Kelly Ingram Civil Rights Memorial Park - Birmingham, Alabama
N 33° 30.991 W 086° 48.849
16S E 517259 N 3708565
Kelly Ingram Park served as a central staging ground for civil rights demonstrations in Birmingham in the 1960s. It is located adjacent to the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and the 16th Street Baptist Church, site of a 1963 church bombing.
Waymark Code: WM1YZA
Location: Alabama, United States
Date Posted: 08/06/2007
Views: 177
Also known as West Park, this was a central focus of civil rights demonstrations in racially-torn Birmingham in the 1960s. Reverends Martin Luther King, Jr. and Fred Shuttlesworth of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference directed the organized boycotts and protests of 1963 which centered on Kelly Ingram Park.
It was here, during the first week of May 1963 that Birmingham police and firemen, under orders from Public Safety Commissioner Eugene "Bull" Connor, confronted demonstrators, many of them children, first with mass arrests and then with police dogs and firehoses.
The park is the setting for several pieces of sculpture related to the Civil Rights Movement. Besides a central fountain and commemorative statues of Dr. King, Rev. Shuttlesworth and other heroes of the movement, there are severalpowerfully charged installations by artist James Drake which flank a circular "Freedom Walk" and bring the visitor inside the portrayals of terror and sorrow of the 1963 confrontations.
Civil Right Type: Not listed
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Visit Instructions:
You must have visited the site in person, not online.