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History > USA > Civil rights > Birmingham, Alabama
1963
Civil rights campaign, Mary Hamilton, 16th Street Baptist church bombing
Sarah Collins Rudolph at home in 2002.
Photograph: Nicole Bengiveno The New York Times
What Does America Owe the Victims of Racial Terrorism? NYT Sept. 13, 2023
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/13/
Photograph: Jim Wilson The New York Times.
Moving Alabama Into the Modern Age NYT March 26, 2019
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/26/
“One of the four girls murdered by a bomb in the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, Birmingham, Alabama.” 1963.
The Menil Collection, Houston, gift of Edmund Carpenter and Adelaide de Menil.
Photograph: Danny Lyon Magnum Photos
Houston’s Young Curators Look at Culture and Environment NYT May. 17, 2016
http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/05/17/
Sunday, September 15, 1963
Birmingham, Alabama
16th Street Baptist church bombing
On 15 September 1963, the Ku Klux Klan planted dynamite in the basement of the 16th Street Baptist church in Birmingham, Alabama, a church that previously had been the headquarters for Martin Luther King’s anti-segregationist marches.
The bombing killed four girls getting ready for Sunday service – Carol Denise McNair, 11, and Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley and Carole Robertson, all 14.
Within hours of the bombing, across the city, two African American boys, Virgil Ware, 13, and James Johnny Robinson, 16, were murdered by two white men returning from a segregation rally.
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/oct/09/
Four young girls attending Sunday school are killed in the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church
Only one man, Robert E. Chambliss, a member of the Ku Klux Klan, (was) convicted, in 1977.
(a) new investigation led to the conviction of two other Klansmen, Thomas Blanton Jr. and Bobby Frank Cherry.
https://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/13/
https://www.npr.org/2023/09/14/
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/13/
https://www.poynter.org/ethics-trust/2020/
https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2019/04/30/
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/26/
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/oct/09/
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/08/03/
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/14/us/
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/13/us/
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/01/15/
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/nov/30/
Chris McNair 1925-2019
Her father, Chris McNair, was a prominent photographer and later, local politician.
"Being a Black photographer that meant you got to see it from a different perspective as an African-American," she says.
There are intimate pictures of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. including the day he was released after writing his famous "letter from Birmingham jail."
And, chillingly, one image of the bombed-out 16th Street Baptist Church that Chris McNair took shortly after identifying his daughter Denise with a piece of mortar lodged in her forehead.
"It was the only picture he shot that day of the bombing," she says.
https://www.npr.org/2023/09/14/
https://www.npr.org/2023/09/14/
June 1963
Mary Hamilton, The Woman Who Put The 'Miss' In Court
The Children's Crusade, or Children's March
Policemen lead a group of school children into jail, following their arrest for protesting against racial discrimination near city hall of Birmingham, Ala., on May 4, 1963.
Photograph: Bill Hudson AP
60 years since 'The Children's Crusade' changed Birmingham and the nation NPR June 2, 2023 5:00 AM ET
https://www.npr.org/2023/05/31/
Sixty years ago, Birmingham authorities turned firehoses and police dogs on protesters, a pivotal period in the civil rights movement.
Now, six decades later, people in the Alabama city reflect on the struggle then and now.
Photograph: Bill Hudson Associated Press
60 years since 'The Children's Crusade' changed Birmingham and the nation NPR June 2, 2023 5:00 AM ET
https://www.npr.org/2023/05/31/
Civil rights leaders (left to right) Fred Shuttlesworth, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Ralph Abernathy at press conference during Birmingham Campaign, Birmingham, Ala. on May 16, 1963.
Photograph: Circa Images/GHI/Universal History Archive/ Universal Images Group via Getty Images
60 years since 'The Children's Crusade' changed Birmingham and the nation NPR June 2, 2023 5:00 AM ET
https://www.npr.org/2023/05/31/
The Children's Crusade, or Children's March, was a march by over 5,000 school students in Birmingham, Alabama on May 2–10, 1963.
