice Rolls Down: The Birmingham Church Bombing Case (1991), notes that the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. had highlighted segregated Birmingham for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s attempt to overcome existing racial barriers. Shuttlesworth, who directed the Alabama Christian movement, joined with King and top aide Ralph Abernathy to stage marches, fight Commissioner Connor’s police dogs and fire hoses, and denounce the continuous bombings of civil rights activists’ homes. Victoriously, on May 9, 1963, an agreement was honored by Birmingham business leaders to desegregate rest rooms, drinking fountains, and lunch counters; then, on May 20, Bull Connor finally left office. After a brief calming of the city, tensions renewed when school desegregation issues flared in the late summer of 1963. In fact, the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church pastor and church members were uneasy and feared the worst due to numerous bomb threats.

At Carole Robertson’s funeral on September 17, 1963, the eulogy emphasized not revenge but collaboration in God’s love. On September 18, Reverend King’s message at the service for Cynthia Wesley, Denise McNair, and Addie Mae Collins—echoing that of other Birmingham spiritual leaders—stressed nonviolence and hope for a new beginning. On November 18, 1977—fourteen years later—Robert Chambliss, a reported member of a Ku Klux Klan group called the “Cahaba Boys,” was found guilty of the September 1963 bombing and sentenced to life imprisonment for the death of one young girl, McNair. In 2000, two other men, Bobby Frank Cherry and Thomas E. Blanton Jr., were indicted for the murders and both were eventually convicted of murder in 2001. Cherry died in prison in 2004 and Blanton died in prison in 2020.

Resurgence of Commemorative Art

A resurgence of artistic works continues to commemorate the loss of the four little girls’ lives. There is a memorable plaque (with victims’ photographs) on the wall of the Memorial Nook in the lower auditorium of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church that reminds visitors of the heinous act. Yet, the message of the last line exemplifies the spirit of the historic church: “May men learn to replace bitterness and violence with love and understanding.”

Welsh stained-glass artist John Petts created, in his hometown Cardiff, the famous Wales Window for Alabama. According to Hamlin’s interpretation, this work depicts a Jesus of African heritage with huge hands that illustrate a protesting, crucified Jesus (suggesting Black protesters and racial injustice) and a Christ demonstrating a loving embrace. Streams of water from the Birmingham civil rights movement and bullets on the cross’s top beam suggesting the violence in South Africa combine to paint worldwide oppression; however, the multicolored background symbolizes God’s everpresent love of all people—regardless of race, color, or creed.

Many poets and musicians wrote memorializing lyrics based on the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing including Dudley Randall’s “Ballad of Birmingham” and Joan Baez’s recording of “Birmingham Sunday.” Sculptor John Waddell’s That Which Might Have Been: Birmingham, 1963 (1964) in Phoenix, Arizona, depicts four large, lifelike nude girls facing four diverse directions. Imagery ranges from the lack of procreation and societal understanding of African Americans to acceptance of help, death, love, and hope (symbolized by an upraised hand inscribed with “prayer”). In 1992, John Rhoden gifted his native Birmingham and Sixteenth Street Baptist Church with a huge bronze plaque depicting events of 1963 centered around four dolls representing the four young bombing victims.

Legacy and Commemoration

Following the turbulence and need for healing of the 1960s, the role of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church took a positive, regenerative role in the Birmingham community. It opened in June 1964 for Sunday services; youth ministries and community outreach and educational programs were later instituted. It continued to operate as a center of resource information about the civil rights movement and, concomitantly, a source of inspiration and reconciliation.

The church acts as a focal point for the Birmingham African American community. National and international figures have spoken at the church; workshops on women’s rights and health issues such as acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) are sponsored. Furthermore, the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church is a viable force for the arts with its collaborative liaison with the Onyx (Theater) Agency, Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame, and Operation New Birmingham. Mainly, this institution is a memorial house of worship where people from the community-at-large can be continually reminded of, touched and guided by, and delivered from the tragedy of September 15, 1963. In 2023 the city of Birmingham held a series of events to commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of the bombing, emphasizing the church's ongoing role in promoting healing, reconciliation, and racial justice.

Bibliography

"Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke Delivers Remarks at the 60th Anniversary of the Bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church." Office of Public Affairs, US Deptartment of Justice, 15 Sept. 2023, www.justice.gov/opa/speech/assistant-attorney-general-kristen-clarke-delivers-remarks-60th-anniversary-bombing-16th. Accessed 15 May 2024.

Elliott, Debbie. “Lessons from Birmingham: 60 Years after the 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing.” NPR, 14 Sep. 2023, www.npr.org/2023/09/14/1199312953/16th-street-baptist-church-bombing-60th-anniversary. Accessed 25 May 2024.

Hamlin, Reverend Dr. Christopher M. Behind the Stained Glass: A History of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. Crane Hill, 1998.

“Our History.” Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, www.16thstreetbaptist.org/our-history/. Accessed 11 Oct. 2023.

Rogers, William W., Robert D. Ward, Leah R. Atkins, and Wayne Flynt. Alabama: The History of a Deep South State. U of Alabama P, 1994.

Sikora, Frank. Until Justice Rolls Down: The Birmingham Church Bombing Case. U of Alabama P, 1991.

Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, www.16thstreetbaptist.org. Accessed 11 Oct. 2023.

“16th Street Baptist Church Bombing (1963).” National Park Service, www.nps.gov/articles/16thstreetbaptist.htm. Accessed 25 May 2024.