The Sixteenth Street Baptist Church is Birmingham’s most famous Civil Rights landmark.
On a September Sunday morning in 1963, four African-American schoolgirls were in the basement of the church just prior to the worship service. A bomb set by Ku Klux Klansmen ripped through that side of the church, killing 11-year-old Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley and Addie Mae Collins, all 14 years old. The bombing was a turning point in the status of race relations locally and nationally. Now a National Historic Landmark and UNESCO World Heritage Site, the church is a reminder of man’s inhumanity and his capacity for love and forgiveness. The sanctuary of the church contains a massive stained glass window of Christ, given in memoriam from the people of Wales following the bombing.
