The Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument is a

United States National Monument In the United States, a national monument is a protected area that can be created from any land owned or controlled by the federal government by proclamation of the President of the United States or an act of Congress. National monuments prot ...

Birmingham, Alabama Birmingham ( ) is a city in the north central region of the U.S. state of Alabama. Birmingham is the seat of Jefferson County, Alabama's most populous county. As of the 2021 census estimates, Birmingham had a population of 197,575, down 1% f ...

established in 2017 to preserve and commemorate the work of the

Civil Rights Movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement throughout the Unite ...

. The monument is administered by the

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational properti ...

.Pres. Obama signs executive order establishing Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument
.

WBRC WBRC (channel 6) is a television station in Birmingham, Alabama, United States, affiliated with the Fox network. It is owned by Gray Television alongside low-power, Class A Telemundo affiliate WTBM-CD (channel 24). The two stations studios ...

, 11 January 2017

History

President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, Obama was the first Af ...

signed a proclamation on January 12, 2017, which designated half of the

Birmingham Civil Rights District 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 cove ...

as a U.S. National Monument. Other proclamations signed the same day established the

Freedom Riders National Monument The Freedom Riders National Monument is a United States National Monument in Anniston, Alabama established by President Barack Obama in January 2017 to preserve and commemorate the Freedom Riders during the Civil Rights Movement. The monument is ...

in Anniston and the

Reconstruction Era National Monument The Reconstruction Era National Historical Park, formerly Reconstruction Era National Monument is a United States National Historical Park in Beaufort County, South Carolina established by President Barack Obama in January 2017 to preserve and ...

Beaufort County, South Carolina Beaufort County ( ) is a county in the U.S. state of South Carolina. As of the 2020 census, its population was 187,117. Its county seat is Beaufort. Beaufort County is part of the Hilton Head Island-Bluffton-Beaufort, SC Metropolitan Stati ...

Scope

Birmingham was the site of the

Birmingham campaign The Birmingham campaign, also known as the Birmingham movement or Birmingham confrontation, was an American movement organized in early 1963 by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to bring attention to the integration efforts o ...

, Martin Luther King's

Letter from Birmingham Jail The "Letter from Birmingham Jail", also known as the "Letter from Birmingham City Jail" and "The Negro Is Your Brother", is an open letter written on April 16, 1963, by Martin Luther King Jr. It says that people have a moral responsibility to ...

, the Children's Crusade with its images of students being attacked by water hoses and dogs, the bombing of the A.G. Gaston Motel – the movement's headquarters motel now designated as part of the National Monument – and the

16th Street Baptist Church bombing The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing was a white supremacist terrorist bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, on Sunday, September 15, 1963. Four members of a local Ku Klux Klan chapter planted 19 sticks of dynami ...

. Most of the national monument resides within the larger Birmingham Civil Rights District, which was designated in 1992 by the City of Birmingham. Historic sites within the monument include the A.G. Gaston Motel,

16th Street Baptist Church The 16th Street Baptist Church is a Baptist church in Birmingham, Alabama, United States. In 1963, the church was bombed by Ku Klux Klan members. The bombing killed four young girls in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement. The church is stil ...

, Kelly Ingram Park, and St. Paul United Methodist Church. The National Monument also includes the historic building of Bethel Baptist Church in Birmingham's Collegeville neighborhood.

References

External links

Official National Park Service site
* Historic district contributing properties in Alabama National Monuments in Alabama National Monuments designated by Barack Obama Monuments and memorials of the civil rights movement Protected areas established in 2017 2017 establishments in Alabama Protected areas of Jefferson County, Alabama Buildings and structures in Birmingham, Alabama {{JeffersonCountyAL-geo-stub

History

Scope

See also

References

External links