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The bomb was placed near the street light on the right. In 1963, a set of back steps went up to a doorway. By 2002 the steps had been removed and the doorway was replaced with a small window (behind the globe of the street light). |
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The bomb was placed near the street light on the right. In 1963, a set of back steps went up to a doorway. By 2002 the steps had been removed and the doorway was replaced with a small window (behind the globe of the street light). |
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The steps went down to the left from the
doorway (in 2002 a window) to the base of the street light.
The blast from the bomb under the steps blew into the lower floor of the church building. The four teen-age girls who were killed were in a lounge on the other side of the two lower floor windows. |
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The bomb explosion destroyed many of the
stained glass windows in the church.
The Birmingham civil rights demonstrations, coupled with the use of police dogs and high-pressure fire hoses against the protesters, convinced U.S. President John F. Kennedy to act. He sent to Congress a civil rights bill that became the Civil Rights Act of 1964. |
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The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed racial discrimination throughout the United States in all places of public accommodation - restaurants, lunch counters, motels, etc. A major museum, the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, commemorates events in that city in the 1960s. |