**Birmingham\'s Civil Rights Churches-Bethel Baptist and 16th Street
Baptist Churches**

### 

### Prerequisites for U.S. World Heritage Nominations

**Prerequisite 1 - Legal Requirements:**

**A. National Significance:**

YES: \_\_\_\_X\_\_\_\_\_ NO: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

Comment: Both churches are National Historic Landmarks listed in 2005
and 2006, respectively.

**B. Owner Concurrence:**

YES: \_\_\_X\_\_\_\_\_\_ NO: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

Comment: The owners support this nomination.

**C. Willingness to Discuss Protective Measures:**

YES: \_\_\_X\_\_\_\_\_\_ NO: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

Comment: Both churches are executing Conservation Easement Agreements as
part of the Save America\'s Treasures Grant Program and are willing to
enter into discussions about protecting the properties in perpetuity.

**D. Scheduling:**

Preferred Year: 2013

Reasons: 2013 is 50th anniversary of the Birmingham Campaign and of the
bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church; 2014 is the 50th Anniversary of
the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

**Prerequisite 2 - Specific Requirements for Nomination of Certain Types
of Properties:**

**E. Serial (multi-component) Properties:**

This application *could be* considered together with other Alabama civil
rights National Historic Landmarks such as Dexter Avenue Baptist Church
in Montgomery.

YES: \_\_\_\_\_\_X\_\_\_ NO: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

Comment: Arguments are made for the international significance of the
two Birmingham properties presented in this nomination and for the
international significance of the Birmingham campaign of spring 1963.

**Serial (multi-component) Properties:**

Are you proposing this property as an extension of or a new component to
an existing World Heritage Site?

YES: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_ NO \_\_X\_\_\_

**Prerequisite 3 - Other Requirements:**

**G. Support of Stakeholders**

*The Governor of Alabama Bob Riley*

*Members of the Congress: U. S. Representative Artur Davis; U. S.
Senators Richard Shelby and Jeff Sessions*

*State Legislators: Senator Rodger Smitherman; Representative Mary
Moore*

*The highest local elected official: the Mayor of Birmingham, Bernard
Kincaid*

*Organizations established to advocate for protection and appropriate
use of the properties proposed for nomination:*

*Alabama Historical Commission, John Neubauer, Director*

*Jefferson County Historical Commission, President, Lillie Fincher*

*Birmingham Historical Society, Chairman of the Board, Marjorie White*

Supporters: Listed above.

Opponents: Unknown.

Comment: Representatives of the churches are speaking with the officials
and agencies listed above and collecting letters of support.

**Information Requested about Applicant Properties**

**1. IDENTIFICATION OF THE PROPERTIES**

**1. a. Country:** The United States of America

**1.b. State, Province or Region:**

The State of Alabama.

The City of Birmingham.

Bethel Baptist Church, 3226 29th Avenue North.

Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, 1530 16th Street North.

**1.c. Names of Property:**

Bethel Baptist Church and Sixteenth Street Baptist Church

***Popular and Historic names*** Bethel; 16th Street

***Naming of serial (multiple component) properties and transboundary
sites*.**

Group or Transboundary Name: Civil Rights Churches of Birmingham,
Alabama.

**1.d.-e. Location, boundaries, and key features of the nominated
properties**

Maps included as 8 1/2 x 11 print copies and digital files are from the
City of Birmingham\'s GIS system unless noted.

> **Bethel Baptist Church**
>
> Location Map.
>
> Geographical Coordinates Map.
>
> Hydrology-Flood Zone Map.
>
> Site Plan *showing the historic church and the proposed memory garden
> on the site of the bombed down parsonage*, Henry Sprott Long &
> Associates (HSL) No. 3127, September 26, 2003.
>
> **Sixteenth Street Baptist Church**
>
> Location Map
>
> Geographical Coordinates Map
>
> Birmingham Civil Rights District National Register Historic District
> Map.
>
> Community Facilities Near 16th Street Map.
>
> Commercial Revitalization District Map.
>
> Site Plan, HABS 1993.

**1.f. Area of nominated properties (ha.)**

Bethel: under one hectare

Sixteenth Street: under one hectare.

**2. DESCRIPTION AND HISTORY OF THE PROPERTY**

**2.a. Description of the Cultural Properties**

**Bethel Baptist Church**

**Neighborhood**

Bethel Baptist Church is located in the Collegeville neighborhood, six
miles north of the Birmingham city center and just east of the North
Birmingham commercial and residential districts. A neighborhood of the
City of Birmingham, Collegeville is surrounded by active railroads and
industries. The church is located on a level, low-lying corner lot
surrounded by one-story, single and double shotguns and bungalows as
well as ranch style houses built by African Americans in the early years
of the twentieth century.

**Church**

Built and consecrated for services in 1926, Bethel Baptist Church is a
three story, L-shaped building constructed of wood frame with brick
veneer. The building contains 6,500 square feet.

The sanctuary is located on the second level; classrooms, fellowship
hall, restrooms, kitchen and mechanical spaces are on the first level;
and two small class rooms and a balcony on a partial third level. The
first level has solid 12\" thick brick walls. The walls above the first
level are wood stud with brick veneer. The east and west exterior walls
have square brick buttresses approximately 11\' on center with large
windows between the buttresses at levels one and two. Roof trusses
extend from east to west across the building and provide a clear span
over the sanctuary. The roof at the south end of the building is stick
framed and oriented perpendicular to the sanctuary roof. The main
entrance to the sanctuary is on the north (29th Avenue North) with a
divided set of stairs leading to a small covered porch at the second
level. The second floor at the rear L contains the pastor\'s study and
the choir room. The third floor contains classrooms.

Striated face brick is used on the public faces of the church along the
29th Avenue and 33rd Street (the north and west) elevations. Other
elevations are finished in common brick. All exterior walls are laid in
American common bond, with the water table marked around the perimeter
of the building by a course of soldier brick at the level of the
sanctuary floor. The mortar is white.

The style of the church is eclectic. Historic photographs record that
the original church had a stronger Gothic character, most especially in
the original sanctuary windows and the window over the front porch.
These windows consisted of finely leaded stained glass framed in heavy
wooded, pointed arched frames. These windows were replaced in the late
1950s by the current round arched opalescent glass windows set in steel
frames. Remaining Gothic features include the proportions of the front
(north) elevation with its crenellated parapet above the entry porch and
the finials atop the niched corner buttresses flanking the entry as well
as the buttresses flanking the exterior walls. The Gothic theme is
reflected in the interior by the original dark stained walnut pews.

**Bethel Baptist Church Interior**

**Sanctuary.** The sanctuary seats 150 persons. The floor is covered
with light brown linoleum. It slopes gradually to the front where the
pulpit, high back chairs, pews for choir members are set on a raised
area. Beneath the pulpit is a baptismal pool. The base of the stage is
covered with beaded wainscoting. The stage floor is tongue and groove
pine.

The sanctuary walls are finished with beaded wainscoting below and
covered with gypsum board above. The ceiling is covered with beaded
wainscoting.

**Fellowship Hall**. Beneath the sanctuary, the first level is divided
for a large central fellowship space and for Sunday school classrooms, a
kitchen, restrooms and mechanical spaces. Most room walls are covered
with prefinished plywood paneling. Spaces are trimmed with wood
baseboards and door and window casings. The concrete floor is painted
and the plaster ceiling is covered by a suspended lay-in ceiling. A
metal door at the northwest corner leads to 29th Avenue North. A wooden
door at the southeast corner leads to the parking area site of the
original parsonage.

Office and classroom spaces on the second and third floors of the rear L
are finished with prefinished plywood paneling and suspended lay-in
ceilings.

**Sixteenth Street Baptist Church**

**Neighborhood**

Sixteenth Street Baptist Church was built from 1909 to 1911 at the edge
of a growing African American section of the Birmingham city center that
included a residential neighborhood extending west from the church, a
commercial area along 4th Avenue and a park, later named Kelly Ingram
Park. The church stands at the northwest edge of this park. The park\'s
western edge borders 17th Street, the historical dividing line between
black and white areas. While early 20th century residences once
surrounded the church, these have been redeveloped with commercial and
institutional buildings, 16th Street and other civil rights era churches
remain. Across 6th Avenue to the south of the church, also fronting the
park is the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute opened in 1992 and the
1961 A. G. Gaston Building and L. R. Hall and the 1954 Gaston Motel.
These structures are included in the *nationally significant* Birmingham
Civil Rights National Register Historic District.

Wallace A. Rayfield (1872-1941), the architect of the 16th Street
church, took a two-year architectural diploma program at Pratt Institute
in New York. From New York, he moved to Tuskegee Institute in Macon
County, Alabama to teach drafting. He stayed there until 1907, when he
set up his architectural practice in Birmingham. Rayfield designed more
than 479 buildings, of which the 16th Street church is one of the most
important. It shows the training and skill of this successful African
American architect in mid-career.

The design for the 16th Street church is eclectic. Art historian Dr.
John Schnorrenberg, author of *Aspiration-Birmingham\'s Historic Houses
of Worship* and the forthcoming *Biographical Dictionary of Birmingham
Architects* who led frequent architectural tours of the church,
describes the church: \"There is Romanesque arcading for the entrance
porch and tower openings, but the architectural language of the gable
above the window over the porch, the central wooden lantern, and above
all, the elevation of the side wall show Rayfield\'s acquaintance with
and mastery of the Beaux-Arts Classicism of the American Renaissance of
ca.1890-1910. The side wall has an academic palatial dignity, ultimately
inspired by the classical exhibition halls of the World\'s Columbian
Exposition of 1893 in Chicago.\" (Note: the HABS history and others
writers call the lantern a cupola and describe the style of the church
as Romanesque and Byzantine.)

