Category Archives: civil rights

Annual Gathering, Annual meeting, Architecture, Birmingham Civil Rights, Birmingham Historical Society, Birmingham Landmarks, Birmingham pioneers, civil rights, Historic Preservation, Parks & Recreation, Planning, Engineering, and Permits, Rickwood Field

Rickwood Field – Did You Know?

Birmingham Historical Society co-sponsored the 1993 documentation known as HABS AL-897 to establish Rickwood Field as America’s oldest ballpark.

The project’s 28 photos, 22 drawings, and a 58-page historical report, at the Library of Congress, are now available worldwide.

To commemorate their involvement, the Birmingham Historical Society created a poster (illustrated below) documenting the Society’s role in helping launch the Rickwood Revival of the 1990s.

The Society brought Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), a federal program that documents historic architecture in the United States, to Birmingham to conduct the field work necessary to establish the national significance of the ball park, not only architecturally but also as the home of the Black Barons launching baseball stars including Mules Suttles, Satchel Paige, and Willie Mays.

Up until then, the newly formed Friends of Rickwood assumed that they were the oldest park without documentation, despite other contenders, because Comiskey Park in Chicago had just been demolished.

The Friends took the HABS drawings and made them into promotional renderings to kick off their long-term campaign to preserve and enliven the park. It’s a remarkable success story…about which we will hear more at the Annual Meeting February 24th at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens. It’s FREE and open to the public. Please join us!

What is HABS?

Purpose: 

  • To create a public archive of American architecture
  • To establish standard practices for surveying and listing historic sites
  • To help restore and rehabilitate historic properties
  • To inform new designs based on historical precedents

History: 

  • Established in 1933 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt
  • Originally a make-work program for unemployed architects, draftsmen, and photographers
  • Became a permanent program of the National Park Service in 1934
  • Formally authorized by Congress in 1935
  • Documentation: Measured drawings, Large-format black and white photographs, Written histories, and Supplemental materials. 

Significance:

  • HABS documentation is part of the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress.
  • HABS is the nation’s oldest federal preservation program
  • HABS documentation is often a key part of preservation efforts  
Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame, Arthur Shores, Birmingham Civil Rights, Birmingham Historical Society, Birmingham Landmarks, Birmingham pioneers, Carver Theater, civil rights, Dynamite Hill, family history, Politics

Premier APT Screening at Carver Theater

You’re invited to join BHS Trustee, Barbara Shores, on February 8th at 7:00PM as Alabama Public Television shares the story of her father, Arthur Shores, who served an instrumental part in Birmingham’s civil rights history.

From left: Autherine Lucy, Thurgood Marshall, and Arthur Shores exit the federal courthouse in Birmingham, Alabama, in February 1956, following Lucy’s reinstatement as the first black person to be admitted to the University of Alabama.
Photo courtesy of The Birmingham News

The premier screening will be one of the first events at the newly renovated historic Carver Theater, which also houses the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame. For a full list of events, please click HERE.

Tickets for the movie screening are FREE but for guaranteed entry, please register HERE and pick up tickets at the theater’s box office Wednesday to Friday from 11AM to 2PM

Architecture, Bethel Baptist Church, Birmingham Civil Rights, Birmingham Historical Society, Birmingham Landmarks, civil rights, Fred Shuttlesworth, Historic Preservation, Research

Alabama may soon have a UNESCO World Heritage Site

Over fifteen years ago, back in 2007, the Birmingham Historical Society filed a nomination for Birmingham’s Bethel Baptist and 16th Street Baptist, along with Dexter Avenue Baptist in Montgomery to be included among the UNESCO “World Heritage Civil Rights Movement Sites”. At the time, the World Heritage Society was researching sites throughout the world of non-violent movements in the twentieth century that confronted and dismantled racial segregation. The sites in Alabama were considered along with campaigns & sites fighting colonialism in India, across Africa, and elsewhere in the world alongside the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa. On Thursday, August 10th, 2023, the World Heritage Society team will be visiting Bethel Baptist to make a final determination on the Alabama sites.

CRITERION (iv) Significance in Human History:
“To be an outstanding example of a type of building, architectural or technological ensemble or landscape which illustrates (a) significant stage (s) in human history.”

CRITERION (vi) Heritage Associated with Events of Universal Significance:
“To be directly or tangibly associated with events or living traditions, with ideas, or with beliefs, with artistic and literary works of outstanding universal significance. (The Committee considers that this criterion should preferably be used in conjunction with other criteria).”

