A dynamite bomb exploded in the back stairwell of the downtown Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. The church was well-known as a key civil rights meeting place, so the incident was easily classified as an act of racial hatred. With a lack of evidence, the case remained unsolved until the mid 1990s when Director Hoover overruled his staff and made wiretaps and transcripts available to the Justice Department.— FBI
Date of event: September 15, 1963
Impact:
- 4 fatalities
- >20 injured
Related Resources:
- Ku Klux Klan: A History of Racism and Violence [Sixth Edition]
- Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans: Using Covert Action to Disrupt and Discredit Domestic Groups
HSDL Featured Topic: Domestic Terrorism
HSDL Search: Baptist Bombing 1963
Photo: (Credit: FBI) The crater and other damage caused by the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church.