**16th Street Baptist Church Exterior**

The 16th Street church fronts on 6th Avenue North where twin bell towers
and the central the lantern rise to four stories in height. The
three-story rectangular structure extends north along 16th Street,
forming the other major public face of structure. The sanctuary is at
the second level, a fellowship hall and offices at the first level. A
third level is comprised of the balcony of the sanctuary and additional
classroom space. The church building is a load-bearing masonry structure
with a combination of steel and wood roof trusses.

Character defining features of the exterior include the central stair
and arched loggia; the towers with tile roofs, louvers for the original
bells to ring out, decorative brickwork and low relief moldings; the
central lantern atop a multi-light drum; and the exterior walls of
rusticated stone and brick with the limestone water table, sills,
lintels, and coping; stained glass windows; and ornamental brickwork and
corbels.

**Materials.**

The public faces of the structure: the walls of south and east
elevations, along 6th Avenue and 16th Street, respectively, and the
walls of the towers are clad with rusticated stone below the limestone
water table and above it with variegated brown brick laid in a running
bond pattern. The walls of the building facing the alley and the
parsonage on the north and west elevations are of dark brown brick, laid
in a common bond pattern with five rows of stretchers between rows of
headers.

All sanctuary windows are of stained glass. The arched windows have
brick lintels and limestone sills. The rectangular windows have
limestone sills and lintels. Windows illuminating the offices and
basement level spaces and those of the roof-top lantern are of plate
glass**.** The windows of the west, south, and east sides of the first
story are arranged in pairs, each double hung with one-over-one sashes.

**Roofs.** There are five roofs: those covering the sanctuary, lantern,
towers and loggia. The sanctuary roof is a low-pitched hipped roof with
a ballasted, built-up membrane. The roof over the loggia is also a
ballasted built-up roof. The twin towers have curved pyramidal roofs
clad in terra cotta tile. The lantern roof is currently covered with
composition shingles, but will soon be re-covered with tiles similar to
the originals remaining on the towers.

**Lantern.** A two-tiered drum topped with a cupola is located at the
center of roof of the building. The structure is wood frame. The first
tier of the drum is square; the second tier is octagonal. Groups of 15
and 16-light windows are positioned in the upper and lower tiers of the
drum and topped by an octagonal cupola. The lantern provides natural
light to the sanctuary below. There is an additional skylight that
opened above the pulpit, but it has been covered.

**South Elevation** (the most public face of the church along 6th Avenue
North).

The front (south) elevation is five bays wide, with corner bell towers
rising at each end. The towers flank a central stair that leads to a
single-story loggia and the multiple entrances to the sanctuary. The
parapet wall features decorative brickwork, stained glass windows and
stone coping as the cap.

This elevation contains seven stained glass windows. Above the loggia,
the central window, depicting \"Christ on the Cross,\" replaces an
original window destroyed in the 1963 bombing. This is the 1965 blue,
blue Wales Window of 1965. The other windows are located at the first
story under the loggia where they also illuminate the sanctuary.

A turquoise blue, cross-shaped sign which reads \"16th Street Church\"
in neon lights is located at the southeaster corner. It was mounted on
the corner of the building prior to 1963.

**Towers.** The two four-story towers are identical in exterior
materials and ornament. Each is square with one bay on each side and
clad with the same materials as the south and east elevations. At each
story are openings and ornamentation. At the first story, alternating
rows of raised brick bands extend from the lower part of the tower wall,
just below the windows, up to the spring of the loggia arches. From this
brick banding, a raised brick arch extends over a pair of stained glass
windows set within the arches. A single panel of recessed brick topped
by corbels offsets the second and third stories. At the upper story,
raised brick arches terminate in a horizontal row of raised brick,
accenting the arched louver openings from which an electronic carillon
sounds. The uppermost story features a recessed panel of brick with a
limestone base and a corbel top. A dentil molding surrounds the tower
cornice. Beneath the cornice, low relief moldings flank the louvered
openings. The moldings feature wreaths and ribbons. The southwest tower
houses an elevator.

**Central Stair.** Within the 6th Avenue (south) facade and flanked by
the twin towers, the central stair rises, leading up a flight of
limestone steps to a one-story loggia with central and side entrances to
the sanctuary. The rusticated check walls of the stair are capped with
limestone copings. Two metal pipe handrails, shown in the 1963
photographs, align with the loggia columns.

**Loggia.** The one-story loggia with its arched brick openings and
parapet wall projects from the exterior wall of the sanctuary. Three
sets of double doors enter the sanctuary from the loggia. Two doors, one
at the east side and one at the west side, lead to the roof of the
loggia. None of the doors are original, but will soon be replaced by
doors similar to those extant in 1963.

Above the loggia, beneath the corbelled pediment, is the Wales Window
set within the central bay and framed by rows of raised brick columns
and topped by a circle within an arch.

**Entrance Vestibules.** Along the 6th Avenue facade, two vestibules at
street level provide sheltered entrance to the fellowship area.
Vestibules walls are of rusticated stone; their flat roofs of seamed
metal. The doors leading to the basement are glass and aluminum.

**East and West Elevations**

The east (16th Street) and west elevations are eight bays deep and
symmetrical in configuration and window placement. Each southern-most
bay (at 6th Avenue) incorporates the tower; the northern-most bay (at
the alley) includes offices and halls. The interior bays within the
elevations frame the two-story sanctuary and are inset with two-story
arched stained glass windows. The fourth bay from the south projects
slightly from the wall forming a transept. The parapet wall of the east
elevation is capped with stone coping; that of the west elevation with a
thin layer of concrete.

The east elevation features decorative brickwork and corbels. Raised
brick arches accent the arched windows on the second though seventh bays
(counted from the south or 6th Avenue end). Rusticated stone and brick
pilasters separate the sixth and seventh bays. The fourth bay from the
south with its double-wide arched window projects from the wall forming
a transept. Pilasters at the corners of the bay support a raised brick
pediment spanning the bay. At the transept, brick corbels arches are
located above the pediment. Brick corbels define the top and bottom of
the parapet wall at bays two, three, five, seven, and eight. These bays
are separated by pilasters, and each bay includes a raised brick
rectangle. The architectural language is NeoClassical executed in brick.

The west elevation facing the parsonage has less ornamental brickwork
than the south and east elevations. A brick pilaster separates the sixth
and seventh bays at the south end. Pilasters at the level of the parapet
wall separate the bays.

**North Elevation**

The north (rear) elevation along the alley is seven bays wide with
fourteen one-over-one, double-hung windows providing natural light for
the offices and halls. Four former window openings have been filled with
brick. A brick chimney is located between bays three and four, counting
from 16th Street. A thin layer of concrete tops the parapet wall.

**Church Interior**

**Sanctuary** The sanctuary is two stories high and can seat
approximately 1,000 persons. The principal entrance is from Sixth Avenue
from which entry one faces the raised area with the pulpit, choir loft
and organ at the north end of the church. Between the pulpit and the
choir loft under the stage is the baptismal pool. The wood floor of the
church slopes to the north. The aisles, along the walls of the sanctuary
and within the pews, are covered with a red carpet as is the pulpit
area. Oak pews of varying dimensions are arranged in an arch shape. The
pews are upholstered with a red fabric. Auditorium style wooden folding
seats are located in the choir loft and in a U-shaped balcony that
extends around the east, west and south sides of the sanctuary and is
supported by round, steel posts rising from the first story through the
sanctuary. The face of the balcony is paneled with light wood which may
cover the original dark stained wood. The perimeter walls are covered
with the same paneling and stained glass windows above. The ceiling has
two skylights, a large, central stained glass skylight in coffers and a
smaller, textured glass skylight over the pulpit. The later light is
covered. **Offices are located behind the choir loft.**

**Fellowship Hall.** The first story is three feet below street level.
It includes a large, open fellowship hall and on the east and west sides
small, perimeter rooms used for classrooms, offices, a gift shop,
storage and kitchen. The south end of the hall contains the \"Memorial
Nook,\" a glass paneled exhibition space showing photographs of the
events that took place here in 1963. The church\'s sanctuary clock that
stopped at 10:22 a.m. on September 15, 1963 is among memorabilia in the
nook. Room 203, at the northwest corner of the first story, retains its
original finishes: plaster walls and ceiling, tongue and groove floor,
and a built-in cabinet.

