September 15, 1963:
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
Impact:
- 4 fatalities
- >20 injured
Related Resources:
- HSDL In Focus: Domestic Terrorism
- 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 search results for: Baptist Bombing 1963
Photo: (Credit: FBI) The crater and other damage caused by the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church.