“The bombing definitely had a lifelong impact on me”

I was born September 20, 1950, in Birmingham, Alabama. Birmingham was probably one of the most segregated cities in the country (there were no black police officers, firefighters, store clerks, bus drivers, bank tellers, store cashiers, etc.), but growing up, segregation didn’t mean a lot, because I lived in an all-black neighborhood, went to an all-black school and attended an all-black church. That was all I knew. I imagine our families did a good job shielding us from discrimination because we rarely came in contact with white people. I do recall when going downtown to the movies, we would have to go around to the back and go up some stairs that took us to the balcony, which was the only place we could sit.

The early 1960s was a very tumultuous time in Birmingham and across the country. The March on Washington had ended with Dr. King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech. In the spring of 1963, before Easter, protests which had begun in 1962 to desegregate public facilities intensified with a call to boycott downtown stores. Fred Shuttlesworth and some other local leaders called on Dr. Martin Luther King to assist. During the campaign, Dr. King was arrested. This led to his famous “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” speech. This also led to the “Children’s Crusade,” in which students were asked to get involved in the demonstrations, because many adults feared participating due to possible loss of jobs if arrested. I do recall some of the kids getting involved, including one of my classmates and friend Freeman Hrabowski. But I was not allowed to because my father, as a Birmingham Public School teacher, had been threatened not only of losing his job if he participated, but if it became known that children of teachers participated they still may lose their jobs. (more…)

An Early Lesson in Segregation

In April 1947, I was born in Birmingham, Alabama. My parents learned at my six-weeks checkup that I had a heart murmur – atrial septal defect, a hole in the upper chambers of the heart that failed to close when I was born. Fortunately, the University Hospital, now known as UAB Hospital, had excellent pediatric cardiologists.

Because of frequent doctor’s visits, I became familiar with the hospital. The entry, the lobby, the elevators are still clear in my mind. At one visit, when I was about seven or eight years of age, I remember when the elevator went down instead of up. I had never been down before! “An adventure,” I thought. I was a curious child. (more…)

We were saved for a purpose: To tell our story

In March 2025, Floyd Armstrong gave Kids in Birmingham 1963 an oral history interview about growing up in Birmingham, Alabama in “a civil rights family.” As the sons of a barber who was “committed to the struggle,” Floyd and his brother Dwight, as elementary school-age children, marched in the Birmingham Children’s Crusade and were jailed for several days in May 1963. That September, the Armstrong brothers were the first Blacks to integrate an all-white school in the city of Birmingham—Graymont Elementary School. They knew the civil rights leaders personally, including Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth and the NAACP lawyers who prepared them for the challenges they faced at that school. Just a few days after their historic action, on September 15, 1963, Klan members bombed the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, killing four young girls and sparking whites to murder two young African American boys. Floyd is certain, he says, that the violence was meant for his family, but that, “We were saved for a purpose: To tell our story.” (more…)

I can still see that moment, 63 years later

One day of 1963 that stands out for me is the moment I heard that 4 girls were blown up in the 16th Street Baptist Church. I knew one of them. We attended the Friendship and Action events together – in a group formed to bring together Black and white families in spite of Jim Crow segregation.

I can still see that moment, 63 years later. I was standing in front of our dining room table, staring out the window into our backyard. This was the table I slept under with a pillow on top of me so that if any of the bomb threats my family was receiving actually materialized, I wouldn’t be impaled by the glass from that window.

I live with survivor’s guilt. (more…)

They bombed our home, but we persisted

August 20, 1963, my mother and I went to the movie theater as we always did before I returned to college. Halfway through the film, a neighbor came to tell us that our house had been bombed. My heart was racing. I was filled with anxiety, fear, and anger. As we approached our house, outraged Blacks filled Center Street North. Police tried to control the crowd by firing guns is in the air. Windows had been blown out, drapes shredded, the garage doors destroyed. My dog Tasso had been killed in the bombing. I couldn’t stop crying. I grieved Tasso’s death for a long time. (more…)