16th Street Baptist Church marks bombing anniversary with a new visitor center

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — Sixty-three years ago, dynamite planted by Ku Klux Klan members exploded through the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing four girls as they prepared for Sunday services.

Hundreds of people filled the church on Tuesday on the 63rd anniversary of the bombing. The church marked the anniversary with the opening of a new visitors center that leaders said is aimed at educating people about one of the most horrific events of the Civil Rights Movement and urging a recommitment to continue the struggle for justice.

Bryan Stevenson, the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative and the guest speaker for the annual memorial service, said the remembrance falls at a time when politicians are trying to take content out of museums, attacking the Voting Rights Act and turning to the politics of division.

“We’re in a critical moment in America. There is a narrative struggle. There are people who are preaching the politics of fear and anger, and they want to govern through fear and anger,” Stevenson said.

Stevenson, who helped build memorials and museums tracing the legacy of slavery in America, said a “whole network of elected officials” — not…