Kelly Ingram Park Renovation

Kelly Ingram Park was a world-changing battleground of civil and social unrest that erupted in Birmingham and across the country as African Americans demanded equal rights, human dignity and protection under the U.S. Constitution in the ’60s.

The Birmingham Movement of 1963, part of the larger American Civil Rights Movement, galvanized the country behind their demands after people around the world saw Birmingham officials turn high-powered fire hoses and snarling police dogs on non-violent protesting Black children in the park. The images of brutality so shocked the world that it led the U.S. Congress to pass sweeping civil rights legislation that gave Blacks and other Americans the full rights of protection and citizenship under the law.

In conjunction with the opening of the new Civil Rights Institute in 1992, the park was completely renovated to honor Kelly Ingram Park’s place in civil rights history. Then Birmingham Mayor Richard Arrington, Jr., called it “A Place of Revolution and Reconciliation.”

Urban Impact, Inc., was involved in the planning of the park’s 1992 renovation. Urban Impact also worked with the Civil Rights Institute and the Kelly Ingram Park Improvement Committee to make upgrades to the lighting and exhibits in the park some 12 years after its initial renovation.

Urban Impact currently holds its “First Fridays Jazz in the Park” series in the park during the spring, summer and fall. The park also serves as the staging area for Urban Impact’s annual citywide Christmas Parade & Holiday Celebration, which it organizes in conjuntion with local schools and community organizations.