Exploring Alabama’s Complex Past: Teaching the Legacy of the 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing

Alabama has a rich and complex history, one that is marked by moments of both triumph and tragedy. The bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham that happened on September 15, 1963, remains one of the city’s most devastating events. The 16th Street Baptist Church was a prominent African American church in Birmingham that was known for its role in the civil rights movement. It served as a rallying point for activists and hosted meetings advocating for desegregation and equal rights. On the morning of September 15, 1963, a powerful bomb exploded underneath the steps of the church, causing a portion of the building to collapse. The explosion occurred just before Sunday services were set to begin, resulting in the deaths of four young girls and injuring over twenty others. The victims of the bombing were Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, and Denise McNair, all of whom were attending Sunday school at the time of the explosion. The tragic event of this day is something that every young child from Alabama, or in the neighboring states, comes to learn about.

While this tragedy happened over sixty years ago, teachers across the state are using the events at 16th Street Baptist church to teach students about racial segregation, activism, and the struggle for equality. The way this is done often tends to vary with age. For instance, in middle school, students are likely to share the same experience as I—an introduction to what happened at the church on this day, followed by a film or documentary that provides more depth, detail, and a visual representation of what teachers wish to convey. More likely than anything, students watch the Spike Lee-directed film “Four Little Girls”, or another historical documentary covering the subject. In high school, teachers are likely to take students on field trips to Birmingham’s Civil Rights Institute, or to the site of the 16th Street Baptist church. This was my high school experience. My 10th-grade history teacher took us on a trip to the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, where we learned more about the bombing and how it affected not only our communities here in Birmingham but also the church’s contribution to the civil rights movement. We were also able to visit the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, which at the time had an exhibit on the incident.

​My name is Markia Brown, and I am a senior at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, majoring in anthropology with a minor in history. I am from Birmingham, but I lived in Texas for a short while. I have been interested in history ever since I was a young child. It started off as interest in old literature from great playwrights and authors such as Shakespeare and Sophocles. From there I became interested in ancient civilizations and European history, which led me to watching history documentaries for fun—which is something I still do. That interest in history also led me to become heavily interested in anthropology and all of its fields, and the rest, as they say, is history. Earlier this year I realized that I have always been interested in the histories of other places, but didn’t know much about the history of my home state. I’ve been using Alabama Heritage magazine to change that. Our state’s history is much more interesting than I could have ever imagined, which makes me happy I made this decision. I’ll be graduating very soon, and I’m hoping to attend graduate school at UAB to obtain a master’s in history. I also want to teach history to the younger generation, as I feel it is very important that our history is passed down so it’s not forgotten. As George Santayana once said, “Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.”