[ambient music] [soft music] ♪ ♪ JEFFERSON DREW: My mom and dad were almost used to it.

I mean, it was second nature.

He didn't have to think about what he was going to say when the Klan would call him and say, I'm going to bomb your house tonight.

Come right now, coward.

Why are you gonna wait?

That philosophy that mom and dad had, and most of us up here, you know, it was-- that was the kind of strength that the whole community had.

We were actually willing to give our lives for the cause of freedom.

And if it took one of us or more of us, so be it.

INTERVIEWER: How early in your life did you understand that?

JEFFERSON DREW: About 10 years old.

I guess we can go ahead and roll.

You want to roll?

INTERVIEWER: Rolling.

- All right.

The community here on Dynamite Hill was great, even in segregation.

Our parents were professional folks, and they wanted the very best for their children in spite of segregation.

The parents wanted to give their children as much of a normal life in America as possible.

- Just a happy kid.

Very active in Girl Scouts.

Had to take ballet, dance, tap, piano, which I hated piano.

I loved animals.

I don't know how they put up with me bringing home every stray dog.

Squirrels I would try to doctor on.

We were just a very close-knit family and a close-knit neighborhood.

I had an aunt who lived right up the street, and everybody just looked out for each other-- parties here, little picnics in the backyard.

So we were surrounded with good friends, and good love, and a lot of good friendships.

- My dad had two boys.

Mr. Shores had two girls.

We were raised as brothers and sisters together.

Barbara's still my little sister to this day.

We didn't have any money.

We had a lot of love.

I mean, lots of love, lots of community.

And this community is remarkable that we're sitting here.

♪ ♪ I mean, we couldn't go to movie theaters.

We couldn't go sit down and have a dinner-- have dinner in a restaurant in Birmingham.

It's against the law.

It wasn't just we couldn't do it.

It was against the law.

We couldn't play checkers.

We couldn't play games with white children.

Yet white children lived one block up the street.

- Blacks could not buy property on the west side of Center Street.

Blacks could own property on the east side of Center Street.

Thanks to Arthur Shores and Thurgood Marshall in suing for equal housing, Blacks were able to purchase property.

Well, there still was considerable resistance even after they had gotten the law changed.

Whites and hate groups would set the doors on fire.

They would intimidate anyone that had made a deposit-- any Black person that had made a deposit to purchase a house on the west side of Center Street.

- I think my mother recognized it more than anybody.

She was very fearful.

In fact, she did not want to move in this area at all because she knew the bombings that had taken place.

My father wanted to move on the west side of Center Street, and she said, we're not moving up on Dynamite Hill at all.

So they compromised.

And so he moved on the corner right across the street from the west side.

But she did not want to remain here at all.

Early on, I knew that we were a little bit-- seen a little bit different.

When we moved to the house, my father had told us what to do in case someone would shoot into the house-- hit the floor and crawl to safety.

And we knew then that people did not like us.

White people did not like us for what my father was really involved in.

♪ ♪ REPORTER: Tensions have been aroused again by the bombing of a negro lawyer's home.

The dynamite charge caused damage to the home of attorney Arthur Shores, a longtime participant in civil rights struggles.

[dog barking] [sirens] - At the first bombing, when my mother and I finally made it up here, I went running in the back yard to check on my dogs and everything.

And when I got in the backyard, a neighbor was covering one of my dogs up that had been blown up.

A leg was over here.

His head had been blown off.

And so I came running in crying, and I told my father that I hated the people who did that.

And he set me down and said, you can't hate.

That will destroy you, and it does nothing to the person.

And at that time he just sort of sat down, and he said a prayer and said, things are gonna be different.

Things are gonna get better.

We didn't know when it would happen again.

♪ ♪ - I ran to the door, opened it, and ran down the steps immediately without hesitation.

Because it is something that we had come to expect to happen in this area.

I looked, and there was a police officer sitting on the passenger side of his automobile, a police cruiser, with his feet on the ground, with his riot helmet and gear on, with his sawed-off shotgun across his lap.

And he said, stop and go back in the house.

And I said, I'm not.

