16th Street Baptist Church bombing

==Background==
In the years leading up to the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, Birmingham had earned a national reputation as a tense, violent and racially segregated city, in which even tentative [[racial integration]] in any form was met with violent resistance. [[Martin Luther King Jr.]] described Birmingham as "probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States."<ref>{{cite web |url=https://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/letter-from-birmingham-city-jail-excerpts/ |work=TeachingAmericanHistory.org |title=Letter From Birmingham City Jail (Excerpts) |publisher=[[Ashland University]] |author-link=Martin Luther King Jr. |first=Martin Luther Jr. |last=King |date=April 16, 1963 |access-date=May 27, 2019 }}</ref> Birmingham's Commissioner of Public Safety, [[Bull Connor|Theophilus Eugene "Bull" Connor]],<ref name=":4">{{Cite web |title=Theophilus Eugene "Bull" Connor (1897-1973) (U.S. National Park Service) |url=https://www.nps.gov/people/bull-connor.htm |access-date=October 27, 2022 |website=www.nps.gov |language=en}}</ref> led the effort in enforcing racial segregation in the city through the use of violent tactics.<ref name=":3">{{Cite journal |last=Morris |first=Aldon D. |date=1993 |title=Birmingham Confrontation Reconsidered: An Analysis of the Dynamics and Tactics of Mobilization |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2096278 |journal=American Sociological Review |volume=58 |issue=5 |pages=621–636 |doi=10.2307/2096278 |jstor=2096278 |issn=0003-1224}}</ref>

Black and white residents of Birmingham were segregated between different public amenities such as water fountains and places of public gathering such as movie theaters.<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal |last=Cochran |first=Donald Q. |date=2006 |title=Ghosts of Alabama: The Prosecution of Bobby Frank Cherry for the Bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church |url=https://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1107&context=mjrl |journal=Michigan Journal of Race and Law |volume=12}}</ref> The city had no black police officers or firefighters<ref name=":1" /> and most black residents could expect to find only menial employment in professions such as cooks and cleaners.<ref name=":1" /> Black residents did not just experience segregation in the context of leisure and employment, but also in the context of their freedom and well-being. Given the state's [[Disfranchisement after Reconstruction era|disenfranchisement of most black people]] since the turn of the century, by making voter registration essentially impossible, few of the city's black residents were registered to vote. Bombings at black homes<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal |last=Meché |first=Brittany |date=March 1, 2020 |title=Memories of An Imperial City: Race, Gender, and Birmingham, Alabama |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/anti.12606 |journal=Antipode |language=en |volume=52 |issue=2 |pages=475–495 |doi=10.1111/anti.12606 |bibcode=2020Antip..52..475M |s2cid=213240633 |issn=0066-4812}}</ref> and institutions were a regular occurrence, with at least 21 separate explosions recorded at black properties and churches in the eight years before 1963. However, none of these explosions had resulted in fatalities.<ref name="Washington Post Sept. 16, 19632">{{cite news |date=September 16, 1963 |title=Six Dead After Church Bombing |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |agency=United Press International |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/churches/archives1.htm |access-date=May 27, 2019}}</ref> These attacks earned the city the nickname "[[Bombingham]]".<ref name=":2" /><ref>{{cite web |date=n.d. |title=Addie Mae Collins |url=https://www.biography.com/crime-figure/addie-mae-collins |access-date=May 27, 2019 |work=[[Biography (TV program)|Biography.com]]}}</ref>
[[Image:16th Street Baptist Church.JPG|thumb|The [[16th Street Baptist Church]] in 2005. The steps beneath which the bomb was planted can be seen in the foreground.]]

===Birmingham Campaign===
{{Main|Birmingham campaign}}
Civil Rights activists and leaders in Birmingham fought against the city's deeply-ingrained and institutionalized racism with tactics that included the targeting of Birmingham's economic and social disparities.<ref name=":3" /> Their demands included that public amenities such as lunch counters and parks be desegregated, the criminal charges against demonstrators and protestors should be removed'','' and an end to overt discrimination with regards to employment opportunities.<ref name=":3" /> The intentional scope of these activities was to see the end of segregation across Birmingham and [[Southern United States|the South]] as a whole.<ref name=":3" /> The work these Civil Rights activists were engaged in within Birmingham was crucial to the movement as the Birmingham campaign was seen as guidance for other cities in the South with regards to rising against segregation and racism.<ref name=":3" />

The three-story 16th Street Baptist Church was a rallying point for civil rights activities through the spring of 1963.<ref name=":0" /> When the [[Southern Christian Leadership Conference]] (SCLC) and the [[Congress on Racial Equality]] became involved in a campaign to register African Americans to vote in Birmingham, tensions in the city increased. The church was used as a meeting-place for civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr., [[Ralph Abernathy]], and [[Fred Shuttlesworth]], for organizing and educating marchers.<ref name=":0" /> It was the location where students were organized and trained by the SCLC Director of Direct Action, [[James Bevel]], to participate in the [[Birmingham campaign|1963 Birmingham campaign's Children's Crusade]] after other marches had taken place.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=16th Street Baptist Church Bombing (1963) (U.S. National Park Service) |url=https://www.nps.gov/articles/16thstreetbaptist.htm |access-date=September 29, 2022 |website=www.nps.gov |language=en}}</ref>

On Thursday, May 2, more than 1,000 students, some reportedly as young as eight, opted to leave school and gather at the 16th Street Baptist Church. Demonstrators present were given instructions to march to downtown Birmingham and discuss with the mayor their concerns about racial segregation in the city, and to integrate buildings and businesses currently segregated. Although this march was met with fierce resistance and criticism, and 600 arrests were made on the first day alone, the Birmingham campaign and its Children's Crusade continued until May 5. The intention was to fill the jail with protesters. These demonstrations led to an agreement, on May 8, between the city's business leaders and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, to [[Racial integration|integrate]] public facilities, including schools, in the city within 90 days. (The first three schools in Birmingham to be integrated would do so on September 4.)<ref name="William O. Bryant">{{cite news |title=Six Negro Children Killed in Alabama Sunday |newspaper=[[Times-News (Hendersonville, North Carolina)|Times-News]] |date=September 16, 1963 |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=TEMaAAAAIBAJ&pg=7126,662830 |first=William O. |last=Bryant |access-date=November 21, 2010}}</ref>

These demonstrations and the concessions from city leaders to the majority of demonstrators' demands were met with fierce resistance by other whites in Birmingham. In the weeks following the September 4 integration of public schools, three additional bombs were detonated in Birmingham.<ref name="Washington Post Sept. 16, 1963">{{cite news |date=September 16, 1963 |title=Six Dead After Church Bombing |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |agency=United Press International |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/churches/archives1.htm |access-date=May 27, 2019}}</ref> Other acts of violence followed the settlement, and several staunch Klansmen were known to have expressed frustration at what they saw as a lack of effective resistance to integration.<ref name="Observer-Reporter Nov. 19, 1977">{{cite news |title=Former Klansman Is Guilty Of Bomb Deaths |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=8_ddAAAAIBAJ&pg=2755,3260312 |work=[[Observer–Reporter]] |date=November 19, 1977 |access-date=May 27, 2019 |agency=Associated Press }}</ref>

As a known and popular rallying point for [[civil rights]] activists, the 16th Street Baptist Church was an obvious target.