GSU World Heritage Initiative

Glenn Eskew, who has ties to Birmingham, is the historian who headed up the George State initiative to review all possible sites in the United States. Over 300 sites were considered and over half were visited. The Civil Rights Movement nomination in addition to those in Alabama includes 10 additional sites across the country. The complete nomination can be read HERE

Ultimately, the 13 sites were considered for final selection because “the location and setting for each of the component sites remains relatively intact, thereby enabling each to retain its cultural value. All of the components of the potential Serial Nomination of U.S. Civil Rights Movement Sites express a spirituality and feeling of being as in a sacred space. All have evolved into shrines where the public goes to comprehend how nonviolent protests removed racial barriers to achieve tangible racial integration and intangible associated values of freedom and racial equality.”

The significance and benefits of being on UNESCO’s World Heritage List

(For a copy of ‘The Walk to Freedom’ published by the Birmingham Historical Society and illustrated in the header above, please click HERE)

Birmingham Civil Rights, Birmingham Historical Society, City of Birmingham, civil rights, Coal Mines, family history

Did You Know These Men from the Virden Coal Mine Massacre?

In 1898, the town of Virden, Illinois advertised for 175 black coal miners to leave Birmingham on September 22nd, in order to work the mines in Illinois. However, the intent was that they be involved in the labor union strike which became a deadly battle known as the Massacre of Virden on October 12th, 1898. This October will be the 125th anniversary of the Battle of Virden in which they were involved, and the Union Miners Cemetery and Mother Jones Museum is seeking any information on these men to enrich the education of those attending their anniversary celebration. Did you know them?

Today, (125 years) after the bloody Battle of Virden, there is an even more pressing need to explain how this intense battle came about, who the union fighters were, what they achieved, and failed to achieved, and why the lessons of Virden are still relevant to working people today.

Mother Jones was a fearless fighter for workers’ rights and wanted to be known as the ‘mother of all agitators’. She is buried in the Union Miners Cemetery and is the namesake for the museum where the anniversary event will be held.

“In 1897, the United Mine Workers launched a strike for a living wage in the coal fields. Jones was a strategic part of the union since that time. For her, it was more than about union contract. She argued that ordinary miners should direct their economic destiny and that the public  should own the coal and natural resources, not corporations. She believed in organizing at the community level to demonstrate workers capacity for managing their destiny. She believed that the so-called unskilled worker, immigrants and African-Americans should be the base of the new movement. She put women and children at the center of struggles in the coal fields, making a family-based movement.

One of the Jones’ key contributions was building workers’ commitment to unionism that bridged racial and ethnic divisions.”

Excerpted from Mother Jones Museum
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From the Pantheon in Rome to Lawson State Community College

The anti-slavery story of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe, is one of the most influential books in American History. First published in 1852, prior to the Civil War, it pointed out the appalling realities of American slavery and subsequently, it was once banned in Alabama. So when a very rare 1880 edition was discovered in Rome, Italy, by Italian lawyer Arlene Rochlin, a descendant of the Blach family department stores in Birmingham, she knew it needed to be housed in an historically Black college in her grandparent’s hometown. (Read the entire article by Kyra Miles on WBHM.org)

Lawson State Community College now has the book proudly on display in their library and it is a part of their permanent collection.

Some modern scholars have called the book condescending but in the 19th century, it was recognized as a best selling novel, second in sales only to The Bible. However, by the 20th century, unauthorized stage plays & films were too often demeaning and insensitive with a political or financial agenda and were loathed by the African American community. The character of Uncle Tom was distorted and offensive. Unfortunately, Stowe had no control over these alterations of her story and the resulting stereotypes. Despite this, today, the original novel is still considered a landmark of ‘protest literature’ and Christian forbearance.

The story of its publication is interesting as well as it’s been in continuous print since 1852, although with ever-changing publishers and controversy. Read more about it HERE and then re-read the novel!

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History of the Cake Walk

While most of us know a cake walk to be a joyful celebration where the best bakers have an opportunity to show off their skills, it wasn’t always that way! In fact, the cake walk had its origins in Afro-American history:

The cakewalk was a pre-Civil War dance originally performed by slaves on plantation grounds. The uniquely American dance was first known as the “prize walk”; the prize was an elaborately decorated cake. Hence, “prize walk” is the original source for the phrases “takes the cake” and “cakewalk.”

From NPR: The Extraordinary Story of Why a Cakewalk Wasn’t Always Easy

The dance soon became a ragtime favorite, with many musical versions available including the sheet music below. So when you circle that cake table at Birmingham Historical Society’s annual meeting on February 27th, consider its origins!

