Tag: civil rights
Birmingham Residents Reflect on 60th Anniversary of Church Bombing
At exactly 10:22 a.m. on Friday, church bells – and the shofar at Temple Beth-El synagogue – rang out across Birmingham to honor those killed in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church. It’s the 60th anniversary of the deadly attack that killed four young girls — 11-year-old Denise McNair, Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley, all 14 — and injured dozens more.
Inside the historic church, a crowd heard a message from Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Outside, small groups of people gathered all over the city to commemorate the anniversary and reflect on the violence of the past and the progress the community has made over the decades. Read more.
60 Years Later, Kids Still March in Birmingham
Sixty years ago, thousands of children took to the streets in Birmingham to protest against racism and discrimination. On Friday, teens from around the city gathered to reenact this historic moment, known as the Children’s Crusade. Read more.
An Inside Look at an AP African American Studies Class
‘Unreformed’ Podcast Tells the Largely Untold Story of an Abusive Alabama Reform School
A conversation with journalist and podcast host Josie Duffy Rice details the troubled history of the Alabama Industrial School for Negro Children, or Mt. Meigs. Read more.
Traveling Exhibit Goes ‘Deeper’ Into Emmett Till’s Story, Civil Rights History of Host Cities
The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute Celebrates 30 Years
For decades, the BCRI has educated everyone from local students to global leaders about Birmingham’s role in the Civil Rights movement. Read more.
Martin Luther King’s 1963 Birmingham arrest spurred a Supreme Court case. The ruling still matters.
The case is Walker v. City of Birmingham, which ruled on the legal principles that allowed Bull Conner and Birmingham to jail Martin Luther King Jr. on Good Friday, 1963. Harvard law professor Randall Kennedy explains why the case continues to influence legal thinking during these tumultuous times. Read more.
A New Mural, Shop at Birmingham’s Airport Pays Tribute to U.S. Civil Rights Trail
City and state leaders hope the mural gives visitors to Birmingham’s airport a memorable introduction to the city’s history within the civil rights movement. Read more.
Sewell, Alabama’s Lone Congressional Democrat, Seeks to Strengthen Voting Rights, Defeat Party Infighting
Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Birmingham, the lone Democrat in Alabama’s seven-member congressional delegation, is seeking to grow the party with a two-pronged approach — countering Republican-backed voting restrictions while raising money to protect Democratic incumbents against challenges from the left.
First elected in 2011, Sewell has for four successive congresses introduced legislation to restore much of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, legislation that mandated federal oversight of election laws in areas with a history of racial discrimination. That historic legislation was largely struck down by the Supreme Court in 2013. The court’s ruling that the law’s requirements were outdated led to state legislatures issuing a ream of voting restrictions in the wake of that decision.
This year, Sewell again introduced the bill, House Resolution 4, newly named the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act in honor of the Alabama-born Georgia congressman and civil rights icon who died last year.
Read more.
‘Buses Are a Comin’: Remembering the Freedom Riders 60 Years Later
A group of young civil rights activists began their journey to the South to challenge segregation on interstate buses in May 1961. The riders were taunted and beaten by white mobs – and jailed. Participants of the movement share what their fight means now. Read more.
