A bit of Birmingham

My niece sent me a package with a "Flat Stanley" asking me to take it around Birmingham so she could learn a little about the city. I figured I could show y'all a bit of Birmingham too.

Birmingham was established as an industrial city, named after the great industrial city of England. A statue of Vulcun, the Roman god of the forge and fire, was erected in honor of that history. This is the world's largest cast iron statue and is considered the symbol of Birmingham.


Birmingham was also a major player during the civil rights movement. The following are some pictures of Kelly Ingram park. I'm being lazy today, so this is what Wikipedia says about the park:

Kelly Ingram 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.

Reverends Martin Luther King, Jr. and Fred Shuttlesworth of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference directed the organized boycotts and protests of 1963 which centered on Kelly Ingram Park. It was here, during the first week of May 1963, that Birmingham police and firemen, under orders from Public Safety Commissioner Eugene "Bull" Connor, confronted demonstrators, many of them children, first with mass arrests and then with police dogs and firehoses. Images from those confrontations, broadcast nationwide, spurred a public outcry which turned the nation's attention to the struggle for racial equality. The demonstrations in Birmingham brought city leaders to agree to an end of public segregation. In addition, they helped ensure the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Civil Rights laws.

"Peace Be Still" statue with accompanying plaque:



R and C, with the 16th street Baptist Church in the background:


Another statue:

Statue of Martin Luther King, Jr.:


The 16th Street Baptist Church was the first colored Baptist Church in Birmingham. Here's another Wikipedia article about the church:

During the civil rights movement of the 1960s, Sixteenth Street Baptist Church served as an organizational headquarters, site of mass meetings and rallying point for blacks protesting widespread institutionalized racism in Birmingham, Alabama and the South. The reverends Fred Shuttlesworth, who was the chief local organizer, and Martin Luther King, Jr. were frequent speakers at the church and led the movement.

On Sunday, September 15, 1963, Thomas Blanton, Bobby Frank Cherry and Robert Edward Chambliss, members of the Ku Klux Klan, planted 19 sticks of dynamite outside the basement of the church. At 10:22 a.m., they exploded, killing four young girls–Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley and Denise McNair–and injuring 22 others. They were there preparing for the church's "Youth Day". A funeral for three of the four victims was attended by more than 8,000 mourners, white and black, but no city officials.

Here are some pictures showing how many trees they have here: