Discrimination, violence, and Jim Crow–style laws are woven into the history of states and cities across the nation. But nowhere did these symptoms of racism flourish as prolifically as they did in the South, especially in places like Birmingham, Alabama.

Once known as the most segregated city in the United States, Birmingham eventually became the stage for several pivotal moments in the Civil Rights Movement. Among the most notable were the spring 1963 protests with Martin Luther King Jr. at the helm. They garnered immense international attention, forcing President John F. Kennedy to speak up on this human rights issue.

From churches where freedom fighters gathered to the park where they protested, several crucial historic sites are forever protected today as part of the Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument.

The effort to legally safeguard these places started in 2014, when plans to partially demolish the A.G. Gaston Motel came to light. The National Trust for Historic Preservation took immediate action to defend this hub for Civil Rights leaders, officially partnering with the city that year and naming the property one of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places the following year.

“City officials didn’t necessarily have the intention of erasing history. They just didn’t initially understand how to realize the bigger dream, which was the recognition of Birmingham’s overlooked contribution to the American Civil Rights Movement,” says Brent Leggs, executive director of the National Trust’s African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund.

Working closely with Mayor William Bell and Rep. Terri Sewell, who along with current Mayor Randall Woodfin have provided critical leadership and support, Leggs spearheaded a strategic campaign to preserve the motel. Additional community leaders joined the effort as it broadened to include other key locations around Birmingham.

On January 12, 2017, that plan came to fruition when President Barack Obama officially designated the Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument, a National Park Service unit comprising several contributing resources and related sites. Since then, preservation work at a few of these places has made it easier for visitors and locals alike to connect with the significant history they represent.

“The national monument protects our opportunity to heal,” Leggs says. “It helps bring history to life in compelling ways, and that’s the beauty of having these physical artifacts standing in perpetuity for present and future generations to benefit from.”

Before King ever got involved with the movement in Birmingham, another Civil Rights leader confronted the city’s discrimination head-on, setting the dominos in motion for the spring of 1963. His name was Fred Shuttlesworth.

Born and raised in Alabama, the Rev. Shuttlesworth became the pastor at Bethel Baptist Church in 1953, and later founded the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. Despite his noble cause, Shuttlesworth was a controversial figure to some. While Civil Rights leaders in many Southern cities focused on integrating buses, Shuttlesworth fought segregation in all its frms, often harnessing the power of the media by alerting journalists to his protest plans.

“He was nonviolent, but he was confrontational, and some people just thought he pushed things too far,” says the Rev. Thomas L. Wilder Jr., current pastor at Bethel Baptist. “He knew that you had to confront [segregation] … You had to bring attention to it, and that was his focus.”

That attention would spur segregationists to plan multiple bombings at the church and the parsonage next door. Unharmed by these attacks, Shuttlesworth continued his efforts, including spending at least two years convincing King to organize and lead demonstrations in Birmingham.

“If it weren’t for Shuttlesworth’s persistence, maybe King wouldn’t have come and all the things that transpired wouldn’t have happened,” says Martha Bouyer, executive director of the Historic Bethel Baptist Church Community Restoration Fund. “But because he didn’t give up, it changed not only Birmingham, but it changed the United States. It impacted the world.”

In 2009–11, a $2 million rehabilitation included removing exterior bricks by hand, fixing structural issues that had resulted from the bombings, and then replacing the original bricks one by one. The sanctuary floors and pews are also original, while the pulpit furniture was added after the second bombing in 1958. Explosions also damaged the stained-glass window panes, which were replaced by pink-and-green opalescent ones that remain in place today.

An earlier bombing had destroyed the parsonage, and a new one was built in 1957, across the street from the church. In 2019, a team from the National Trust’s HOPE Crew preservation trades program, in partnership with the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund and Fund II Foundation, restored the house’s windows.

According to Wilder, the monument’s establishment and the National Trust’s work to highlight Bethel Baptist have helped the church tremendously.

“It has opened up a lot of eyes,” he says. “When we apply for grants, people don’t have to go and find out who Bethel Baptist Church is because the National Trust has been sure to put us front and center.”

