Bethel Baptist Church is a

Baptist Baptists are a Christian denomination, denomination within Protestant Christianity distinguished by baptizing only professing Christian believers (believer's baptism) and doing so by complete Immersion baptism, immersion. Baptist churches ge ...

church in the Collegeville neighborhood of

Birmingham, Alabama Birmingham ( ) is a city in the north central region of Alabama, United States. It is the county seat of Jefferson County, Alabama, Jefferson County. The population was 200,733 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List ...

, United States. The church served as headquarters from 1956 to 1961 for the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR), which was led by Fred Shuttlesworth and active in the Birmingham during the Civil Rights Movement. The ACMHR focused on legal and nonviolent direct action against segregated accommodations, transportation, schools and employment

discrimination Discrimination is the process of making unfair or prejudicial distinctions between people based on the groups, classes, or other categories to which they belong or are perceived to belong, such as race, gender, age, class, religion, or sex ...

. It played a crucial role in the 1961 Freedom Rides that resulted in federal enforcement of U.S. Supreme Court and

Interstate Commerce Commission The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) was a regulatory agency in the United States created by the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. The agency's original purpose was to regulate railroads (and later Trucking industry in the United States, truc ...

rulings to desegregate public transportation.

History

The church's historic building is located near a newer, modern church. The historic church is located at the southwest corner of 29th Avenue North and 33rd Street North, and its parsonage and guard house located across 29th Avenue North. The church was built in 1926, and is an architecturally eclectic mix of Gothic and Renaissance styles. The guard house and parsonage are vernacular ranch-style houses; the parsonage was built in 1957 as a replacement for the previous parsonage, which had stood next to the church and was destroyed by a bomb in 1956. Fred Shuttlesworth served as pastor from 1953 to 1961. The church buildings were bombed on three separate occasions, first on December 25, 1956, again on June 29, 1958, and lastly on December 14, 1962. The church's complex during the historic events of the 1950s and 1960s, located nearby on 29th Avenue North, was added to the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage on November 13, 1996. It was then added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

and declared a

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a National Register of Historic Places property types, building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the Federal government of the United States, United States government f ...

on April 5, 2005. On January 30, 2008, the US Government submitted it to UNESCO as part of an envisaged future World Heritage nomination (along with the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church and the 16th Street Baptist Church) and as such it is on the UNESCO 'Tentative List of

World Heritage Site World Heritage Sites are landmarks and areas with legal protection under an treaty, international treaty administered by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, or scientific significance. The sites are judged to contain "cultural and natural ...

s'. In 1997, the church opened a new building near the historic site.Nathan Turner Jr.
Black History: Bethel Baptist Church in Birmingham played key role in Civil Rights Movement
birminghamtimes.com, USA, February 2, 2017 In 2017, the church was included in the newly created Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument.

References

External links

*
Bethel Baptist Church Collegeville
website * {{National Register of Historic Places in Alabama National Historic Landmarks in Alabama National Register of Historic Places in Birmingham, Alabama Churches on the National Register of Historic Places in Alabama African-American history in Birmingham, Alabama Properties on the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage Baptist churches in Birmingham, Alabama Historic American Buildings Survey in Alabama Birmingham campaign

History

See also

References

External links