16th Street Baptist Church United States

Legendary

The First Colored Baptist Church of Birmingham was a rallying point for African Americans during the Civil Rights era.

Photo by Adam Jones

On September 15, 1963, a bomb planted by Ku Klux Klan members exploded beneath the steps of this church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing four young girls: Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, and Carol Denise McNair. The youngest was 11 years old. The attack shocked the nation and accelerated the push for federal civil rights legislation.

The church was organized in 1873, making it one of Birmingham's oldest Black congregations. By the early 1960s it had become a central gathering point for the Civil Rights Movement, where organizers planned marches, trained protesters, and prepared thousands of young people for the demonstrations that filled Birmingham's streets.

Martin Luther King Jr., Fred Shuttlesworth, and Ralph Abernathy all spoke here. The church sat directly across from Kelly Ingram Park, where police turned fire hoses and attack dogs on peaceful protesters in 1963, images that ran in newspapers around the world.

Congress passed the Civil Rights Act in 1964, less than a year after the bombing. It was the most significant piece of civil rights legislation in American history, outlawing discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

The church still holds services today and operates as a historic landmark. Walk through the sanctuary and see the rebuilt stained glass windows, including one donated by the people of Wales showing a Black Christ with a cracked face. Kelly Ingram Park across the street has sculptures depicting the brutality protesters faced, and the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute next door tells the full story in one of the most powerful museums in the American South.