Initiated and organized by Rev. James Bevel, the purpose of the march was to walk downtow to talk to the mayor about segregation in their city.
Many children left their schools and were arrested, set free, and then arrested again the next day.
The marches were stopped by the head of police, Bull Connor, who brought fire hoses to ward off the children and set police dogs after the children.
This event compelled President John F. Kennedy to publicly support federal civil rights legislation and eventually led to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. were both opposed to the event because they thought it would expose the children to violence. Wikipedia - 2 June 2023
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Civil rights protests in Alabama hit a crescendo in the spring of 1963.
In Gadsden, a factory town northeast of Birmingham, police arrested Hamilton and other demonstrators.
At a hearing that June, the court referred to her as "Mary."
"And she just would not answer the judge until he called her 'Miss Hamilton.'
And he refused. So he found her in contempt of court," Michaels says.
So Mary Hamilton was thrown in jail and fined $50.
The NAACP took the case that eventually appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled the following year in Hamilton's favor.
In other words, the ruling decided that everyone in court deserves titles of courtesy, regardless of race or ethnicity.
Michaels says Hamilton was immensely proud of the case.
"I mean, a Supreme Court case, you know, decided for you. Are you kidding? This is a big deal," she says.
It's a big deal for a person, but it's a footnote in the history books.
And when it comes to civil rights history, it's the names of men such as Martin Luther King Jr. or Ralph Abernathy that are mostly remembered.
Women don't get much billing beyond Rosa Parks and a few others.
Historian Tara White researches women in the civil rights movement.
She says part of the reason is that in that time period, women just weren't in prominent roles.
Journalists compounded that by gravitating to male leaders.
But White says without women, there would have been no movement.
"The majority of the folks who were doing the day-to-day work were women.
The majority of the people who were participating in protest marches and those kinds of things were women," White says.
White says Hamilton wasn't just bumping up against racial attitudes.
Her behavior in court was not what the South expected of a lady.
"Lower class, loose women call attention to themselves. Real ladies don't do that," White says of the stereotype.
http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/07/12/
https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2017/11/30/
http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/07/12/
In spring 1963, African American civil rights activists in Alabama started the Birmingham campaign, a series of sit-ins, boycotts and marches against segregation laws.
The peaceful demonstrations were met with violence, teargas and police dogs.
The events were a turning point in the civil rights movement, making front-page news around the world.
The Observer dispatched photographer Colin Jones to cover the story and capture the activism centred around the 16th Street Baptist church.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/gallery/2018/may/12/
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/gallery/2018/may/12/
White supremacist city commissioner of public safety, Theophilus Eugene ‘Bull’ Connor.
On 3 May, the day after the demonstrations began, Connor ordered the use of high-pressure fire hoses and police attack dogs on the young protesters.
The resulting images helped swing opinion in favour of civil rights legislation. Connor remained unrepentant for the rest of his days
Photograph: Colin Jones
Unseen photographs of civil rights conflict in Birmingham, Alabama, 1963
In spring 1963, African American civil rights activists in Alabama started the Birmingham campaign, a series of sit-ins, boycotts and marches against segregation laws.
The peaceful demonstrations were met with violence, teargas and police dogs.
The events were a turning point in the civil rights movement, making front-page news around the world.
The Observer dispatched photographer Colin Jones to cover the story and capture the activism centred around the 16th Street Baptist church.
Many of these images, discovered in the Observer’s picture archive, have never before been published. G Sat 12 May 2018 13.34 BST
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/gallery/2018/may/12/
A civil rights demonstrator being attacked by a police dog in Birmingham, Ala., in 1963.
Photograph: Bill Hudson Associated Press
The Art of the Protest NYT NOV. 21, 2016
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/
Birmingham, Alabama. 1963 African American protesters taunt a white police officer during a civil rights demonstration.
Photograph: 1963 Charles Moore/Black Star
http://rising.blackstar.com/charles-moore-1931-2010.html/
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