Beth El Civil Rights Experience

Resource Corner

Fight Against Fear: Southern Jews and Black Civil Rights – Clive Webb

Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama: The Climatic Struggle of the Civil Rights Revolution – Diane McWhorter

But For Birmingham: The Local and National Movements in the Civil Rights Struggle – Glen Eskew

Troubling the Waters: Black-Jewish Relations in the American Century – Cheryl Greenberg

The Price of Whiteness: Jews, Race and American Identity – Eric Goldstein

Quiet Voices: Southern Rabbis and Black Civil Rights, 1880s to 1980s – Mark Bauman and Berkely Kalin

Birmingham Foot Soldiers: Voices From the Civil Rights Movement – Nick Patterson

Behind the Magic Curtain: Secrets, Spies, and Unsung White Allies of Birmingham’s Civil Rights Days – TK Thorne

The Institute of Southern Jewish Life’s “Virtual Vacation” series

The Taylor Oral History Collection at the Bremen Museum

The Oral History Collection at the Birmingham Public Library

The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute Oral History Project

Bending the Arc 

• The Bending the Arc project explores the long struggle against racism in Alabama, featuring the stories of both African Americans and a small group of little-known white allies who fought for racial justice during the Civil Rights Movement in Birmingham in the 1960s. The project features a four-part documentary mini-series and additional films that explore race as seen through the eyes of children, the brutal effects of segregation, resistance to racial injustice, allies of the Birmingham movement, voting rights, today’s continuing challenges, and pathways to empathy and hope. The project was created and is managed by producer/director Pam Powell and producer/videographer David Brower, in partnership with the Unitarian Universalist Church of Birmingham.

The Titusville Landmarks and Heritage Project

• The Titusville Landmarks and Heritage Project aspires to preserve the rich history of the Titusville community by collecting stories, and marking historic sites. This project brings together the Titusville community as active participants in preserving the neighborhood’s rich story.

  This project is sponsored by Titusville Development Corporation, Inc.(TDC),  the Titusville Marker Committee, and is supported by the Alabama Humanities Alliance, a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of the Alabama Humanities
  Alliance or the National Endowment for the Humanities.

“No More Bull”

In 2013, UAB historian Pamela Sterne King and Temple Beth El congregant Solomon P. Kimerling teamed up to author a 17-part series entitled “No More Bull” for Weld. An 18th part by Mark Kelly (then-publisher of Weld) reflected back on the series. 2013 was the fiftieth anniversary of a number of key events within Birmingham’s long civil rights movement, and this series is an excellent commemoration of that history.

Sol Kimerling (z”l) passed away in 2022. Sol was not only co-author of this series, but a true community historian, and an important supporter of the Beth El Civil Rights Experience. He was active in the Birmingham community in so many ways. You can read more about his legacy, with his wife, Rita Kimerling (z”l) here, in this excellent tribute from University of Alabama-Birmingham.

We are thrilled to provide continuing access to “No More Bull!” Click here to read the series.

In The Press

"Temple Beth El Opens Civil Rights Experience to Build Stronger Ties" 

"Community shines light on a little-known incident in Civil Rights-era Birmingham"

“Photos from groundbreaking photographer praised by MLK displayed in Birmingham.”

“Temple Beth El is Dedicating its Brand New Civil Rights Historical Marker” (Bham Now)  

“Temple Beth El To Dedicate Historical Civil Rights Marker Sunday”  (Bham Times)