Historic Kelly Ingram Park was the site of civil rights rallies, demonstrations, and confrontations in the 1960s.
The Bethel Baptist Church was bombed three times in 1956, 1958, and 1962.
The Freedom Walk Path in the Historic Kelly Ingram Park.
Alabama capitol building in Montgomery.
Just across the street from both the Civil Rights Institute and the 16th Street Baptist Church, the block-wide Kelly Ingram Park conveniently served as a staging area for racial equality demonstrations. It’s from here where images of the park’s 1963 mass arrests, and authorities using fire hoses and dogs to quash demonstrators, soon reached a worldwide audience. Today, this now tranquil park brings to light this solemn history with a circular Freedom Walk path and through tributes to those who helped foster change, including statues of Martin Luther King Jr. and Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, a key figure in Birmingham’s civil rights struggles. Also in the park, the Four Spirits sculpture depicts the girls killed in the 16th Street Church bombing with gentle remembrances of the four victims. “You see the girls in preparation for church service—an ordinary moment that was frozen there,” says McNealy. “They’re symbolically releasing six doves representing the lives lost by children, the four girls and two boys who were also killed in Birmingham due to racial violence on that day.” Park audio tours are available through the Civil Rights Institute. Rev. Shuttlesworth was pastor at the historic Bethel Baptist Church in North Birmingham’s Collegeville neighborhood. Shuttlesworth and the church played key
roles in the Civil RightsMovement and thus his churchwas bombed three times, in 1956, 1958, and 1962, with the reverend and his family narrowly escaping death with the first bombing. Now a National Historic Landmark, Bethel was also a meeting and launching point at times for the 1961 Freedom Riders, with Shuttlesworth advancing the cause with help from the Kennedy Administration. Church tours take place on weekdays. Known as “the most historical short street in America,” central Montgomery’s Dexter Avenue leads to the Alabama State Capitol where demonstrators took their final steps on the long march from Selma to Montgomery, and where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “How Long, Not Long” speech on March 25, 1965. Along the street’s six short blocks sits the Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church, its name more recently changed to reflect that King preached there from 1954- 1960. The redbrick structure with white window trim and stairwell was completed in 1889 and is a National Historic Landmark. Opposite the State Capitol and at the other end of Dexter Avenue, a plaque marks the spot along Court Square that sparked the beginning of the modern civil rights movement. A life-size statue of Rosa Parks sporting rounded glasses and clutching her handbag was
HISTORIC CIVIL RIGHTS TRAIL
COAST TO COAST FALL MAGAZINE 2020
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