This virtual reality tour takes place at Historic Bethel Baptist Church, a National Historic Landmark located in Birmingham, Alabama. Rev. Thomas L. Wilder, Pastor of the “new” Bethel Baptist Church, will serve as your host. This tour is presented by the Historic Bethel Baptist Church Community Restoration Fund in partnership with Timelooper.
“But for Birmingham, we would not be here today.” This statement, made by President John F. Kennedy at a meeting at the White House with Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth, the architect of the Birmingham Civil Rights Movement, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and other movement leaders emphasizes the significance of Birmingham, Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth, and Historic Bethel Baptist and the pivotal role each played in the Modern Civil Rights Movement.
Under the leadership of Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth, Bethel became the epicenter for a non-violent, direct-action protest movement to end segregation in Alabama, that would eventually sweep across the United States and around the world.
In 1956, due to the role thrust upon it by law enforcement, economic repression, social and cultural mores, educational inequities, unfair judicial and political sanctions, and the cries for justice from the African American community in Birmingham, bombed three times with no loss of life, Historic Bethel Baptist Church stepped up and never looked back. The first bombing occurred on December 25, 1956, when the Bethel Parsonage, while the Shuttlesworth family was at home celebrating Christmas. The second bombing on June 29, 1958, severally damaged the East side of the church. The third bombing, December 13, 1962, damaged the church, the “new” parsonage, and surrounding properties. After each attack, the members swept up the glass and had church even if they did not have windows.
Bethel was the headquarters for the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR) which was established on June 5, 1956. This organization, composed of sixty churches in Birmingham with branch offices across the state, led the struggle for human and civil rights in Alabama following the ousting of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) by the state of Alabama. The NAACP was declared as a foreign corporation by the state of Alabama because Rev. Shuttlesworth, state president, refused to give its membership list to state officials.
Dr. Martin L. King, Jr. referred to Rev. Shuttlesworth as “. . . the most courageous civil rights fighter in the South.” Because of Rev. Shuttlesworth’s reputation as a freedom fighter, Dr. King came to Birmingham to meet him and later invited him in 1957 to join in establishing the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Their close working relationship is why Rev. Shuttlesworth invited Dr. King to Birmingham in 1963. Rev. Shuttlesworth felt that if they could destroy segregation in Birmingham, they could destroy it across the nation. The climatic “Battle for Birmingham” in 1963, with Shuttlesworth, King, and Abernathy at the helm, played out in the streets daily as children, teens, and adult “foot soldiers” won a hard-fought battle for human and civil rights which led to the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
What happened in Birmingham as men, women, and children faced the dangers of home-grown terrorists is a story that must be told from Historic Bethel Baptist Church. Annually, we have visitors come to Bethel from as far away as Australia and China.
President Barack Obama named Historic Bethel Baptist Church as a part of the Birmingham National Civil Rights Monument in January 2017.