Sixty-three years to the day after Ku Klux Klan members bombed Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church, killing four young girls, the historic church opened a new center designed to carry their story and legacy to a new generation.
The 16th Street Baptist Church Education & Visitor Center opened on Sept. 15, 2026, during the church’s annual memorial service for Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, and Cynthia Wesley, who were killed in the Sept. 15, 1963, bombing. The service also remembered Johnny Robinson and Virgil Ware, two Black boys killed in Birmingham later that same day…