16th Street Baptist Church

I chose to create a video on the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. My favorite part about the video is the song that accompanies the images. What most people might not know is that the song was composed by John Coltrane in 1963 specifically in response to the bombings; it was meant commemorate the lives lost in the tragedy in Birmingham, Alabama – hence the name of the song. This shows that the misfortune that occurred in Birmingham that day in September of 1963 was not an isolated issue. People across the country and the world heard about the bombing; multiple songs have been written about the incident, and serve as an eternal memorial for those who died. The images of the bombing were taken from the archives of the Birmingham Public Library, and depict the aftermath of the incident. The poems that accompany the song and images were written by me in order to try and explain the history of the landmark in a more creative way. The poems also serve as an image in their own sense – the imagery, diction, and rhyme schemes that I chose to use within the poems are meant to show how the Civil Rights movement was an extremely emotionally-driven time period in our country’s history.

Description of the Location:

            The description of this Nationally Historic Landmark and its significance to African American communities is embedded in the video via the poems. Professor Strmic-Pawl and I agreed that I would not need to write a full 200-word description of the location and the incidents surround it as it would be redundant. Watch the video for a more entertaining description!