Events that shaped Birmingham in a year that altered the city forever.

Sixty years ago, Birmingham became ground zero in the struggle for human rights. Many events in Birmingham and Alabama made 1963 a transformative year that would change the city, and the world, forever. Throughout 2023 in “Bending Toward Justice,” Alabama News Center is featuring stories about the events of 1963 and their impact, including a month-by-month timeline listing many of the year’s milestones.

NOVEMBER 1963

Friday, November 22

President John F. Kennedy is slain by an assassin’s bullet in Dallas; Vice President Lyndon Johnson is sworn in as president.

Monday, November 25

Kennedy’s funeral takes place in Washington, D.C., followed by burial at Arlington National Cemetery. Alabama Gov. George Wallace attended the ceremony and said upon his arrival in Washington: “I am sure that I speak for all the people of Alabama when I say that we are deeply grieved and saddened by this taking of the life of the president of the United States. This has been truly an attack on the American system and on the American people, and it’s truly a sad day, and we in Alabama are grieving about the loss of the president of the United States.”

1963 postage stamp commemorating John F. Kennedy the year he died. (Getty Images)

In Birmingham, public offices and schools are closed and churches and temples hold memorial services in honor of Kennedy. “The audacious act which took the life of President John F. Kennedy was a shock to the whole world,” said the Rev. John H. Cross, pastor of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. “We have lost a leader and a champion for the cause of human freedom.”

Wednesday, November 27

President Lyndon Johnson addresses a joint session of Congress and asks for the “earliest possible passage” of the civil rights bill as a tribute to Kennedy.

President Kennedy’s tomb at Arlington National Cemetery. (Getty Images)

Sources: “1963, How the Birmingham Civil Rights Movement Changed America and the World,” by Barnett Wright; Pennsylvania State University, “The Rhetoric of the Civil Rights Movement” Birmingham Timeline; BHAMWIKI 1963; “Parting the Waters, America in the King Years 1954-63,” by Taylor Branch; Alabama Department of Archives & History.