Birmingham City Information

The city projects a composed atmosphere today, but things were not always so tranquil: Birmingham came to the world's attention in 1963, when images of sit-ins, civil-rights protests and the brutal response of its police chief, "Bull" Connor, were broadcast on the evening news. Thanks in part to the sympathy provoked by those images, civic leaders were forced to negotiate with the protestors, and Birmingham became the site of one of the first big victories of the civil-rights movement.

At the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, the city remembers that turbulent period. We recommend a visit -- we think its exhibits, which depict race relations in the South from the 1920s until the present, are more compelling and informative than those of the National Civil Rights Museum, in Memphis, Tennessee. The institute is more than a museum: It serves as a resource for educators and scholars. You may also want to stroll through lovely Kelly Ingram Park (across from the institute), which was the gathering place for civil-rights demonstrators in the 1960s. The site where police turned the high-pressure water hoses and dogs on demonstrators is memorialized with several statues (which are controversial among residents, some of whom feel the statues promote fear and hatred). Also within walking distance of the institute is the 16th Street Baptist Church, where a bomb set by members of the Ku Klux Klan killed four young black girls in 1963. (Spike Lee's documentary, Four Little Girls, is an outstanding film about the event, which sparked such public outrage it galvanized the civil-rights movement.)

A more peaceful present-day Birmingham is exemplified by the Birmingham Museum of Art, which has a large Asian art collection. It also offers major traveling exhibitions and a fine collection of Renaissance art, Wedgwood china and Remington bronzes. Two other tranquil spots are the Birmingham Botanical Gardens (67 acres/27 hectares of wildflowers, rose gardens, Japanese gardens and 200 species of birds) and the Birmingham Zoo (more than 800 rare and unusual specimens, including the scarce white rhino). Arlington Antebellum Home and Gardens is Birmingham's only antebellum mansion -- the city itself was founded after the Civil War.

Birmingham was once a steel-producing city as important as Pittsburgh, and a tribute to that role was the 55-ft/17-m cast-iron statue of Vulcan atop Red Mountain. Said to be the largest cast-iron statue in the world, it's been taken down for restoration, but keep your eye out for Vulcan's return.