Birmingham Civil Rights District, Birmingham

Birmingham Civil Rights District, Birmingham

The Birmingham Civil Rights District is an area of downtown Birmingham, Alabama where several significant events in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s took place. The district was designated by the City of Birmingham in 1992 and covers a six-block area.

Landmarks in the district include:

16th Street Baptist Church, where the students involved in the 1963 Children's Campaign were trained and left in groups of 50 to march on City Hall, and where four young African American girls were killed and 22 churchgoers were injured in a bombing on September 15, 1963.

Kelly Ingram Park, where many protests by blacks were held, often resulting in recrimination by Birmingham police, including the famous 1963 scenes of policemen turning back young protesters with fire hoses and police dogs. News coverage of the riots in this park helped turn the tide of public opinion in the United States against segregationist policies. Several sculptures in the park depict scenes from those police riots.

The Fourth Avenue Business District, where much of the city's black businesses and entertainment venues were located; the area was the hub of the black community for many years. The business district includes A. G. Gaston's Booker T. Washington Insurance Co. and the Gaston Motel, a meeting place for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights during the early 1960s.

Carver Theatre, once a popular motion picture theater for blacks in Birmingham, now renovated as a live-performance theater and home of the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame.

Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, a museum which chronicles the events, struggles, and victories of the Civil Rights Movement, opened in 1993.
Sight description based on Wikipedia.

Want to visit this sight? Check out these Self-Guided Walking Tours in Birmingham. Alternatively, you can download the mobile app "GPSmyCity: Walks in 1K+ Cities" from Apple App Store or Google Play Store. The app turns your mobile device to a personal tour guide and it works offline, so no data plan is needed when traveling abroad.

Download The GPSmyCity App

Birmingham Civil Rights District on Map

Sight Name: Birmingham Civil Rights District
Sight Location: Birmingham, USA (See walking tours in Birmingham)
Sight Type: Attraction/Landmark

Walking Tours in Birmingham, Alabama

Create Your Own Walk in Birmingham

Create Your Own Walk in Birmingham

Creating your own self-guided walk in Birmingham is easy and fun. Choose the city attractions that you want to see and a walk route map will be created just for you. You can even set your hotel as the start point of the walk.
Civil Rights Historical Sites

Civil Rights Historical Sites

Birmingham, Alabama is the very first destination that comes to mind at the mention of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. Back in the 1950s and 1960s, this city saw a great deal of bloodshed and strife between civil rights leaders, seeking to shed the stigma of centuries-long injustice, and their opponents.

The area of downtown Birmingham, where several significant events in the...  view more

Tour Duration: 1 Hour(s)
Travel Distance: 0.9 Km or 0.6 Miles
Birmingham Introduction Walking Tour

Birmingham Introduction Walking Tour

Birmingham is Alabama's biggest city and dates back to 1871, making it a Reconstruction-era city. Although initially formed from agricultural communities, the city quickly became a central railroad and industrial hub, with the iron and steel industries accounting for much of the local workforce.

Irish and Italian immigrants, as well as African Americans, made up most of this early...  view more

Tour Duration: 2 Hour(s)
Travel Distance: 3.8 Km or 2.4 Miles