Black History Month: Historical Places in Alabama

Being a black individual in America, I am lucky to live in such a history rich state. Alabama is thick in the history of Black Americans fighting for their rights and freedom in the south. In this state, there are landmarks and sites from south Alabama to north Alabama where important events occurred that we can still visit in remembrance.

The Ben Moore Hotel was a location in Birmingham home to many of the most important meetings since the beginning of the Civil Rights movement. It was a place of peace for white Americans and black Americans to come together to talk about the current state of the world. In addition to the hotel being a safe place, it was also home to the Malden Brothers Barber Shop where Martin Luther King Jr received one of his final haircuts.

The Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church is the very church where MLK was the pastor at. This church was the home base of the Montgomery Bus Boycott and was a safe ground for the black community in Montgomery to gather and share their ideas for the future of segregation in the south.

Located in Birmingham, 16th Street Baptist Church was known as “everybody’s church” because of its reputation as a place of communication and productive movement. An example of that movement was the nonviolent civil disobedience meetings during the Civil Rights Movement. What everybody mostly knows the church for was the September 15 bombings that killed four young girls. 

The Ballard House is a house that dates back to the 1940s, it was built by an African American contractor for Dr. Edward H. Ballard, a black pediatrician and obstetrician. Later in the house’s lifetime it was moved into by Dr. Herschell Hamilton Sr. and was where he conducted his medical practice. It was in that house where he also hosted Civil Rights meetings and tended to the wounds of marchers hurt by fire hoses and police dogs.

The Edmund Pettus Bridge was the site of one of the most brutal protests during the Civil Rights Movement known as Bloody Sunday. The Voting rights marchers were brutally attacked by Selma policemen and dogs. The attacks were televised and started an outrage throughout the nation and warranted more and more voting rights marches.