We were kids in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963. That tumultuous year transformed the nation and shaped our lives. These are our stories.

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NBC Nightly News brings story of reconciliation, reporting on Kids in Birmingham 1963 retreat

“Coming Together.” What better day than Thanksgiving for a national news story on the Kids in Birmingham 1963 event.

In September, 25 of us “Kids,” the children of segregated Birmingham, came together to connect with each other and to welcome the city’s rising generations to join us. NBC national correspondent Rehema Ellis interviewed Kids for this NBC Nightly News story, broadcast on Thanksgiving Day. Read more…

Plantation Myths

Terry Barr

Age 7 in 1963

Even as a 7-year-old, Terry knew whose dialect he was mimicking. He asks now, “What is wrong with us — why do many of us want to cling to a past where an entire body of people were subjugated to another body?”

Yankee with a Southern Accent

Barbara Morland

Age 19 in 1963

Barbara credits her parents, who were not southerners, with some quiet instruction that helped her view race a bit differently from her neighbors.

Were my parents correct in shielding us from the turmoil?

Constance D. Lawrence Hurst

Age 8 in 1963

Connie was just 8 when she heard the bomb blast at Sixteenth Street Baptist Church from only a block away. She recalls growing up in a family whose attitudes about race shifted over time.

Our family attended Birmingham’s First Methodist Church in 1963. The Children’s building was under construction, and all the school age children were attending Sunday School in the Alabama Power building just a block away from the 16th Street Baptist church.

I remember hearing the bomb explode on September 15, 1963. All of our parents were a block away in the main sanctuary building and I remember them running into our Sunday School room in panic because they didn’t know where the bomb was.

My twin sister and I hoped our small efforts made a difference

Myra E. Horn

Age 14 in 1963

She may have grown up in Mountain Brook, an all-white suburb of Birmingham, but Myra Horn stood out from her peers as she reached out warmly to the first black student to enter her homeroom at Shades Valley High School. They remain fast friends today.

My family moved to Birmingham 4/15/62 because our father was sent there by the Baptist Sunday School Board (now Lifeway Christian) in Nashville, TN to build a new Baptist Book Store, which he did. My identical twin sis, Leah, and I were 12 years old in April (turned 13 that May) and were enrolled in Mountain Brook Junior High. Our parents had always bought the best house they could afford just within the best school district, and Mountain Brook was it when we moved there. Two horrific dates from 1963 that will forever be etched in our memories were the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church and the assassination of President Kennedy. Leah and I turned 14 years old in May, 1963.

We were at church at the all-white First Baptist Church close to the black church and our building shook and glass broke out of some windows when the blast went off. Read more…

On that day, my childhood came to an end

Charles Cecil Guyton

Age 9 in 1963

The day the church was bombed, Cecil lost two friends—one of them the daughter of his third grade teacher, who did not return to school that year.

I was born in Birmingham in 1954. My family lived in the Titusville neighborhood and I attended Center Street Elementary. My family were members of Sixth Avenue Baptist Church. My family was also very involved in the Civil Rights Movement. My uncle, Bernard H. Williams, had attended Morehouse College with Dr. King and they were Frat Brothers. My mother and grandmother were very close friends of Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, a Birmingham pastor who had taken many brave actions to push for changes in the Jim Crow laws. Many of the people in this group were and still are very close friends.

I remember 1963 vividly, mainly because of how violent it was, but also because of the bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church. Denise McNair, one of the girls who was killed, was one of my playmates, and we attended the same school at the time. Read more…

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