He said, if you don't stop, I'll shoot.

And I told him, well, you'll have to shoot me in the back.

And I kept going.

BARBARA SHORES: And they never did say who exactly bombed the house here, but they said probably the people who bombed 16th Street were the ones who were also responsible for bombing our house.

And I remember reading an article where Bob Chambliss, who was one who was arrested for the bombing, well, they had interviewed him after the bombing of our house.

They asked him, what did he think about the bombing?

He said, well, my only regret is that it didn't kill that nigger.

You know, the first bomb was planted right up under the spotlight here.

And then the one that was going to take out the block was found at the end by that-- between those two trees right there.

And that's where they found all the dynamite here, and at the Catholic Church.

And that would have taken out the entire block.

This is the spot where Mr. Lay was covering Tasso's body up.

Part of the body was here.

A leg was over there.

But that fence was all blown down, and this wall on the side was just about gone.

But it was right here.

I have never shown anybody the spot where I found Tasso.

You all are the first ones that I've done that.

And I didn't cry.

Did not cry this time.

It's getting better each time.

It's getting a little bit better.

[soft music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - Because I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama.

Some very, very good friends of mine were killed by bombs-- bombs that were planted by racists.

I remember-- from the time I was very small, I remember the sounds of bombs exploding across the street, our house shaking.

- The bombers would come up here, up the hill in a decommissioned police car.

Many times the police were Klansmen as well, and they would lay their robes on the back shelf of the car just for intimidation purposes.

It was commonplace to live in terror.

I can't-- I don't know how I can better explain that.

Gunpowder and concrete dust has a distinctive odor.

When I talk about it with my friends from Vietnam, they say, this sounds like war.

That's the way war smelled.

It's hard for us as nonmilitary citizens to imagine being in a war zone, but, in fact, that's exactly the way it felt.

HOUSTON BROWN: 10 blocks away, the odor of dynamite was as strong as it was one block away.

You could smell it.

It never left my body.

I still feel, from time to time, the impact of the sensory reactions and responses my body had to the smell of dynamite.

JEFFERSON DREW: Black people expected to be harmed in some way or another.

We lived in an environment of terrorism.

- Here I come, here I come.

Here I come.

Ooh, look at this stuff.

Boy, oh boy, oh, boy.

[chuckles] Ma and Pa. Well, aside from feeling old, [laughs] I feel a-- a sense of great pride, man.

It's wonderful to see how well my parents lived 40 years ago, 50 years ago.

So it's-- it gives me a great feeling of pride.

It really does.

Look at them old cars.

Gee whiz.

Good old Ma.

Well, when I first met Martin, we were playing Cub Scout football here in the backyard.

I was about seven years of age.

But when the game was over, my mother introduced us to Ralph Abernathy, and to Fred Shuttlesworth, and to Andy Young, and of course, to Martin.

Martin asked me to call him Uncle Mike.

This was a place of privacy for him.

It was a place where he could rest, where he could walk around without his shoes on.

It was a place of comfort for him.

And as time passed, and the newsreels began to play, and I could see the effect of the conversations held here starting to reach the nation, and then on to the world.

It was almost awe-inspiring, to tell you the truth.

I did not realize that these men were changing the world.

- The bombing of our homes will not dissuade us.

We're on the move now.

- Yes, sir.

- Beating and killing of our clergymen and young people will not divert us.

We are on the move now.

Even the marching of mighty armies can't halt us.

- Yes, sir.

- We are moving to the land of freedom.

- And King was here quite a bit.

Thurgood stayed here all the time, and Thurgood Marshall was so, so down to Earth with us that when we were younger, Helen would ride his back like a horse.

He would be on all fours, and she would be on his back, hitting his butt saying, giddy up, horsey.

- To be 12 years old, meet, and be able to carry the luggage of an American hero, Thurgood Marshall, was amazing.

And to understand where they went, and what they did, and the absolute danger that they had to face, it just was remarkable.

So yes, it had a-- it had a tremendous impact on me, and it still does.

♪ ♪ This area became the lightning rod, if you will, for-- for change.