Webster’s Dictionary defines it as “a black American entertainment having a cake as prize for the most accomplished steps and figures in walking; a stage dance developed from walking steps and figures typically involving a high prance with backward tilt; an easy task.” 

The Cakewalk seems to have begun in the days of slavery, when black folks strutted along in a fanciful manner in imitation of formal white dancing. Supposedly the name comes from the custom of the master awarding a cake to the couple who put on the best performance. The dance came back around in the twentieth century when white folks started to imitate the black version.

From Mary Miley’s Roaring Twenties, “Just What is a Cake Walk”?

Join us for the BHS cakewalk on February 27th. And bring your favorite childhood cake. More information on when and where HERE.

Arthur Shores, Birmingham Civil Rights, Birmingham Historical Society, Birmingham Landmarks, BOOK, Book Sale, Book Signing, Churches, civil rights, Dynamite Hill, family history, Fred Shuttlesworth, Research, Smithfield

“Dynamite Hill” unveiled Sunday, December 11th at Tabernacle Baptist Church

The Birmingham Historical Society’s newest book has 13 first-hand accounts of what it was like to grow up on Dynamite Hill, the neighborhood that was repeatedly bombed in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Barbara Shores, the daughter of civil rights activist and attorney Arthur Shores, along with Marjorie White, director of BHS, bring those stories to life with childhood memories, photos, and historical background.

Ryan Michaels with The Birmingham Times, interviews Shores and White prior to the event on Sunday in this article. Shores notes that many young people who have grown up in Birmingham are unaware of the significance of Dynamite Hill in breaking the racial barriers that existed in housing and schools. It’s a story that needs to be told and retold! Please mark your calendars for Sunday’s event:

Birmingham’s Dynamite Hill” will be unveiled on Sunday, Dec. 11 at Tabernacle Baptist Church, 600 Center St. North in Birmingham’s Graymont neighborhood, from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.

Please note that this and other BHS publications will also be available locally at SHOPPE in Forest Park, via USPS and online HERE

Arthur Shores, Birmingham Civil Rights, Birmingham Historical Society, Birmingham Landmarks, BOOK, Book Sale, Book Signing, civil rights, Dynamite Hill, family history, Fred Shuttlesworth, Historic Preservation, Smithfield

Autograph Party for Birmingham’s Dynamite Hill – December 11, 2-4PM

You’re invited to attend an autograph party of our newest publication, Birmingham’s Dynamite Hill, with speakers who grew up on the hill in the 1950s and 1960s. The event will be at the Tabernacle Baptist Church at 600 Center Street in the Center Street Historic District of Smithfield on December 11th, 2022, 2-4 PM. Please plan to attend!

Arthur Shores, Birmingham Civil Rights, Birmingham Historical Society, Birmingham Landmarks, Book Sale, Book Signing, civil rights, Dynamite Hill, family history, Fred Shuttlesworth, Historic Preservation, Smithfield

New Book Release! Birmingham’s Dynamite Hill

Gallery

This is the compelling story of the fight over residential segregation laws as told by the people who lived it. The multiple bombings in the ‘40’s, 50s, and 60’s of the close-knit Birmingham neighborhood, now known as Dynamite Hill, were intended to intimidate residents and discourage their families from building in designated ‘whites only’ zoned areas and attending white schools. But due to the persistence and courage primarily of resident and attorney Arthur Shores, archaic ordinances and laws were changed. In 2011, the Center Street district was added to the National Register of Historic Places, commemorating the fight for fair housing and schools.

Weaving first-hand accounts into the historical narrative, this new book personalizes the struggles and courage of the families whose homes and neighborhood were terrorized. It also tells of the accomplishments of the children of that era, their close ties, their memories, and their hope for the future. Multiple photos of historic events and homes along with personal interviews, makes this history come alive, representing as Arthur Shores’ daughter, Barbara Shores, says, ‘the best and the worst of humanity’. To purchase a copy of the book, please click HERE

Book signing at BHS Open House by Barbara Shores (daughter of Civil Rights attorney, Arthur Shores) and Jeff Drew (with whom Martin Luther King stayed when he was in Birmingham)

Although the neighborhood has seen brighter days, its location, character, and history make it unique. It’s important to know our history and to preserve and renew Dynamite Hill so that future generations may learn of this landmark neighborhood that illustrates the best and the worst of humanity.

~Barbara Shores