Looking to the future, Bouyer and Wilder are continually applying for grants to help maintain the historic church and find new ways to tell the story of Shuttlesworth and Bethel Baptist. In fact, a recently secured grant from the Mellon Foundation will bring an augmented reality experience to the church in coming years.

“Out of this modest community grows a revolution. We have so much to be proud of,” says Bouyer.

When King joined the movement in Birmingham, he rallied Black residents of all backgrounds. The working-class residents trusted him because of Shuttlesworth’s endorsement, while the more affluent Black community from congregations such as 16th Street Baptist Church (shown at top of story) felt they could support a prestigious Ph.D. like King.

Activists looked to 16th Street Baptist Church, designed by pioneering Black architect Wallace Rayfield, as the ideal downtown gathering space for this newly united front. But church leaders were reluctant to get involved.

“There was a whole lot of resistance from the membership to bring the movement inside the church because of the fear of retaliation … Birmingham was a cruel and evil city during that time,” says Theodore Debro, former chair at 16th Street Baptist Church.

Eventually church leaders welcomed King, Shuttlesworth, and their legion of freedom fighters, who would receive their marching orders at 16th Street before going out to protest. They often went right across the street to Kelly Ingram Park, which along with the church is part of the Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument.

Images of these spring 1963 protests, known as Project C, spread across the world: firefighters blasting young demonstrators with high-pressure hoses and police officers terrorizing them with attack dogs. The Kennedy administration ultimately intervened, negotiating a deal to desegregate restrooms, lunch counters, and water fountains.

Though the protests were successful, segregationists responded with violence, and church leaders’ fears were realized on September 15, 1963, when Ku Klux Klan members detonated a bomb right before Sunday service, killing four young girls.

The tragedy is widely regarded as another key turning point in the Civil Rights Movement, and today, people can visit the site of the bombing during a tour of 16th Street Baptist Church.

The visitor experience starts downstairs and includes a video explaining the often-forgotten stories of two Black teenage boys who also were killed in racist attacks the day of the bombing. A volunteer docent guides visitors through an exhibit explaining the full history of 16th Street Baptist Church.

One of the most powerful moments happens inside a space called the “experience room,” where a documentary-style video immerses guests in that day with photos and interviews from people who were there. Debro makes an appearance in the video, detailing his experience 150 miles away at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta as he witnessed King deliver news of the bombing during a church service.

After Leggs realized that 16th Street didn’t have an endowment, which he describes as “an unfair stewardship responsibility for a historic Black church,” the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund invested $500,000 in the institution in 2023. The funding was contingent on the promise that the church would fundraise to match that amount and complete a $1 million endowment for its future preservation needs, and it is well on its way to meeting that goal.

Stanley B. Echols, a local architect, designed the motel, and Gaston opened it in 1954 with the goal of providing safe, top-notch accommodations to Black travelers.

According to architect Jack Pyburn of Lord Aeck Sargent, who oversaw the motel’s recent rehabilitation, the property’s compound-like design created a safe haven. Guests could arrive, enjoy the courtyard patio, grab coffee, and have a meal at the restaurant, all without ever leaving the motel.

“There was a sort of defensive aspect to how these were built that provided a sense of security … [but] anytime you went out beyond that gate, you were at a different level of risk,” Pyburn explains.

The A.G. Gaston Motel remained open until 1982, when the space was converted into senior housing that closed in 1996. The building sat vacant for about 20 years, until work began to secure the national monument designation. That’s when the city of Birmingham hired Pyburn and his Lord Aeck Sargent colleagues David Steele and Charles Lawrence to peel back the layers damaged by time and neglect.

A thorough historic structure report and cultural landscape report served as guides to what the motel once looked like, and in 2019 the Lord Aeck Sargent team began the meticulous process of rehabilitating the property.

The result is an A.G. Gaston Motel that looks almost exactly as it did in the 1960s. “Even the furniture that’s out there in the courtyard replicates what we see in those [1963 press conference] photographs,” says Steele.

The motel, which is co-owned by the National Park Service and the city of Birmingham, opened to visitors in June 2023. It is the heart of the Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument, which Leggs describes as proof of “the idea that we can see one another’s humanity through the power of place.”