Braxton McKinney and Lavon Thomas

In The Birmingham Project Dawoud Bey memorialized the tragic events that took place on September 15, 1963, when Ku Klux Klan members bombed the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing four young black girls. Later that day two black teenage boys also died in related incidents of racist violence. In each diptych Bey paired a youth of the same age as one of the murdered children with an adult who has reached the age that the six boys and girls would be today. These two portraits were taken at the Bethel Baptist Church, which occupied a central role in the civil rights movement as the headquarters for the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. By bringing together two sitters 50 years apart in age, Bey provoked a reflection on a half-century of change and the legacy left for future generations.