Birmingham Dedicates Civil Rights Institute

The city where so many blacks suffered during the 1960s fight for equality took a step toward healing racial wounds on Sunday with the dedication of the Civil Rights Institute.

“The institute will make people look at Birmingham in a new light, and it will surely lure people from around the world to see how our city has confronted and accepted its past,” said Mayor Richardson Arrington, the city’s first black mayor.

The $8-million facility housed under green gabled roofs behind brick walls takes visitors on a historic journey along slightly inclined paths, designed to represent the uphill climb for equal rights.

There are examples of segregated water fountains and a “white only” lunch counter, video highlights of voting rights marches and a depiction of Birmingham marchers met by police dogs and fire hoses.

The institute houses an archives and facilities for research, community events and civil rights programs.

Dignitaries at the dedication included former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young, Alabama Supreme Court Justice Oscar Adams and Southern Christian Leadership Conference President Joseph Lowery.

Speaking at the historic Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, Young said the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who was jailed in Birmingham for leading civil rights protests, would be proud to see the changes in the city.

“At a time when the preachers were writing against him telling him to get out of town, he saw this could be great city if people ever worked together,” Young said.

In a symbolic tribute to 1960s civil rights marches, thousand of people marched from newly renovated Kelly Ingram Park, scene of many civil rights demonstrations, to the institute.