On This Day In Alabama History: Historic Church Designated As Landmark
By Graydon Rust Alabama 200
February 20, 2006
The U.S. Department of the Interior designated Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham a National Historic Landmark. The city’s first house of worship for African-Americans, the church was first established in 1873 as the first Colored Baptist Church. It moved to its present location in 1880 and, in 1911, the church’s current building was constructed. The church gained national attention during the civil rights movement as the staging ground for African-American activism in the city and as the target of a racially motivated bombing by the Ku Klux Klan that killed four black girls in 1963. In January 2017, President Barack Obama signed legislation creating the Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument, which includes the church.
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