Two red bands framing a broad white panel, a red star at the center inside a crown of golden rays, and at its heart a small municipal seal. Birmingham's flag belongs to a city built on steel and blast furnaces, the "Pittsburgh of the South". But it says nothing of the violence.
Birmingham carries two nicknames. The first: the steel city, born in 1871 at the crossing of railroads and ore deposits. Vulcan, the giant iron statue dominating the city, symbolizes this industrial might. The second nickname is darker: "Bombingham."
The Ku Klux Klan terrorized. Violence went unpunished. Then came September 1963: four Black girls, Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, Carol Denise McNair, were killed in the explosion at 16th Street Baptist Church. The photos circled the world.
The marches, police dogs, and fire hoses turned against peaceful protesters galvanized the nation. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 would follow.
Today, Birmingham has transformed. The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute preserves this memory. But the white flag with anvil shows nothing of this struggle. It flies, silent, over a city that carries its scars.