♪ ♪ - I'm very fortunate to have known some people that have actually changed the world.

And as a result, I'm not going to sit quietly and say nothing about their sacrifice and their dedication.

There were provocations.

The White community wanted to provoke us to violence.

They wanted to bring us to the fight.

And Martin was vehement about love conquers hate.

That kind of strength, and you're talking about hundreds and hundreds of people at Kelly Ingram Park in the faces of tear gas, and snarling dogs, and police that wanted to waylay us.

Our strength was in nonviolence.

And many, many times, when the police and the tear gas was at its highest peak, we would kneel and pray.

And that kind of good versus evil was a very powerful army.

- We were never taught to hate.

It was like to forgive and love.

You know, things are not the way they're going to be all the time.

Things are going to be different.

And for me, it was holding on to that, being very positive throughout my whole life.

And sometimes, I've been accused of seeing things through rose-colored glasses.

And I said, well, at least I'm still seeing.

And it looks pretty good on my side, so don't knock it.

[playing bass] JEFFERSON DREW: I really enjoyed that talk I had with them kids in Northport.

They wanted to ask about why you don't hate.

You've seen so much-- so much-- so much violence, and you've been so close to-- to people who gave their lives for the cause of equality.

You got every reason to hate.

And I tell the kids, I don't-- I don't like hating.

[laughs] I don't want to hate anything.

I don't want to hate anybody.

And regardless of what my life experience has been, the one thing that comes out of it is to love one another.

Martin gave his life knowingly, knowing.

When he said, I may not get there with you, he's effectively saying, I know I'm not going to get there with you.

And I don't mind saying goodbye as long as you have a happier life ahead of you.

But I'm willing to give my life for you to have a chance.

Where are people like that?

[soft music] ♪ ♪ We're not making the progress that we had hoped we would make.

Our foundation has been shaken because we have not embraced our history and built upon it.

BARBARA SHORES: In going over some of my father's speeches, and then reading the articles, and everything, what he was fighting for in the '30s and '40s is exactly what we're fighting for right now.

[gentle music] ♪ ♪ HOUSTON BROWN: We need people fighting on all fronts, demonstrating, negotiating, meeting, doing everything that we can to try to get people to live what they preach, to live what their preachers preach.

BARBARA SHORES: It's taken so long, so long, but it's still there.

And that's why it's so important for people to speak out when you see racism.

HOUSTON BROWN: What did Dr. King say about Birmingham?

The most segregated city in America, and he was right.

He was dead right.

- Birmingham people had the potential to show the world that it is possible to overcome your differences and your status in life.

If we can transform from a city that loves to hate to a city that loves to love, then you can do it anywhere else in the world.

What makes Birmingham unique is its horrendous past-- the bombings, the killings, the demonstrations, White superiority over Blacks in every possible facet of life.

If we can overcome our hateful history, all of us, all of the people of Birmingham, then we can be a shining example to the rest of the world.

♪ ♪ My conscience will not allow me to leave this property without a permanent marker of what happened here.

I realize that this film is probably going to outlive my lifetime.

And if other people see it 30 years from now, and they're motivated to do the right thing, then my life's not in vain.

- Every breath gives me hope.

If I live for the next five minutes, I'm going to try to be doing something that's positive to contribute to the betterment of all of us.

Not just me, not just my family, to the betterment of all of us.

JEFFERSON DREW: My lesson in my lifetime has been that all men really are created equal, and that there's a value in every human being.

The diversity in America that makes us so strong, it is our variety.

If we could use the strength of our variety, we would be a much stronger country and a better place.

We're still here.

There's peace in those three words-- that we've sustained the battle.

BARBARA SHORES: I think it's really important for everybody to know the history.

And some people are just so against that, so against that.

And it's so wrong.

Dynamite Hill happened.

And as a result, the community became stronger, courageous, and a real community.

We had each other's back, and that friendship is still here.

And we want to try to continue that.

HOUSTON BROWN: I am the descendant of people who were chained to each other, and lay on ships in rows, some say 8 inches, for months while a ship rode the waves.

If they can make it, I can make it.

And they did, and we're here today.

♪ ♪