The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing was a terrorist bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama on September 15, 1963. The bombing was committed by a white supremacist terrorist group. Four members of a local Ku Klux Klan (KKK) chapter planted 19 sticks of dynamite attached to a timing device beneath the steps located on the east side of the church.
The 16th Street Baptist Church in 2005. The steps beneath which the bomb was planted can be seen in the foreground.
Congress of Racial Equality and members of the All Souls Church march in memory of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing victims on September 22, 1963
Funeral program for Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, and Carol Denise McNair
Fred Shuttlesworth
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Freddie Lee Shuttlesworth was an American civil rights activist who led the fight against segregation and other forms of racism as a minister in Birmingham, Alabama. He was a co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, initiated and was instrumental in the 1963 Birmingham Campaign, and continued to work against racism and for alleviation of the problems of the homeless in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he took up a pastorate in 1961. He returned to Birmingham after his retirement in 2007. He worked with Martin Luther King Jr. during the civil rights movement, though the two men often disagreed on tactics and approaches.
Shuttlesworth pastored Bethel Baptist Church from 1953 to 1961. The church served as headquarters and a frequent meeting place for the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR), which Shuttlesworth founded in 1956. Shuttlesworth and his church endured three bombings, the first on December 25, 1956.
Statue of Shuttlesworth in front of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute by sculptor John Walter Rhoden.