**Features or aspects of the properties that qualify them for the World
Heritage List**

**Bethel Baptist Church:** The church is significant in the origins and
evolution of the church-led southern civil rights movement of the 1950s
that used nonviolent mass action techniques to address racial inequality
in the United States. Headquartered at this church between 1956 and
1961, the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR) with
Reverend Fred L. Shuttlesworth as its president, pioneered a nonviolent
direct action campaign to confront multiple racial segregation issues.
These efforts fine tuned the strategy and tactics employed in the 1963
Birmingham protests. The ACMHR was also pivotal to the success of the
1961 Freedom Ride that compelled the federal intervention to desegregate
interstate public transportation and facilities. *The church sanctuary,
the pastor\'s office and fellowship hall served for mass meetings and
other organizing events. An exterior wall of the church and the ground
level lot where the parsonage once stood retain the evidence of the
intimidation faced by those advocating racial change and are also
significant features.*

**16th Street Baptist Church:** The church is closely associated with
events that defined the civil rights movement of the 1960s as that
movement reached its apex in Birmingham. The church sanctuary served as
a staging ground for the major marches in spring 1963. Organized by the
Southern Christina Leadership Conference and the local Alabama Christian
Movement for Human Rights, the Birmingham Campaign became a most
dramatic confrontation with segregation. Then on September 15, 1963, a
Sunday morning, a dynamite blast shattered the church killing four
teenage girls. The egregious event shocked the world and underscored the
need for a change in race relations. These Birmingham events spurred the
introduction and passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which provided
for equal access to public accommodations. *16th Street\'s exterior and
its sanctuary are the significant features of the historic church.*

**What are the important present or proposed uses of both properties and
how do they compare with the traditional or historic uses of the
churches?**

Present and proposed uses include worship, historic interpretation and
visitor services. Traditionally and historically the churches have
served as sites of worship and as community gathering and educational
places.

The increase in numbers of visitors seeking to experience sites of the
American civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s has led to the
redesign of certain areas of the historic churches to accommodate these
visitors.

Bethel\'s future plans call for a memory garden on the site of the
bombed parsonage and historic interpretation in the fellowship hall.

16th Street constructed a Memorial Nook in its fellowship hall during
the renovations that followed the 1963 bombing and has since developed a
gift shop in former classrooms nearby. On week days, an audio-visual
presentation is show in the sanctuary.

**2. B. History and Development of the Property**

**Bethel Baptist Church**

The architect and builder of the Bethel church are unknown. Recorded
church history states that the red brick building was completed in 1926
and equipped with a coal-fired boiler for heating, stained glass
windows, stone lintels and sills, interior millwork, solid walnut pews
and an iron baptismal pool. The cornerstone at the northwest corner of
the 33rd Street facade lists church officers at the time of
construction. The 1928 Sanborn map shows the church as a two-story brick
structure with steam heat and electricity. The first known physical
description of the church located in public records appears in a 1939
Property Assessment Report. This report describes interior spaces of the
church, including the sanctuary with its balcony; pastor\'s study; and
choir room on the second floor; and classrooms on the third floor. The
ground level fellowship hall is a large open space. A one-story bungalow
style parsonage is directly west of the church, separated by a three to
four foot passage. From the back door of the parsonage one could easily
enter the rear door of the fellowship hall.

The Bethel Church was formed through the merger of two North Birmingham
congregations: Bethel Baptist Church and the First Colored Baptist
Church of North Birmingham, established in 1904 and 1900 respectively
when pipe works and foundries were first located here to take advantage
of Birmingham\'s world dominance in the production of iron for foundry
use. With combined congregations and financial resources, they built
this church which is the largest structure in the Collegeville community
and the only two-story African American church in the North Birmingham
industrial area. Under the leadership of Rev. Milton Sears from the
1920s through the 1940s, the church had a powerful voice in the
community and in the National Baptist Convention, which Reverend Sears
brought twice to Birmingham.

The 1953, the Reverend Fred Lee Shuttlesworth was called to become
pastor of Bethel Baptist Church. His motto for the church was,
\"Today\'s church working for tomorrow\'s world.\" Under Reverend
Shuttlesworth\'s leadership, Bethel would become an active religious
congregation and headquarters to the Birmingham civil rights movement
led by Shuttlesworth. Shuttlesworth\'s organization, the Alabama
Christian Movement for Human Rights (the ACMHR), was formed in 1956
following the banning of the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People (NAACP) from activity in the state of Alabama. The Bethel
congregation supported the Movement unreservedly. The doors of Bethel
were always open for Movement meetings: mass meetings and secret
strategy meetings. Thrice bombed, the working-class folks at Bethel
financed, housed and otherwise supported the Movement until rights were
won for all in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Bethel members also
supported the campaigns for voting rights and many members participated
in the 1965 Selma campaign.

On the night December of 25, 1956, a bomb placed on the west side of the
church between the church and the parsonage destroyed the original
parsonage and damaged the church building. That bomb was intended to
assassinate Reverend Shuttlesworth and intimidate him and ACMHR members
from riding the buses and challenging the City\'s segregated bus law.
When Shuttlesworth emerged unscathed, a woman called out, \"God saved
the Reverend to lead the Movement.\" And so he did, 300 rode the buses
the next day, and many were arrested, inaugurating a new, and ultimately
successful nonviolent mass movement to challenge legal segregation in
the heart of the racist South.

In the rebuilding campaign that followed the 1956 bombing, a new Ranch
style parsonage for the Shuttlesworth family was built across 29th
Avenue from the church, incorporating materials salvaged from the bombed
dwelling. Subsequently, the church\'s front porch and sanctuary were
repaired. An original basement window located on western side of the
north facade was converted into a door to provide access to the new
parsonage**.** The site of the original parsonage was later asphalted to
provide parking. \[Future plans call for the reconstruction of the
parsonage framing as part of a memory garden with provision for visitors
to enter the church for orientation in the fellowship area before
proceeding to the sanctuary.\]

Between 1956 and 1958, the original wooden frame stained glass windows
in the sanctuary were replaced with steel frame windows and opalescent
glass. The brick at the top of the windows was changed from a pointed
arch to a rounded arch. Reverend Shuttlesworth decided to make this
change to allow more light into the sanctuary and to update the
church\'s appearance. The choir loft was also enlarged.

Another bombing on June 29, 1958 shattered windows and cracked the
plaster of the sanctuary. Placed on the east side of the church and
moved to the middle of 33rd Street before it exploded, the blast broke
all glass in the church windows and pitted some brick on the east wall.
Pockmarks remain. The bomb did not implode the walls of the church as
intended.

In the rebuilding that followed the second bomb, all remaining wooden
windows were replaced with steel windows and the original wooden
entrance doors replaced with a metal store front with full-height
obscure plate glass, the latter a gift in honor of a church member
killed in the Korean War.

It was to this church that Bethel members brought the Freedom Riders
following the burning of the bus in Anniston, Alabama on May 13 and the
beatings of the riders at the Trailways station in Birmingham on
Mother\'s Day, 1961. Here Reverend Shuttleworth and their leaders in
Nashville coordinated the continuation of the rides across Alabama. Many
Bethel members including Reverend Shuttlesworth kept Freedom Riders in
their homes. In August of 1961, Reverend Shuttlesworth accepted the
pastorate of a large church in Cincinnati. Both he and Bethel members
continued their work with the Movement, participating in the boycotts of
1962 and other ACMHR campaigns.

While police reports do not list any ACMHR mass meetings at Bethel
during 1962, the church remained a target for Klan-sponsored
intimidation. A third bomb on December 13, 1962, placed in the street on
the 29th Avenue (north) side of the church, shattered glass in the
church windows and the remaining plaster in the sanctuary. Houses in the
neighborhood suffered similar damage. Children practicing for a
Christmas pageant were not harmed. Church members swept up the ruble and
rebuilt.

As the Birmingham Movement grew and the city center became the focus of
the Movement\'s economic boycotts of stores in the retail district and
demonstrations for civil rights at city hall and the county courthouse,
the larger city center churches were used for mass meetings at which
ACMHR organized its activities.

From 1972 to 1975, the original church building was extensively
modernized. On the ground floor, the kitchen was enlarged and the
fellowship hall subdivided into classrooms. The original steam heating
system was removed and the entire building air-conditioned. Metal
ductwork was installed on the ground floor and in the attic. Prefinished
plywood paneling was placed over most plaster walls and suspended lay-in
ceilings were installed in all rooms. New \"Gothic\" style pendant
fixtures and wall sconces were installed in the sanctuary to provide
improved illumination. The original Gothic style pews and altar
furnishings in the sanctuary were replaced with new furnishings with a
blond wood finish. On the exterior, the church was repointed and the
original dark brown soft mortar was replaced with a hard white mortar.

Not until the late 1980s did the City of Birmingham install storm sewers
in 29th Avenue and 33rd Street to handle the flood waters that
traditionally followed heavy down pours. At this time, the City paved
both streets and added curbs and sidewalks. The lot where the original
parsonage was located as well as the side yard between the church and
33rd Street was also paved for parking at this time. The latter asphalt
pavement connects to both the east and west church walls.

In 1994, a Birmingham Historical Society team documented the historic
church for the Historic American Building Survey, preparing measured
drawings, a history and photographing the interior and exterior of the
church. Drawings documenting the use of the church for mass meetings
during the civil rights era of the 1950s were also prepared.

On Good Friday of April 1996, large portions of the lay-in ceiling of
the sanctuary collapsed due to water damage from roof leaks. Portions of
the original ceiling also fell to the floor. At this time, the
congregation was building a new church a block away on 28th Avenue
North. In September of 1997, the Bethel congregation vacated the
historic building which has been used for occasional religious services
and community meetings since then. It has also welcomed visitors from
across the world.

During the period from 1998 to 2002, miscellaneous repairs attempted to
stabilize the condition of the historic church. A new roof with asphalt
shingles, metal flashing and aluminum gutters and downspouts was
applied. Additional support to the roof trusses, 2 x 12 planks were
added to the top chord of each truss and bolts added at all connections.
Brick was repointed and window sills covered with mortar. The lay-in
ceilings in the sanctuary and half of the ground floor were removed,
exposing the original bead board ceilings. The plywood paneling was
removed from the sanctuary and half of the ground floor, but paneling
remains in other areas. New gypsum board on wood furring has been
installed on sanctuary walls. New bead board wainscot was added to the
sanctuary to replicate the original. Most of the original pews have been
recovered and reinstalled in the sanctuary. The newer light stained pews
have been removed to the balcony and choir loft.

