Some of Birmingham Alabama's history has been lost. This book takes a look at this lost history and brings it back to life. Birmingham has many notable historic landmarks today, but so many more are all but forgotten. The Bangor Cave Casino was once a world-renowned speakeasy. The Thomas Jefferson Hotel featured a zeppelin mooring station, drawing lots of attention from tourists. Other significant sites from the past, such as Hillman Hospital and the buildings on the "Heaviest Corner on Earth," are unknown even to natives now. Local author Beverly Crider presents an intriguing and educational tour through these and more hidden treasures.

A beautiful commemorative edition of Dr. Martin Luther King's essay "Letter from Birmingham Jail," part of Dr. King's archives published exclusively by HarperCollins. With an afterword by Reginald Dwayne Betts On April 16, 1923, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., responded to an open letter written and published by eight white clergyman admonishing the civil rights demonstrations happening in Birmingham, Alabama. Dr. King drafted his seminal response on scraps of paper smuggled into jail. King criticizes his detractors for caring more about order than justice, defends nonviolent protests, and argues for the moral responsibility to obey just laws while disobeying unjust ones. "Letter from Birmingham Jail" proclaims a message - confronting any injustice is an acceptable and righteous reason for civil disobedience. This beautifully designed edition presents Dr. King's speech in its entirety, paying tribute to this extraordinary leader and his immeasurable contribution, and inspiring a new generation of activists dedicated to carrying on the fight for justice and equality.

Association Football did not magically begin with the formation of the Football Association in 1863: for centuries before, leather and rag balls had been kicked about, often as a smoke-screen for a jolly good brawl amongst the ruffians of the town or village! In medieval times, the common people from all over the Midlands would chase after a stuffed leather football, sometimes from dawn till dusk, from one end of town to the other. Football, in all its various forms, was the game of the people. Centuries later, in England's universities and public schools, the game was brought under a unified set of rules by middle and upper-class young men who formed exclusive football clubs for their fellows and tried to keep the Association game between themselves. Back in the Midlands, however, pioneering men started football teams for the working-class society, and within a decade, there were hundreds of such teams from Worcester to Sheffield. Football had been given back to the common man. This book gives an insight into over sixty small clubs who were the mainstay of organised football across the Midlands from the embryonic 1860s to beyond professionalism in the 1890s. Many new details and photographs are being published for the first time, as the author travels all over the eight counties of the Midlands to find the lost grounds and the Lost Teams of the Midlands. In This Book, Author Mike Bradbury Brings together a history and description of over sixty of the most prominent lost' Midlands football clubs from the Victorian era, many defunct even before 1900 Discovers the location of the lost Trapezium Ground in Wednesbury Discovers the location of the Shrubbery Ground where Tipton FC played in the 1870s Establishes four of the grounds used by Derby Junction and other Derby teams Establishes the site of Derby Midland FC's lost ground near the railway station Discovers the true origins of Walsall Town Football Club Unearths previously unpublished pictures of Wellington St. George's and their Shropshire ground Discovers the previously unknown team colours for over twenty teams featured in this book, including Notts Olympic, B'ham Excelsior, Calthorpe, Derby Junction, Staveley Unravels the mystery of the two St. George's football teams in the Birmingham area Finds out what became of Walsall's oldest team, Rushall Rovers Publishes unseen photographs of Birmingham's oldest team, Saltley College, and their ground within the college Discovers the first two grounds of the early Bloxwich FC (Strollers) Presents maps showing the lost locations of the grounds of Rushall Rovers, Smethwick Carriage Works, Lozells FC, Wednesbury Strollers, Crosswells FC, and others Unearths the 1873 advert where players are asked to form the Walsall Football Club Discovers the lost' football ground at Aston Cross, used by Aston Shakespeare and Aston Victoria Finds and gets access to the lost' ground of the Willenhall Pickwicks, seven-times Staffordshire Junior Cup finalists Photographs all three grounds of pioneering Birmingham club, Calthorpe FC, and unearths their colours and their link to Aston Villa Discovers the lost' Vulcan ground used by early Derby teams in the city centre Has created a web site featuring over 100 photographs and maps of teams, players, and grounds, details of which are given inside the book

The multicultural Midlands is a unique, interdisciplinary study of the literature, music and food that shape the region’s irrepressible, though often overlooked, cultural identity. It is the first of its kind to give serious critical attention to a part of the world which is frequently ignored by readers, critics and the culture industries. This book makes a claim for the importance of the Midlands and evidences this with nuanced close reading of a multitude of diverse texts spanning so-called ‘high’ to ‘low’ culture; from the Black Country’s ‘Desi Pubs’, to Leicester’s ‘McIndians’ Peri Peri (‘you’ve tried the cowboys, now try the Indians!’); Handsworth’s reggae roots to Adrian Mole’s diaries.

A late arrival on the Southern landscape, the city of Birmingham was not incorporated until after the Civil War. In fact, from 1820 to 1871, what is now Birmingham was known as the hamlet of Elyton, a small crossroads set in the rolling foothills of the Appalachian Mountains where several Pony Express and stage routes crossed paths. When two railroads eventually intersected at this point—where, significantly, all the ingredients necessary to make iron existed in close proximity—the region’s growth exploded. Birmingham’s history is not a story of the grace and vanished grandeur of an antebellum past, but rather, a dynamic story of modern American industrialization.Sites covered include: Hollywood, Alabama State Fairgrounds, Vulcan Park, Mountain Brook Village, The Old Mill, Avondale Park, Highland Park, Woodlawn High, Quinlan Castle, Five Points South, Bottega Favorita, Old Jefferson County Courthouse, Capitol Park, Tutwiler Hotel, Twentieth Street, Louise Wooster Brothel, Alabama Theatre, Kress Department Store, Joy Young Restaurant, Terminal Station, Molton Hotel, Lovemans, Massey Building, Bright Star, Temple of Sibyl, Sloss Furnaces, Red Mountain and Legion Field.

Now with a new afterword, the Pulitzer Prize-winning dramatic account of the civil rights era’s climactic battle in Birmingham as the movement, led by Martin Luther King, Jr., brought down the institutions of segregation. "The Year of Birmingham," 1963, was a cataclysmic turning point in America’s long civil rights struggle. Child demonstrators faced down police dogs and fire hoses in huge nonviolent marches against segregation. Ku Klux Klansmen retaliated by bombing the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, killing four young black girls. Diane McWhorter, daughter of a prominent Birmingham family, weaves together police and FBI records, archival documents, interviews with black activists and Klansmen, and personal memories into an extraordinary narrative of the personalities and events that brought about America’s second emancipation. In a new afterword—reporting last encounters with hero Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and describing the current drastic anti-immigration laws in Alabama—the author demonstrates that Alabama remains a civil rights crucible.

The volume is multi-disciplinary in content, including contributions from specialists in architecture, public and community arts, photography and urban studies - their critical perspectives linked by interest in urban visual culture.

Discover the lost architectural gems of Birmingham.