1963: A Pivotal Year for the Civil Rights Movement

Birmingham 1963

50th Anniversary of the Civil Rights Movement in Birmingham January 2013 to December 2013

October 7-19, 2013 – Birmingham Children’s Theatre (Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex). “The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963” is adapted from Christopher Paul Curtis’s popular young people’s book.  It tells the story of the Watson family from Flint, Michigan, who is visiting Birmingham when the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church is bombed.“The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963” is adapted from Christopher Paul Curtis’s popular young people’s book.  It tells the story of the Watson family from Flint, Michigan, who is visiting Birmingham when the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church is bombed.

The year was 1963, and as the world watched, events in Birmingham sparked an unstoppable surge toward equal rights for people of all races.  As Birmingham enters 2013, the city will mark the 50th anniversary of pivotal events of 1963 in America’s Civil Rights Movement.

Birmingham’s historic Civil Rights District was ground zero for the 1963 campaign.  With the opening of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute in 1992, the city found a place to tell its story. Richly detailed exhibits in the institute reveal slices of black and white life in Alabama from the late 1800’s to the present.

One of the most compelling sites in the Civil Rights District is Kelly Ingram Park. The park served as a gathering place for demonstrations in the early 1960’s, including ones in which police dogs and fire hoses were turned on marchers, many of them children.

Across from the park is Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, Birmingham’s most famous civil rights landmark.  On a bright September morning in 1963, a dynamite bomb set by Ku Klux Klansmen exploded at the church, killing four little girls as they prepared for morning worship.

Special exhibitions and events are planned to commemorate the year of 1963. A Sample of Special Events for the 2013 Commemoration:

http://birminghamal.org/events/50th-anniversary-of-the-civil-rights-movement-in-birmingham/