On April 5, 2005, Bethel Baptist Church was listed as a National
Historic Landmark, recognizing the significance of the Rev. Fred
Shuttlesworth and this church in the civil rights struggle of the 1950s.

**2.b. History and Development of the Property**

**Sixteenth Street Baptist Church**

The third 16th Street Baptist Church opened its doors in 1911. Founded
as the First Colored Baptist Church of Birmingham in 1873, two years
after the industrial city of Birmingham was founded the church changed
its name when it relocated to 16th Street. When City officials condemned
the church\'s 1884 Gothic Revival structure, a new building campaign
began in 1909. The new church and parsonage filled four residential
lots, extending 100 feet along Sixth Avenue North and 150 feet along
16th Street to the alley.

The cornerstone located at the southeast corner of the church lists the
contractor and architect: \"Sixteenth St. Baptist Church, Windham Bros.
Contrs., W.A. Rayfield & Co., Archts.\" T. C. Windham, a member and
trustee of the 16th Street congregation, was the successful co-owner of
a construction firm with offices in Birmingham and other cities. Church
trustees signed the contract with Windham Brothers on March 8, 1909. By
April of 1911, the roofs were installed, but members were using the
fellowship hall on the first story for services as the sanctuary was not
yet complete.

A photograph by Birmingham photographer O. V. Hunt now in the collection
of the Birmingham Public Library made shortly following the completion
of the building, documents the appearance of both the original exterior
and sanctuary conditions.

With a seating capacity for 1,000 persons, the Sixteenth Street Baptist
Church was among the largest meeting spaces in Birmingham. Its
congregation used the facility regularly for Sunday services and for
other meetings and events in the life of an active religious
congregation. But from the beginning, the church\'s facilities, both the
sanctuary and fellowship spaces, served community uses, sometimes gratis
and sometimes for a fee. Here the major national African American
educational, religious and political leaders and musicians spoke and
sang, and local and national organizations gathered. The church\'s
prominent location on major streetcar routes along Sixth Avenue in the
heart of a city center residential district that was two blocks from the
African American commercial hub along Fourth contributed to the
popularity of the space for community use. Until A. G. Gaston
constructed L. H. Hall in 1961, the only other large meeting spaces for
African Americans in Birmingham were other churches, the Colored Masonic
Hall and school auditoriums.

Dynamic pastors who also served as business and community leaders
attracted members. The church\'s congregation was large and prominent.
On February 5, 1921, the *Birmingham Reporter* noted, \"The Sixteenth
Street Baptist Church is one of the most prominently located churches in
the district and has among its members some of the most successful
business and professional men of the race\... for a long time considered
as a community center with perhaps the most attractive and substantial
programs for community uplift.\"

Photographs dating to 1945 show changes to the sanctuary since 1911. The
choir loft, with wooden seats intact, had been lowered to pulpit level
and a clock hung on the wall behind the pulpit.

**The Birmingham Campaign of Spring 1963**

Most members of the Sixteenth Street church had not participated in the
Birmingham Movement, organized by the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth in
June 1956 to fight segregation in the city. Nor had church facilities
been used for the weekly Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights
(ACMHR) mass meetings held each Monday night to advance the civil rights
fight. (Only 60 of more than 500 African American churches were active
in the ACMHR during spring 1963 as hosts to mass meetings and strategy
sessions.) But during the April-May joint campaign of the ACMHR led by
Shuttlesworth and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
led by Martin Luther King Jr., Reverend King convinced 16th Street\'s
pastor, the Rev. John Cross, to allow the Movement to use 16th Street\'s
facilities. According to reports of the Birmingham police who attended
45 meetings during April and May of 1963 and published reports for their
chief, 16th Street hosted seven ACMHR mass meetings during the
Birmingham campaign.

When the youth marches began on Thursday, May 2, the 16th Street church
became the prime staging area for training the students before they
participated in the nonviolent marches and demonstrations. The church
and Kelley Ingram Park also became the site of major confrontation of
the marchers with police and firemen. On three ensuing days, May 3, May
6 and May 7, hundreds of students gathered at 16th Street to be trained
and then march for freedom. On the evenings of the march days, hundreds
more crowed the sanctuary, and the sanctuaries of other churches in the
area (due to the large numbers of persons attending the nightly mass
meetings), to celebrate the success of the marches and learn the
strategy for the next day\'s demonstrations. The May 6th mass meeting at
the church was recorded by folklorists and released by Smithsonian
Folkways.

Local and national news men filmed the student marchers exiting the 16th
Street church, marching two by two and singing freedom songs. The
majority of the students headed east along 6th Avenue North to 17th
Street where waiting school buses took them to overfilled and make-shift
jails. But in so doing they filled nightly news broadcasts across the
world. Many photographs of the marchers have 16th Street as a backdrop.
Many other views were shot from the southeast across the Kelley Ingram
Park with the church in the background. The views at the church and of
conflict with police dogs and fire hoses in the park and on city streets
circulated internationally on the nightly television news casts and in
print media and have continued to be shown ever since, making the church
the icon of the civil rights struggle.

Thus, the church became the place the Movement happened. And when in the
fall of 1963, federal judges and other authorities enforced
desegregation of local schools, Ku Klux Klan members retaliated with a
bomb placed at the 16th Street church, intending to end integration of
the schools, actually succeeded in ending tolerance of segregation in
America.

After the Birmingham Campaign of spring 1963, President Kennedy had
proposed civil rights legislation saying that it should be enacted \"not
merely for reasons of economic efficiency, world diplomacy and domestic
tranquility \-- but above all because it is right.\" On November 23,
Kennedy was assassinated. In President Johnson\' first Congressional
address, Johnson called \"for passage of the civil rights bill in order
to bring alive; the dream of equal rights for all Americans whatever
their race or color.\'\" Precisely one year after President Kennedy had
proposed the legislation, the bill passed the United States Senate. On
July 2, 1964, President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The bomb that exploded on September 15, 1963 killed Addie Mae Collins,
Denise McNair, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley. This bomb was
planted at the north end of the 16th Street elevation of the church next
to a basement window and under a set of metal stairs that led to a
second story rear entrance. The bomb blast destroyed the stairs. Three
of the sanctuary windows, those closest to the bomb blast, were
completely blown out, including some frames. The other sanctuary windows
also sustained damage. However, the major thrust of the bomb imploded
the brick and stone exterior wall and the foundation inward, forming a
7\' x 7\' hole and thrusting debris into the women\'s lounge burying the
children. The blast also damaged much of the other glass in the
sanctuary. The four teenagers who were killed were in the women\'s
lounge preparing for Sunday services. Ambulances took their bodies to
the Hillman Hospital emergency room. Police and FBI records now at the
Birmingham Public Library Archives document the physical impact of the
bombing.

After the bombing, renovations continued over an eight month period at
the church. On the exterior along the 16th Street elevation, at the
actual blast site, the paired double-hung first story windows and
foundations were replaced. The original staircase leading from 16th
Street to the landing at the sanctuary level were not replaced. Instead,
this entrance was removed and filled with a double-hung window and
brick. A new metal door and awning were added to the last bay where a
basement window had been. On the front elevation, metal awnings over the
basement entrances that flanked the central stair were removed and
replaced with glass and steel street-level vestibules through which one
enters the fellowship hall.

In the sanctuary, the three stained glass windows at the north end of
the 16th Street elevation were replaced to match the originals, the rest
of the damaged windows were repaired. The brilliant blue Wales Window, a
gift to the church from the children of Wales in 1965, replaced an
original window above the loggia. Flush, oak sheet panels were installed
at the front of the balcony and as a similar wainscot around the
perimeter walls of the sanctuary. The pulpit area was modified as well
with oak paneling added to the face of the base and a solid wall
installed between the pulpit area and the choir loft. The skylight above
the pulpit was covered. Carpet runners extended along the aisles.

At the first story level, a \"Memorial Nook\" was created and the
original large open room further subdivided with a series of small rooms
added along the east and west walls. The restrooms were modified. After
the eight-month renovation, the 16th Street church reopened for
religious services on June 7, 1964.

In 1973, 16th Street celebrated its centennial. Photographs taken at the
celebration show the sanctuary and document the changes made during the
1963 and 1964 renovations that followed the bombing.

In 1980, the National Register of Historic Places listed the 16th Street
Baptist Church. The nomination prepared by Birmingham Historical Society
cited the church\'s role in the Birmingham campaign and the bombing.

During 1991 and 1992, as the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and
renovations to Kelley Ingram Park across 16th Street from the church
were nearing completion, the church trustees, under the leadership of
pastor Christopher Hamlin, hired L.O. Samms and Sons Company of Waco,
Texas to update its facilities. New systems and new materials were added
at this time. The renovation included the installation of a new heating,
air conditioning, electrical, and sound systems. On the exterior, new
brick pavers replaced the original sidewalk. Most exterior doors were
replaced. Lighting was improved. Tile was added to cover the heavily
chipped, front limestone steps. The blue neon sign was repainted as were
the window frames. The bell was removed from the east tower and replaced
by a carillon. An elevator was added to the west tower.

