1963

1963 is the 92nd year after the founding of the City of Birmingham.

Government

• Art Hanes was succeeded by Albert Boutwell as mayor.

Events

• 16th Street Baptist Church bombing
• Birmingham campaign

Works

• January 16: An Appeal for Law and Order and Common Sense
• April 12: A Call For Unity
• April 16: Letter from Birmingham Jail

Buildings

• Fritz Woehle's 3349 Brookwood Road
• Guest House Motor Inn
• Fritz Woehle residence (1963), featured in Architectural Record

Births

• February 17: Michael Jordan
• February 20: Charles Barkley
• May 16: Jon Coffelt
• September 5: Jeff Brantley
• October 24: Joe DeCamillis
• November 6: A. C. Roper
• Brett Blackledge
• Bret Bradford
• John Hallum

Deaths

• September 15: Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, and Cynthia Wesley died in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church. Teenagers Johnnie Robinson and Virgil Ware were killed during riots and protests in the bombing's aftermath.

See also List of Birmingham homicides in 1963

Context

A watershed in the civil rights movement occurred in 1963 when Birmingham Civil Rights Movement leader Fred Shuttlesworth requested that Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) come to Birmingham to help end segregation. Together they launched "Project C" (for "Confrontation"), a massive assault on the Jim Crow system. During April and May daily sit-ins and mass marches were met with police repression, tear gas, attack dogs, and arrests. More than 3,000 people were arrested during these protests, many of the children. These protests were ultimately successful, leading not only to desegregation of public accommodations in Birmingham but also the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

While imprisoned for having taken part in a nonviolent protest, Dr. King wrote the now famous Letter from Birmingham Jail, a defining treatise in his cause against segregation. Birmingham is also known for a bombing which occurred later that year, in which four black girls were killed by a bomb planted at the 16th Street Baptist Church. The event would inspire the African-American poet Dudley Randall's opus, The Ballad of Birmingham, as well as jazz musician John Coltrane's song, "Alabama."

Notes

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See Also

• 1963 Birmingham Barons
• 1963 Birmingham Steeldogs
• 1963 Iron Bowl

1960s

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Births - Deaths - Establishments - Events - Works