16th Street Baptist Church

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16th Street Baptist Church (1911)

16th Street Baptist Church is a large, predominantly African American Baptist church on the corner of 16th Street North and 6th Avenue North. It was the target of the racially-motivated 1963 church bombing that killed four girls in the midst of the civil rights movement. The church remains and active congregation, while the building serves as a central landmark in the Birmingham Civil Rights District, right across the street from the Civil Rights Institute overlooking Kelly Ingram Park.

16th Street Baptist Church was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2006.

Beginnings

16th Street Baptist Church was first 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 4th 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 and brownstone building was completed in 1884, but in 1908 the city condemned the structure and ordered it to be demolished.

The present building, a "modified Romanesque and Byzantine design" by the prominent black architect Wallace Rayfield was constructed by the local black contractor T.C. Windham in 1911. 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, 16th Street Baptist has hosted prominent visitors throughout its history. W.E.B. DuBois, Mary McLeod Bethune, Paul Robeson, Jackie Robinson and Ralph Bunche all spoke at the church during the first part of the 20th century. The sanctuary also served as one of the largest auditoriums available to the black citizens of Birmingham. Concerts by notable artists such as W. C. Handy frequently animated the building in the evenings.

Civil rights era and the 1963 bombing

See main article at 1963 church bombing

During the civil rights movement of the 1960s, 16th Street Baptist Church served as an organizational headquarters and rallying point for blacks protesting widespread institutionalized racism in the United States. Fred Shuttlesworth and Martin Luther King, Jr. were frequent speakers at the church.

In her book Carry Me Home Diane McWhorter recalls that 16th Street Baptist was not, however, a true "Movement church". The congregation largely consisted of successful middle-class blacks and revolutionary thinking was discouraged from the pulpit. The singing was staid and solemn, in contrast to the jubilant gospel that energized other congregations, and it was, according to her, the only church that charged a fee when its facilities were used by the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights.

On Sunday, September 15, 1963, Bobby Frank Cherry and Robert Edward Chambliss, members of the Ku Klux Klan, planted 19 sticks of dynamite in the basement of the church. At 10:22 a.m., they exploded, killing four young girls.

It was one of a string of dozens of bombings that had terrorized "uppity" blacks and progressive agitators in the city for more than a decade, but in this case, the taking of indisputably innocent lives shocked the city, the nation and the world. The bombing is credited with helping push forward passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

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

Current status

In 1980, 16th Street Baptist Church was added to the National Register of Historic Places. In 1993, a team of surveyors for the Historic American Buildings Survey executed measured drawings of the church for archival in the Library of Congress. On February 20, 2006, the church was officially dedicated as a National Historic Landmark by the United States Department of the Interior.

As part of Birmingham's Civil Rights District, which is promoted by the city for heritage tourism, 16th Street Baptist Church receives over 200,000 visitors annually. Though the current membership is only around 250, it has an average weekly attendance of nearly 2,000. In addition to greeting visitors and leading tours, members of the church also operate a large drug counseling program. The current pastor is Reverend Arthur Price.

16th Street Baptist Church is currently undergoing a major restoration of the building, which has had persistent water damage problems and is facing failure of the brick exterior. The first phase of restoration, aimed at eliminating water infiltration below grade, was completed in July 2006. The second phase will include repairs and restoration of the exterior is in the planning stage. To date, $3.3 million have been pledged to the project from a variety of individuals and corporations.

Pastors

References

  • Branch, Taylor (1988). Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954 -1963, New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0671687425.
  • Corley, Robert G. (1979). The Quest for Racial Harmony: Race Relations in Birmingham, Alabama, 1947-1963, Ph.D. Dissertation, 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 0807846678.
  • Satterfield, Carolyn Green. (1976) Historic Sites of Jefferson County, Alabama. Prepared for the Jefferson County Historical Commission. Birmingham: Gray Printing Co.
  • Fallin, Wilson (July 1997). The African American Church in Birmingham, Alabama, 1815-1963: A Shelter in the Storm, New York: Garland Publishing. ISBN 0815328834.
  • Hamlin, Christopher M. (April 1998). Behind the Stained Glass: a History of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, Birmingham, AL: Crane Hill. ISBN 1575870835.
  • Norris, Toraine (February 17, 2006). "Sixteenth Street Baptist named U.S. landmark." Birmingham News.
  • McMillan, Aneesa (July 14, 2006). "Work begins on 2nd phase of renovation." Birmingham News.

External links

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