In the sanctuary, the semi-circular raised stage was removed and a new,
larger pulpit area built with a new, heated baptismal pool. This change
facilitated the incorporation of baptism into the worship service. The
pipe organ was restored. The original beaded board ceiling was covered
with sheetrock and it and the coffers painted. Carpet and matching
upholstered pew cushions were added. And, to meet City code, a metal
railing and glass barrier were installed along the top of the balcony
wall and as well as new exits from the sanctuary to the rear halls. The
historic church put on a new face for its life as a place of worship
that would also welcome increased numbers of visitors.

Among the first visitors were an international team of student
architects and a folklorist who prepared measured drawings and a history
of the church for the Birmingham Historical Society-sponsored Historic
American Building Survey documentation project in the summer of 1993.
The HABS project was part of a Society effort to identify and document
properties of national significance as part of possible federal
designation of such properties as a national heritage area, the proposed
Birmingham Industrial Heritage District. A documentary produced by a
local television station at this time has become the film played for
visitors to the church.

The visitors have come, in 2006 an estimated 100,000, and the life of
the church as a religious center and tourist destination has continued.
Volunteers working with the Tour Ministry serve as tour guides.

However in recent years, infiltration of interior spaces with water and
cracking of exterior surfaces became increasingly visible and of concern
to many in the church and the community. Several structural engineers
conducted assessments of the church\'s structural condition. All reports
noted many problems.

In April 2005, Gregory Robinson and Hunter Pearson of LBYD, Inc.
completed an assessment of the structural condition of the church.
Earlier structural studies contributed to their final recommendations.
The LBYD, Inc. report found cracks in the exterior masonry walls of the
church and significant portions of the mortar deteriorated and missing.
The cracks were thought to be the result of \"highly plastic\" soil
conditions at the site, poor subsurface drainage around the church, the
presence of trees in close proximity to the exterior walls, thermal and
moisture related conditions, and lack of proper exterior maintenance of
the brick. All of these factors resulted in significant water intrusion
into the building. Furthermore the water from the roofs was being
deposited at grade on all sides of the church and not being directed
away from the church. And the five roofs also needed attention,
particularly the tiled tower structures.

Recommendations proposed included eliminating large shrubs and trees
around the building and correcting the poor subsurface drainage
conditions. Additionally, open cracks in the masonry were to be
regrouted; loose brick reset; masonry mortar repointed and the brick
sealed to prevent moisture infiltration. An efficient drainage system to
carry storm water away from the building needed to be constructed and
all basement walls waterproofed. Other structural concerns needing to be
addressed included the foundations of the cheek walls at the front
entrance, the steel supports for the elevator in the west bell tower,
restressing of the roof joists, repair of the bell tower framing and
corrective action to the masonry parapets.

The structural assessment was conducted as part of a *Historic Structure
Report* completed in October 2005 by OJP/Architects, Inc of Atlanta,
Georgia; principal participating architects included Jack Pyburn and
W.A. Andrews.

A National Historic Landmark nomination was drafted at this time, and
16th Street Baptist Church was listed as a landmark with the Secretary
of the Interior and the Attorney General signing the authorization at
the church on February 20, 2006**.**

Trustees of 16th Street, under the leadership of their pastor, the Rev.
Arthur Price, responded to the assessment of the poor exterior condition
of the church with a capital campaign to raise \$3.9 million for
\"Exterior Stabilization and Preservation\" and the restoration of the
church\'s 1963 exterior appearance. The not-for-profit Sixteenth Street
Foundation was created to receive private contributions for the work.
ArchitectureWorks and Brice Building Company, both Birmingham firms,
were hired to complete the work that is guided by the Secretary of the
Interior Standards for Historic Buildings. A Save America\'s Treasures
grant is contributing funds to the restoration effort.

By January of 2007, the church was excavated around the perimeter and
the existing parge coating cleaned and patched. A water proofing
drainage system, including a French drain, was installed at the base of
the foundations and filled with a drainable backfill. On the west
facade, a drainable flume and storm water management system has been
installed. On the east facade a concrete planter has been installed to
allow the historical grass strip along 16th Street to collect rain
water. All retaining walls around the church and the concrete flume have
been repaired. The exterior envelop will be sealed from penetration of
water.

All the roofs are undergoing significant repair. The framing of the
towers has been repaired and the terra cotta tile reset. Matching pieces
were used to replace missing or damaged pieces. In addition, the cornice
was reset and restored. On the central lantern the existing shingles
will soon be replaced with terra cotta tile to match the appearance of
the roof in the 1963 period of significance.

At the front entrance to the sanctuary, the limestone steps to the
loggia will be repaired or replaced with material similar to the 1963
material. Custom wood doors will be installed at the entrances to the
sanctuary to restore the 1963 appearance of the doors. The vestibule
doors will also be replaced.

In the sanctuary, those windows categorized by a stained glass expert as
priority 1 and 2 have been removed and restored. A protective coating
will be installed over the stained glass windows. Additional lighting
will be installed in the fellowship hall on the first story before the
current project concludes in late spring of 2007.

**2.c. Boundary Selection**

**Bethel Baptist Church**: The boundary includes Lots 27 and 28 of Block
3 of the Whitney, Gayle & Vann Subdivision. The church property includes
its original parcel and the parcel containing the ground level site of
the historic parsonage destroyed by a bomb in 1956.

**Sixteenth Street Baptist Church**: The boundary includes Lots 21-24 of
Block 17 of the Elyton Land Company Subdivision of Birmingham. The lots
represent the parcel historically associated with the church.

Are all the elements and features that are related to the sites\'
significance included inside the proposed boundaries?

YES: \_\_\_\_X\_\_\_\_\_ NO: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

Are there any enclaves or in holdings within the properties and, if so,
do they contain uses or potential uses contrary to the conservation or
preservation of the site as a whole?

YES: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ NO: \_\_\_X\_\_\_\_\_

**3. JUSTIFICATION FOR INSCRIPTION IN THE WORLD HERITAGE LIST**

**3.a. Criteria under which inscription is proposed**

*vi. directly associated with events, with ideas of outstanding
universal significance.*

*\_\_\_ This criterion applies to the properties we are proposing*

*Reason:* **By forcing the United States Government to address race
reform, nonviolent black activists in Birmingham provoked the climax of
the southern civil rights struggle of the 1950s and 1960s, making Bethel
Baptist and Sixteenth Street Baptist Churches as central to the American
master narrative as World Heritage Site Independence Hall in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where the country\'s founders debated the
true meaning of liberty. The victory won in Birmingham resolved for once
and for all the understanding of freedom by opening up the American
system to minorities (African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans) and
women as henceforth the federal government opposed as official policy
the racial discrimination and gender inequality that routinely had been
applied previously to these citizens. For the world, Birmingham became
both a symbol of the failure of the United States to live up to its
American Dream and a vision of how nonviolence can force a so-called
democracy to expand and become truly inclusive. Because of Birmingham\'s
protest movement that was organized in Bethel Baptist Church and that
poured out of the doors of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, the 1964
Civil Rights Act and the corollary 1965 Voting Rights Act were adopted
by a Congress determined to forever alter the United States.**

**3.b. Proposed statement of outstanding universal value**

**From the sanctuaries of Bethel and Sixteenth Street Baptist Churches
in Birmingham, Alabama civil rights movement volunteers determined to
end racial discrimination in America marched down the stairs and into
history at the forefront of the universal struggle for human rights in
the 1960s.**

**3. c. Comparison of proposed property to similar or related properties
(including state of preservation of similar properties)**

**From the sanctuaries of Bethel and Sixteenth Street Baptist Churches
in Birmingham, Alabama civil rights movement volunteers determined to
end racial discrimination in America marched down the stairs and into
history at the forefront of the universal struggle for human rights in
the 1960s. By forcing the United States Government to address race
reform, these nonviolent black activists provoked the climax of the
southern civil rights struggle, making these two churches as central to
the American master narrative as World Heritage Site Independence Hall
in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where the country\'s founders debated the
true meaning of liberty. The victory won in Birmingham resolved for once
and for all the understanding of freedom by opening up the American
system to minorities (African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans) and
women as henceforth the federal government opposed as official policy
the racial discrimination and gender inequality that routinely had been
applied previously to these citizens. For the world, Birmingham became
both a symbol of the failure of the United States to live up to its
American Dream and a vision of how nonviolence can force a so-called
democracy to expand and become truly inclusive. Because of Birmingham\'s
protest movement that was organized in Bethel Baptist Church and that
poured out of the doors of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, the 1964
Civil Rights Act and the corollary 1965 Voting Rights Act were adopted
by a Congress determined to forever alter the United States. As the
Kennedy Administration recognized, prior to Birmingham, Washington cared
little about racial discrimination, but after the events of 1963, race
reform was the only issue being discussed in the halls of Congress,
making Birmingham central to what Hugh Davis Graham has called the
\"American Rights Revolution.\" Internationally the movement spread as
the American civil rights struggle joined a \"rights revolution\" across
the globe.**

