No Name in the Street

The 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, was an act of terrorism committed by the white supremacist group the Ku Klux Klan and resulted in the deaths of four Black girls. Several other people were injured. The bombing occurred during the Birmingham Campaign, the organized efforts for civil rights in Alabama. The event was a profound act of terror and violence that indicated the social upheaval of the civil rights era and the persistence of racial violence in the American South.

The Algerian War, fought between 1954 and 1962, was a major decolonization war for Algeria’s independence from France. Algeria’s movement for independence started during the World War I and grew after World War II as Algerians claimed their autonomy and self-determination. In 1954, the Algerian National Liberation Front proclaimed war against France with the intention to establish a sovereign Algerian state. The war took place mainly in Algeria but its impact was evident in France, leading to several political crises. The brutality of the war cost France its international prestige and the government was unwilling to continue the war. In 1962, after a period of social upheaval, France signed Algeria’s independence.

As Baldwin notes in No Name in the Street, during the Algerian War, Algerians in France were subject to racism.