Birmingham Sunday Book

Set in one of the most difficult times in United States History during the Civil Rights Movement, Birmingham Sunday describes the events leading up the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. The book starts out by introducing the 5 youth that were killed in the bombing and leading up to the moment the bomb went off. Author, Larry Dane Brimmer, describes this as "windows shattering and thirty inch stone and brick walls thundering" when the explosion occurred just outside of where these young adults were preparing for youth day at church. The book then turns back to 1954 beginning with the Brown vs. Board of Education case. Readers are walked through the next 9 years in Birmingham. We learn of the sit-ins and protests organized by the NAACP as well as being introduced to the major leaders of the movement in the city. During this time many officials simply ignored the violence toward African Americans, much of which was done by the Ku Klux Klan or white supremacists. Brimmer goes into great detail of some important events such as the burning of Freedom Rider buses entering Birmingham and the attacks of police dogs on innocent African Americans.
Brimmer does an excellent job of writing this book; however, what sells this book is the graphics included. There is an abundance of pictures throughout the book that allows readers to feel that they are actually in the moment and able to see the actual event happening. Not having studied the Civil Rights Movement in depth, I was shocked to hear of the extreme violence towards the leaders of protests, but when I looked at the actual pictures of it provided a whole new rush of emotions. To see young children dressed in the KKK attire or to see a large group of high school students sitting in a church after being arrested and the jails were already full of other students really grabs the readers attention.
This book would be excellent to use as a paired read with a larger novel or in a unit study on Civil Rights. While this is a difficult concept to cover with young adults, Brimmer does a great job of explaining the events on a level that students would understand. I highly recommend this book to those studying the civil rights movement.