**Throughout history, people have fought for dignity and civil rights
with these separate demonstrations for justice like streams joining a
mighty river, feeding and inspiring the whole course of human events.
Independence movements throughout the world and especially in colonial
Africa after the Second World War encouraged black Americans to protest
for their civil rights. Just as the World Heritage Site of Elmira
Castle, where slaves left the shores of Africa bound for the Americas,
links the two continents in silent witness to human tragedy, so too, the
nonviolent transition of power from the British Gold Coast to the
independent Ghana in 1957 led by Kwame Nkrumah paralleled the American
civil rights movement and underscored a pan-African desire for equal
access to the wealth of the world. From his pulpit at Dexter Avenue
Baptist Church, the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., led the first
community-based protest n the United States South that garnered
international acclaim, the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Encouraged by
disciples for nonviolence, King traveled to India where he studied the
successes of the great Mahatma Gandhi and *satyagraha,* bringing these
teachings back to America where mixed with Christian theology he
expressed \"Kingian nonviolence.\" These strategies were shared with the
Reverend Fred L. Shuttlesworth of Bethel Baptist Church in Birmingham
who had joined in the bus boycott in Montgomery and invited King to
speak in Birmingham. Indeed the American civil rights struggle
interpreted Gandhi\'s *satyagraha* in its own fashion and a unifying
theme most successfully implemented in the streets of Birmingham in
1963.**

**Media played a key role in undermining white supremacy in the South by
broadcasting to the world injustices in the United States. Journalists
captured the images of Birmingham\'s firemen blasting black school
children with water under pressure strong enough to tear bark from trees
and policemen turning loose their dogs on nonviolent bystanders watching
the protests. In the geopolitical struggle between superpowers, a
chagrined President John F. Kennedy understood the implications of
political cartoons in Russia\'s newspaper *Pravda* that mockingly
depicted the hypocrisy of white supremacists in Alabama defending
American freedoms from black youth. The power of newspaper coverage and
the emerging television broadcast made the earth smaller as in
Birmingham in 1963 it was understood \"the world is watching\" or as
Marshall McLuhan later described it as, life in a global village.
Indeed, within days of the Birmingham protests a Buddhist monk in South
Vietnam, perhaps aware of the state violence against black youth in
America and recognizing the power of media images, calmly assumed the
lotus position on a busy street corner in Saigon, soaked his saffron
robes in gasoline and struck a match, a self sacrifice through
immolation, protesting a United States sponsored dictator\'s brutal
suppression of freedom of religion. Throughout the world human rights
activists realized the shared nature of their freedom struggles.**

**The clearest contemporary parallel to the American civil rights
movement was the fight against apartheid in the Republic of South
Africa. White supremacist Afrikaners in the National Party who had won
control of the country in 1948, adopted a series of segregation laws
that as apartheid \--or separateness \-- created a racially segregated
society. South Africans opposed to racial discrimination organized the
multiracial African National Congress (ANC) and adopted the Freedom
Charter to fight against apartheid. Others took to the streets where in
March 1960 at Sharpeville police opened fire on demonstrators killing 67
people and wounding dozens more. The white supremacist state cracked
down as thousands of protestors around the country demonstrated,
ultimately leading to the arrest in 1962 of ANC leaders such as
President Nelson Mandela, who was banned from being quoted and
imprisoned for 27 years, spending much of that time isolated in a small
cell on windswept Robben Island. This World Heritage Site includes the
jail that housed Mandela and his ANC comrades, a facility not unlike
that in Birmingham where King sat imprisoned in 1963 while hundreds met
in the 16th Street and Bethel Baptist churches and hundreds more marched
in protest. In the Birmingham jail, King wrote his \"Letter From the
Birmingham Jail\" which once smuggled out and published became the
clearest expression of the goals and aspirations of the American civil
rights movement. Likewise in his cell outside Cape Town, Nelson Mandela
penned his \"Autobiography\" that an associate slipped out of the
country in 1976. Later published it told the world about the South
African freedom struggle.**

**The exercise in civil disobedience, boycotts, and protest marches
Gandhi led in British controlled India before that colony\'s
independence developed in part out of nonviolent demonstrations he had
waged decades before in South Africa. Gandhi\'s imprisonment, like that
of Mandela\'s and King\'s galvanized opposition against unjust
governments, and legitimized nonviolence as a strategy of the oppressed.
Similarly the false imprisonment and then disappearance of up to 30,000
people whom authorities in Argentina detained, murdered, and disposed of
secretly during the so-called \"Dirty War\" from 1976 to 1983, provoked
a nonviolent response by thousands of grandmothers who, wearing
headscarves and carrying photographs of their missing loved-ones,
gathered weekly in Buenos Aires\' Plaza de Mayo in silent witness to the
atrocities of state violence, ultimately helping to topple a discredited
regime. Across the world thousands of Filipinos used \"People Power\" to
confront the tanks of a ruthless dictator in 1986 as nonviolent protest
secured the democratic election of Corazon Aquino as president of the
Philippines. Likewise the thousands of Germans, converging on either
side of the Berlin Wall near the Brandenberg Gate on November 9, 1989,
nonviolently protesting the Communist regime that had erected the
barrier twenty years before, sang the American civil rights anthem \"We
Shall Overcome\" as they tore through the reinforced concrete and
reunited the East with the West. These demonstrations, like earlier ones
by Solidarity in Gdansk, Poland or the thousands of protestors who
gathered in St. Wenceslas Square in Prague and ushered in the Velvet
Revolution in Czechoslovakia demonstrated the possibilities of
nonviolent protest against state oppression. They join in a universal
campaign for human rights that built on previous struggles such as those
waged in India, South Africa, Vietnam, and the American South, whereby
average people turned everyday places such as Bethel and Sixteenth
Street Baptist Churches in Birmingham, Alabama into extraordinary places
and potential World Heritage Sites.**

**\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_**

**3.d. Integrity and/or Authenticity**

**Cultural properties**

[Authenticity]{.underline}: Do the properties retain their *original*
design, materials, workmanship and setting?

YES: \_\_\_\_\_#\_\_\_\_ NO: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

Comment: Yes, overall both churches retain a high degree of integrity
relative to their original design, materials, workmanship and setting as
well as to the period of the civil right movement.

Their locations and settings remain intact: Bethel in a residential
neighborhood, 16th Street at the edge of an urban park in the city
center. While there has been and will be new construction in both
neighborhoods, the churches remain the anchor sites.

At Bethel, the original Gothic design of the church was modified by new
sanctuary windows and a front door added following bombings in the late
1950s. However, the original design, materials and workmanship of the
building\'s structure and envelop and the significant interior spaces
\-- the sanctuary, pastor\'s study and fellowship hall \-- retain their
feeling and association as headquarters for and meeting place of the
Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (the Birmingham Movement).

At 16th Street, the original eclectic design (Beaux Arts Neo Classicism
with Romanesque features) is intact. The church\'s exterior \-- brick
and stone walls, roofs, towers, lantern, front entrance with loggia,
window openings with stained glass \-- remain and have been recently
stabilized. The building\'s footprint, with the exception of the
vestibules and a rear staircase destroyed in the bombing \-- are
identical. The church interior has undergone more changes than the
exterior. Most of the interior finishes were changes in the 1963-64 and
1991-92 renovations. Room 203 retains original finishes and a built in
cabinet. The building\'s original interior spaces in the sanctuary and
the fellowship hall retain the feeling, association, design, materials
and workmanship associated with the church\'s use as a headquarters and
rally point for the civil rights marches and demonstrations during May
1963 and as the site of the September 15, 1963 bombing.

Original exterior spaces and features as listed on the conservation
easements:

**Bethel.** Brick, buttresses, limestone lintels and sills, front porch
with central staircase, tower, and window openings. The steel casement
windows with opalescent glass and front door date to the period during
the bombings.

**16th Street.** Brick, rusticated stone, limestone water table, sills,
lintels and coping, towers with terra cotta tile roofs, central lantern,
low relief moldings, louvers, stained glass windows, arched loggia,
central stair, ornamental brickwork and corbelling

Original interior spaces and features as listed on the conservation
easements:

**Bethel.** In the sanctuary, the pulpit area with baptismal and choir
loft; beaded board ceiling, side walls and stage facing; walnut pews;
balcony and balcony stairs; pastor\'s study. The steel framed windows
with opalescent glass were installed during the bombings.

**16th Street.** In the sanctuary: balcony, balcony and choir loft
seats, oak pews, coffered ceiling with stained glass skylight, choir
loft and organ, window openings and stained glass windows; tower stairs.

[Integrity]{.underline}: Do the authentic material and spatial evidence
inside the proposed boundaries remain in sufficient quantity to convey
the full significance of the site? To tell the full story of why the
site is outstanding? Is the integrity weakened by the intrusion of
discordant and/or abundant elements or buildings that are unrelated to
the significance and detract from the visual unity of the place?

YES: \_\_\_\_#\_\_\_\_\_ NO: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

Comment: Authentic material \-- original wood and steel structure,
rusticated stone, limestone used as sills and water table, brick for
exterior walls, terra cotta tile for tower and lantern roofs, stained
glass in wood framed windows, steel frame windows with opalescent glass,
tongue and groove wood floors, beaded wainscot used on walls and
ceiling, concrete used as flooring \-- remains in the Bethel and 16th
Street churches to convey the significance of the site as a places for
strategy and training sessions, and mass meetings for those
participating in the meetings, marches and demonstrations of the
Birmingham civil rights movement. They walked up the steps into the
sanctuaries, sat in the pews, sang in the choir lofts (and the pews),
preached from the pulpits, and strategized in the fellowship halls and
pastor\'s study (at Bethel) and otherwise carried on the business of
organizing the Movement in these same spaces. Energized and informed, by
the hundreds, they walked out of the 16th Street sanctuary to
participate in marches and demonstrations that saw 4,000 persons go to
jail for Freedom.

