19631776 Club
Bombs strike A. D. King's home and the Gaston Motel; Birmingham erupts before dawn
Two blasts hours after the truce agreement; 2,500 fill the streets, businesses burn, and Washington moves toward its first modern military deployment for domestic unrest.
The ink was barely dry on the Birmingham Truce Agreement when the bombs went off. In the early hours of May 12, 1963, explosions tore through the parsonage of Rev. A. D. King — Martin Luther King Jr.'s brother — and then detonated beneath Room 30 of the Gaston Motel, where King himself had been staying only hours before. By dawn, a crowd of roughly 2,500 had filled the streets, businesses burned, and the federal government was preparing its first modern military deployment in response to domestic civil unrest…
