The A.G. Gaston Motel is a historic building and former motel in Birmingham, Alabama. [1] [2] In 1963 during the Civil Rights movement, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference used a room in the hotel as their headquarters, which was later bombed by terrorists.
Built in 1954 by local businessman A. G. Gaston. [1] It served as premium accommodation for African American travelers and was listed in The Negro Motorist Green Book, a travel guide. [1]
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference used room 30 as its headquarters for leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr., Ralph Abernathy, Fred Shuttlesworth, and others, to plan portions of the 1963 Birmingham campaign of the civil rights movement. [3] On May 10, 1963, the motel was bombed by white supremacist terrorists. [4] After discrimination in public accommodation was outlawed, the motel's business declined in the 1970s. It was used as senior housing from 1982 to 1996. [4]
Since 2017 it is owned in part by the Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument, the National Park Service, and the City of Birmingham. [3] [5] It has been designated by the National Trust for Historic Preservation as one of America's National Treasures. In summer of 2023, the site is set to open to the public for history tours. [1]
The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing was a terrorist bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama on September 15, 1963. The bombing was committed by a white supremacist terrorist group. Four members of a local Ku Klux Klan (KKK) chapter planted 19 sticks of dynamite attached to a timing device beneath the steps located on the east side of the church.
Ellis Louis Marsalis Sr. was an American businessman from New Orleans, Louisiana. He was a former poultry farmer turned hotelier, Esso franchise owner and civil rights activist.
The National Civil Rights Museum is a complex of museums and historic buildings in Memphis, Tennessee; its exhibits trace the history of the civil rights movement in the United States from the 17th century to the present. The museum is built around the former Lorraine Motel, which was the site of the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Two other buildings and their adjacent property, also connected with the King assassination, have been acquired as part of the museum complex.
Arthur George Gaston was an American entrepreneur who established businesses in Birmingham, Alabama. He had a significant role in the movement to remove legal barriers to integration in Birmingham in 1963. In his lifetime, Gaston's companies were some of the most prominent African-American businesses in the American South.
The Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park covers about 35 acres (0.14 km2) and includes several sites in Atlanta, Georgia related to the life and work of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. Within the park is his boyhood home, and Ebenezer Baptist Church — the church where King was baptized and both he and his father, Martin Luther King Sr., were pastors — as well as, the grave site of King, Jr., and his wife, civil rights activist Coretta Scott King.
Kelly Ingram Park, formerly West Park, is a 4 acres (1.6 ha) park located in Birmingham, Alabama. It is bounded by 16th and 17th Streets and 5th and 6th Avenues North in the Birmingham Civil Rights District. The park, just outside the doors of the 16th Street Baptist Church, served as a central staging ground for large-scale demonstrations during the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.
Birmingham Civil Rights Institute is a large interpretive museum and research center in Birmingham, Alabama that depicts the events and actions of the 1963 Birmingham campaign, its Children's Crusade, and the other Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s. The Institute is located in the Civil Rights District, which includes the historic 16th Street Baptist Church, Kelly Ingram Park, Fourth Avenue Business District, and the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame located in the Carver Theatre. The Institute opened in November 1992, and had more than 25,000 visitors during its first week.
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 of African Americans in Birmingham, Alabama.
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 still in operation and is a central landmark in the Birmingham Civil Rights District. It was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 2006. Since 2008, it has also been on the UNESCO list of tentative World Heritage Sites.
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.
Bethel Baptist Church is a Baptist church in the Collegeville neighborhood of Birmingham, Alabama. The church served as headquarters from 1956 to 1961 for the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR), which was led by Fred Shuttlesworth and active in the Birmingham during the Civil Rights Movement. The ACMHR focused on legal and nonviolent direct action against segregated accommodations, transportation, schools and employment discrimination. It played a crucial role in the 1961 Freedom Rides that resulted in federal enforcement of U.S. Supreme Court and Interstate Commerce Commission rulings to desegregate public transportation.
The St. Augustine movement was a part of the wider Civil Rights Movement, taking place in St. Augustine, Florida from 1963 to 1964. It was a major event in the city's long history and had a role in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR) was an American civil rights organization in Birmingham, Alabama, which coordinated boycotts and sponsored federal lawsuits aimed at dismantling segregation in Birmingham and Alabama during the civil rights movement. Fred Shuttlesworth, pastor of Bethel Baptist Church, served as president of the group from its founding in 1956 until 1969. The ACMHR's crowning moment came during the pivotal Birmingham campaign which it coordinated along with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference during the spring of 1963.
The Birmingham riot of 1963 was a civil disorder and riot in Birmingham, Alabama, that was provoked by bombings on the night of May 11, 1963. The bombings targeted African-American leaders of the Birmingham campaign. In response, local African-Americans burned businesses and fought police throughout the downtown area.
The history of the 1954 to 1968 American civil rights movement has been depicted and documented in film, song, theater, television, and the visual arts. These presentations add to and maintain cultural awareness and understanding of the goals, tactics, and accomplishments of the people who organized and participated in this nonviolent movement.
Gary Thomas Rowe Jr., known in Witness Protection as Thomas Neil Moore, was a paid informant and agent provocateur for the FBI. As an informant, he infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan, as part of the FBI's COINTELPRO project, to monitor and disrupt the Klan's activities. Rowe participated in violent Klan activity against African Americans and civil rights groups.
The Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument is a United States National Monument in Birmingham, Alabama established in 2017 to preserve and commemorate the work of the 1963 Birmingham campaign, its Children's Crusade, and other Civil Rights Movement events and actions. The monument is administered by the National Park Service.
The Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home National Monument, also known as Medgar Evers House, is a historic house museum at 2332 Margaret Walker Alexander Drive within the Medgar Evers Historic District in Jackson, Mississippi, United States. Built in 1956, it was the home of African American civil rights activist Medgar Evers (1925–1963) at the time of his assassination. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2017. The John D. Dingell, Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act, signed March 12, 2019, by President Donald Trump, authorized it as a national monument; it was established on December 10, 2020, after the National Park Service (NPS) acquired it from Tougaloo College.
The United States Civil Rights Trail is a heritage trail in the Southern United States that provides visitors with stories about the civil rights movement stories at various landmarks. The Civil Rights Trail links historically important Black churches, school museums, civil rights leaders’ residences, courthouses, and other landmarks of the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s and the creation of the U.S. Constitution’s 13th, 14th and 15th amendments.
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