Spatially, the major features of the exterior elevations, front
entrances and sanctuary configurations remain essentially unchanged
since construction. Both fellowship halls at Bethel and 16th Street were
subdivided (in the 1970s and 1960s respectively) with small perimeter
rooms (for Sunday School classes) but the central halls remain open and
large. At both churches, there have been changes to several exterior
doors and to the interior wall and ceiling surfaces and the paint
palette, where colors lighter than the originals prevail.

**How do authenticity and integrity compare for these properties?**

Authenticity: conforming to an original so as to reproduce essential
features

Integrity: an unimpaired condition, honesty.

**Bethel** is unabashedly authentic. When the planned improvements are
complete, Bethel will look just as it did during the years it sustained
the fight for freedom. The only changes made to the *original* structure
will be the steel casement windows, enlargement of the choir area, and
the modern mechanical systems needed to meet life-safety codes. Reverend
Shuttlesworth made the changes to the windows and doorway following the
bombings, so the structure will be true to the movement era. Bethel has
integrity.

16th Street is faithful to the original structure on the exterior, with
the exception of the vestibules, missing staircase and a few window
changes. In the sanctuary, there have been liturgical and other changes;
but the space remains essentially the same, two-story skylight with
stained glass windows, wooden pews, pulpit area, organ loft and balcony.

[Repairs:]{.underline} If repairs have been made, were they carried out
using *traditional* materials and methods? If yes, please discuss. If
not, please explain the methods used and why.

YES: \_\_\_\_X\_\_\_\_\_ NO: \_\_\_\_X\_\_\_\_

No. At Bethel, in the 1970s, sheet rock, prefinished wall cladding and
lay-in ceilings were introduced. In recent renovations, most of these
so-called improvements were removed.

No. At 16th Street, in the 1991-1992 renovation, the sanctuary ceiling
and walls were clad with sheetrock and the pulpit and baptismal area,
re-configured, enlarged and carpeted. In the recent exterior
stabilization, lots of new materials were used to shore up the
foundations.

**4. STATE OF PRESERVATION AND FACTORS AFFECTING THE PROPERTIES**

**4.a. Present state of preservation of the properties**

The present state of preservation of the properties including their
**physical condition** and **preservation measures** in place.

**Bethel Baptist Church**

The physical condition of Bethel is in need of amelioration. During the
summer of 2003, the Bethel Baptist Church Community Foundation retained
the architectural firm of Henry Sprott Long & Associates to survey
existing conditions at the historic property, to evaluate alternative
repair scenarios, then to recommend a comprehensive renovation plan.
Separate evaluations were prepared for structural, plumbing, mechanical
and electrical systems. Based on the renovation plan, a general scope of
work and a preliminary construction cost estimate was developed. The
Alabama Historic Commission funded the study. The church is currently
raising funds for a planned \$1.5 million stabilization project and has
received a Save America\'s Treasures grant to help with that effort.

The proposed renovation will replace or repair all deteriorated
materials and correct existing structural and building system
deficiencies which currently prevent the property from being used safely
and contribute to progressive deterioration. This exterior renovation
will include waterproofing the walls below grade and developing a new
system to drain water away from the structure, re-roofing the structure,
replacing rotted exterior wood, re-mortaring the joints (removing the
white Portland cement mortar to expose the original dark mine putty
mortar and repointing the entire building with mortar to match the
original in color and composition), repairing steel sash windows,
weather sealing all exterior brick surfaces; and stabilizing roof
framing. In the sanctuary, these original finishes will be preserved:
historic wood and linoleum floors, plaster walls and ceilings, wood
wainscots, bead board and rail paneling, bead board ceilings, steel
windows and opalescent glass panes. All 1970s improvements will be
removed, historic materials salvaged and reused. In the fellowship hall,
new plaster walls and concrete will finish the walls and floor. The
renovation will follow the Secretary of the Interior\'s Guidelines for
historic properties.

When the renovation is complete, the historic church will be
weather-tight and structurally sound, will comply with current building
and life safety codes, will be handicapped assessable and will have a
restored appearance consistent with its 1950s period of significance. A
separate project will create a memorial garden with a steel frame
outlining the Shuttlesworth parsonage destroyed by a bomb in 1956.

**Sixteenth Street Baptist Church**

The physical condition of 16th Street should be sound. The church is
completing its \$3.9 exterior stabilization project and does not have
any additional planned projects. The 2005 *Historic Structure Report*
has long lists of things that the church might do; however, the recent
project has addressed everything rated as \"critical\" in that report.

## 

**4.b. Factors affecting the properties**

***(i) Development Pressures (e.g., encroachment, modification,
agriculture, mining)***

Are there development pressures affecting the property? Or major changes
in traditional land use? Or demographic shifts?

YES: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ NO: \_\_\_\_x\_\_\_\_

Comment: See the statement of City planning imitative in the vicinities
of both churches. There will be construction of new housing in the
neighborhoods surrounding both churches in the next 10 years.
Traditionally they were surrounded by residential communities.

The fact that the churches own additional property surrounding their
historic resources should help them determine the future of their
immediate surroundings: Bethel the properties located at 3213, 3233 29th
Avenue North (the new Bethel church); 2905 33rd Street, 3208 33rd
Street; 3208, 3212, 3201, 3205 and 3209 28th Avenue North. 16th Street
owns: 5121 and 1525 7th Avenue North and 614 16th Street North in
addition to the main church building, parsonage and parking lot along
6th Avenue North.

***(ii) Environmental pressures (e.g., pollution, climate change,
desertification)***

Are there major sources of environmental deterioration currently
affecting the property?

YES: \_\_\_\_X\_\_\_\_\_ NO: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

Comment: Pollution: The properties are located in urban areas near major
highways and heavily traveled streets and do absorb significant
emissions from automobiles. Fortunately, neither church has sandblasted
their original exterior surfaces. Water: Both churches are addressing
issues of water penetrating the exterior envelop of the building and
have or will be adding new drainage systems to carry water away from the
buildings.

***(iii) Natural disasters and risk preparedness (earthquakes, floods,
fires, etc.)***

Are natural disasters likely to present a foreseeable threat to the
property?

YES: \_\_\_\_\_X\_\_\_\_ NO: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

Comment: Natural disasters in this area take the form of winds and rains
associated with hurricanes, as well as tornados. Additionally, Bethel is
in 100 year flood zone where FEMA and the City are taking measures to
ameliorate traditional flood conditions and will create a Conservation
Zone of open space and a historic district surrounding historic and new
Bethel that should provide a protective buffer.

There are contingency plans for dealing with disasters.

YES: \_\_\_\_X\_\_\_\_\_ NO: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

Comment: These are *active* congregations that have policies, especially
for tornados and fire.

***(iv) Visitor/tourism pressures***

YES: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ NO: \_\_\_X\_\_\_\_\_

Comment: Both properties are open to the public and the volunteers are
willing and able to response to the current level of visitors. Studies
on visitor impact and estimated \"carrying capacity\" have not been
made, nor have adverse impacts on the properties been studied, but
certainly they should be done, together with a formal plan for tourism
management at both sites.

***(v) Other***

Other risks or threats that could jeopardize the property's Outstanding
Universal Values.

YES: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ NO: \_\_x\_\_\_\_\_\_

Comment: Unknown.

**5. PROTECTION AND MANAGEMENT**

**5.a. Ownership**

Name(s) and addresses of all owners:

Bethel Baptist Church, 3200 29th Avenue North, Birmingham, 35207, t.
205-322-5360.

The Trustees of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, 1530 6th Avenue North,
Birmingham, 35203, t. 205-251-9402.

\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

Are there any restrictions on public access to the property?

YES: \_\_\_\_X\_\_\_\_\_ NO: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

Comment: Public access to Bethel Baptist Church is by appointment. 16th
Street has regular hours for visitors, six days a week and will arrange
tours for groups by appointment. Both churches also hold Sunday
services.

**5. b. Protective designations**

**City Protection:** The City of Birmingham does not designate local
landmarks nor does it have any protective mechanisms other than Design
Review (for 16th Street only) in its current plans. In plans under
review, city zoning, design review and conservation district
regulations, will provide review of all developments in the area
surrounding these churches and hopefully ensure that new construction
and neighborhood character surrounding the landmark sites remain
respectful of those sites. (See 5.d)

**Conservation Easements,** *pending*

Both the Bethel and 16th Street Baptist Churches are in the process of
legal review of the Save America\'s Treasures \"Conservation Easement\"
Agreements. This agreement, a condition for financial assistance from
the National Park Service which both institutions have been pledged,
requires that the grantor to execute the easement and agree that \"no
construction, alteration, or remodeling or any other activity shall be
undertaken or permitted to be undertaken on the Subject Property which
would affect historically significant interior spaces and features
identified in an\" attached exhibit; \"exterior construction materials,
architectural details, form, fenestration, height of the Property, or
adversely affect its structural soundness without prior written
permission of the Grantee (the Alabama Historical Commission) affirming
that such reconstruction, repair, repainting rehabilitation,
preservation, or restoration will meet The Secretary of the Interior\'s
Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties\". The property will
be open a minimum of 13 days a year. The Easement is to be filed with
the Jefferson County Recorder.

Are the protections in perpetuity (No) or are there potential gaps in
the protection (Yes)?

YES: \_\_\_\_\_\_X\_\_\_ NO: \_\_\_X\_\_\_\_

Comment: The sample Save America\'s Treasures Conservation Easement
which both churches are in the process of executing is for 50 years.

Are there any traditional ways in which custom safeguards the
properties?

