BCRI’s Location Lends Them Strength: Resource Recommendation #5

The Birmingham race riots of 1963 left a scar on the city that sixty years could not heal. In 1990, the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute chose to embrace Birmingham’s legacy of progress amidst violence. Priscilla Hancock Cooper’s article A City Embraces Its Past, Looks to the Future illuminated me as to the changes implemented by the BCRI, despite strong backlash from the community, and alarm and resistance from Birmingham based businesses and corporations. The BCRI did nothing to alleviate the concerns of the community in choosing the site for their institute – adjacent to Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, which was the site of the 1963 Children’s Campaign composed of young demonstrators, as well as a bombing by those hostile to the movement. Cooper’s article begs the question of what extent are local historians willing to go to establish their site in an iconic place despite the hostility they must face to do so in such a contentious area. The location conjures feelings of hope and pain in equal measure, so it is understandable that many elements in the Birmingham community are hostile to the BCRI’s mission. The BCRI endures though, and the power of their exhibits is only anchored by the location they chose to display them.