YES: \_\_\_\_X\_\_\_\_\_ NO: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

Comment: These properties are icons of the civil rights struggle and the
citizens of Birmingham and visitors from across the world recognize them
as such.

**5. c. Means of implementing protective measures**

The owner(s) will be responsible for ensuring that the nominated
properties will be protected in perpetuity. The Alabama Historical
Commission, through the Easements, accepts responsibility to enforce the
easements.

YES: \_\_\_\_X\_\_\_\_\_ NO: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

What is the adequacy of resources available for this purpose?

This is the major question. Will the churches be able to fund the
long-term maintenance required of National Historic Landmark and World
Heritage sites?

They don\'t have any choice.

Both churches have set up private foundations to receive tax deductible
contributions. National Historic Landmark and World Heritage designation
certainly will help raise funds.

God willing, they *will* be able to find the resources to preserve and
maintain their landmark sites.

**5.d. Existing plans related to city in which the proposed properties
are located**

**Bethel Baptist Church**

In the next 10 years, a new Collegeville neighborhood \-- with Bethel as
the centerpiece \-- is to be built about the historic and new Bethel
Baptist churches. Surrounding the churches, the Alabama Historical
Commission has requested that a formal historic district be established
to protect the remaining houses and churches and that compatible
new-infill houses be constructed on currently vacant lots. City of
Birmingham planning officials are in agreement with this recommendation.

**FEMA-Flood Plain Buyout Project**. Due to chronic and repetitive
flooding of houses in the neighborhood, the Federal Emergency Management
Agency (FEMA), working with the City of Birmingham, has purchased
several hundred houses over the past five or six years. The goal to
\"get people out of harm\'s way.\" Edwin Revell is the City of
Birmingham\'s Flood Plain Manager. The availability of federal monies to
complete the buyouts will determine the completion date of the project.

**Village Creek Greenway.** After the all the chronically flooded houses
are acquired, the vacated land will become \"conservation\" lands. These
lands (and houses) now flood because the storm water has no place to go.
Following major down pours, Village Creek, the adjacent tributary of the
Black Warrior River and Birmingham\'s principal source of industrial
water, also floods. Maclin Park, just west of Bethel, will be expanded
for recreational uses that do not include buildings. All uses will be
\"open land\" uses, as recommended in the Olmsted Brother\'s *A Park
System for Birmingham* in 1925.

**Finley Avenue Extension Project,** along 27th Avenue North. The
traffic artery is in design stages to improve traffic flow across the
North Birmingham area, which has historically been impeded by many sets
of railroad tracks. It is difficult to enter Collegeville without
crossing grade-level tracks. At Shuttlesworth Drive, to the west of
Bethel, a flyover at the railroad tracks and an access road to
Shuttleworth Drive will permit a new entrance and egress to the
community now at grade-level only. This project of Division 3 of the
Alabama Department of Transportation will include a buffer to mitigate
sound and visual impact upon the adjacent residential area and historic
Bethel. William Nemeth is the City of Birmingham project engineer and
liaison to ALDOT. ALDOT has hired a Birmingham project management firm
to coordinate compliance with the environmental issues. The City\'s
historic preservation efforts are coordinated by its Historic
Preservation Officer Victor Blackledge who states that ALDOT will be
required to \"do no harm\" with the new highway construction to historic
Bethel.

**16th Street Baptist Church**

The City of Birmingham\'s *City Center Master Plan* of 2005 establishes
the Civil Rights District (informally established in City\'s
*Comprehensive Plan* of 1992 as a \"Redevelopment District\") and
recommends the Civil Rights District as one of four areas for
\"concentrated urban design attention.\" The City has supported the
listing of historic civil rights properties on the National Register of
Historic Places as the Birmingham Civil Rights District which includes
the core of properties within the once segregated core about Kelley
Ingram Park, the target sites of the demonstrations (the municipal and
retail areas) and streets and sidewalks linking them. As part of the
implementation of the 2005 plan, the City will soon establish \"form
based\" design codes and zoning, the intent of which is to assure that
new developments complement existing historic character. The City\'s
Design Review also functions in the 1992 district which includes 16th
Street and properties located in both the Birmingham Civil Rights
District National Register Historic District and the Fourth Avenue
National Register Historical District.

New mixed-income residences are another component of the 2005 master
plan. On the block just north of Kelley Ingram Park across 16th Street
from the 16th Street church, the area is designated for mixed-use
residential development with commercial and retail at the ground level
and residential on the upper floors.

The information on the City of Birmingham\'s programs has been supplied
by Victor Blackledge, the City\'s Historic Preservation Officer.

**5.e. Property management plan or other management system**

YES: \_\_\_\_\_X\_\_\_\_ NO: \_\_\_\_X\_\_\_\_

Comment: Neither Bethel nor 16th Street have what the National Park
Service would term a management plan; they do have management systems by
which certain trustee volunteers and hired contractors supervise the
physical facilities of both churches.

**Property Management**

**At Bethel**, there is agreement that the Secretary of the Interior\'s
Standards will be followed in all future work, including the currently
planned project. There is no formal management plan.

The **16th Street Baptist Church** completed a *Historic Structures
Report* in October 2005 which sets goals for the \"Ultimate Treatment &
Use\" of the church. That treatment is the restoration of the exterior
and rehabilitation of the interior to the period of national
significance (which the National Landmark nomination established as
April 8 to May 8, 1963 and September 15, 1963) with the following
components:

1\. Preservation and repair of the building\'s historically significant
features and material, especially on the exterior and in the sanctuary;

2\. Restoration of the building\'s most significant exterior features
that have been lost through deterioration or unsympathetic alterations;
and

3\. Rehabilitation of the building\'s interior and mechanical and
electrical systems to comply with modern building, life safety, and
accessibility codes, and to meet current and future programmatic
demands.

This \"Ultimate Treatment & Use\" statement appears on page 199 of the
*Historic Structure Report*. The next four pages of the report provide
bulleted check lists for work to be done in future years.

**Tourism Management**

Neither Bethel nor 16th Street has \"formal management\" systems for the
management of their historic facilities as historic sites. Both churches
have developed systems of accommodating and informing visitors. Both
churches have \"Tour Ministries\" run principally by volunteers who were
active in the civil right movement of the 1950s and 1960s serving as
guides. A visit to Bethel often includes a meal at the new church
facilities. 16th Street volunteers run a gift shop and video in addition
to personally guiding groups of visitors on tours of the historic
church. February, summers and Saturdays are the busiest days. Both
churches will book and plan for tour groups. Teacher workshops at the
Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, bus tours and student groups account
for the majority of scheduled visitors.

Is this management plan or other management system being effectively
implemented?

YES: \_\_\_x\_\_\_\_\_\_ NO: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

Comment:

16th Street\'s \"Ultimate Treatment & Use\" guidelines are being
followed with the current Exterior Stabilization Campaign.\" That \$3.9
million effort is making every effort to preserve and repair the
building\'s historically significant features and materials on the
exterior of the building.

Bethel intends to do the same when they raise the money to begin their
campaign to restore the church.

**6. MONITORING**

*Because monitoring the condition of a property is not essential to a
decision as to whether a property meets the basic qualifications for
nomination to the World Heritage List, no information about the
property's monitoring program is being requested at this time. If the
property is subsequently added to the U.S. Tentative List, a set of key
indicators for assessing the property's condition, the arrangements for
monitoring it, and information on the results of past monitoring
exercises will be required to complete the l nomination of the property
for inscription on the World Heritage List,.*

**7. DOCUMENTATION**

**7.a Photographs.**

Photographs are included on an accompanying disc as 300 DPI J-pegs that
also includes an annotated list.

For **Bethel Baptist Church**, there are historic photographs *for
educational purposes* to show the impact of the bombings. Photo 4 is the
key image for which permission can be requested; 1994 HABS photographs
by Jet Lowe; and 2005 and 2007 photographs by Marjorie White. *(Note the
changes to the sanctuary since 1994. Most 1970s \"improvements\" to the
sanctuary have been removed!)*

For **16th Street Baptist Church**, one historic photograph of the
children\'s marches is included (can request permission for this
photograph if needed) as well as three black and white photographs by
the distinguished architectural photographer Richard Payne made in 2000,
two sanctuary views by Jet Lowe for HABS made in 1993 (They are still
current) and photographs by Marjorie White made in 2007.

\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

**8. CONTACT INFORMATION**

**8a. Preparer/Responsible Party for Contact:**

**Name**: Glenn Eskew, Marjorie White

**Title:** Historian, Director

**Address:** Birmingham Historical Society, One Sloss Quarters

**City, State/Territory, Zip Code**: Birmingham, AL, 35222, United
States

**Telephones**: Eskew: 706-342-3700; White: 205-251-1880, 205-879-2891

**Preferred Days/Hours for Contact**: mornings

**Fax**: 205-870-9286

**E-mail and/or website**: gteskew@gsu.edu; mslwhite@aol.com;
www.bhistorical.org

**9. Signatures of All Owners of Private Properties**

**Bethel Baptist Church**

\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

**Signature**

**Typed or Printed Name**

\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

**Title**

**Date**

\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

**Signature**

**Typed or Printed Name**

\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

**Title**

**Date**

\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

**Signature**

**Typed or Printed Name**

\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

**Title**

**Date**

Sixteenth Street Baptist Church

\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

**Signature**

**Typed or Printed Name**

\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

**Title**

**Date**

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**Signature**

**Typed or Printed Name**

\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

**Title**

**Date**

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**Signature**

**Typed or Printed Name**

\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

**Title**

**Date**