On the 19th of September, 1902, thousands of people flocked to the Shiloh Baptist Church
in Birmingham, Alabama, to listen to a speech by respected author and orator Booker T Washington.
The speech was a grand success… but as the evening came to a close, a single misheard word would
trigger a series of events that would lead to one of the worst disasters in the history of the city.
The Shiloh Baptist Church, in Birmingham, Alabama, was built in 1901 at a cost of
around $45,000. It was an impressive building for its time. Designed by a local architect,
it was constructed in part using bricks made in a brickyard owned by the Reverend TW Walker – who
would go on to preach there once the structure was complete. It was equipped with more than 800
lights, including electric and gas-powered lights, and could comfortably seat up to 3,000 people,
who would come and go through six exits spaced around the building.
The main entrance and exit was an imposing one: twenty-six steps lead up to the double
doorway of the church, which was elevated above street level. Thirteen of these steps were fully
outside the building, while the remaining thirteen were framed by a brick archway, forming a portico
about two metres, (or six-and-a-half feet) deep. Shiloh Baptist Church was an important place of
worship, as it was the largest church serving the African American community in Birmingham, at a
time when many churches were still segregated. In 1902 – the year after the church’s
opening – the National Baptist Convention was held there. Delegates – including many pastors
and church leaders – flocked to Birmingham from all over the country to listen to speeches,
meet their contemporaries, network and decide how best to lead their communities.
One prominent speaker on the schedule was Booker T Washington. Though born into slavery,
Washington was freed during the American Civil War, and dedicated his life to inspiring and
advocating for the African American community. He was particularly vocal about the importance
of education, and the value of hard work, pride, and building successful businesses.
The year before, Washington had been the first black person to ever be granted a public meeting
with the President as an equal. His influence was so significant that, after his death,
the most politically active period of his life was sometimes referred to as
“the age of Booker T Washington”. His presence at the convention
caused great excitement. On the 19th of September, 1902 – the day when Washington
was due to speak – people began arriving at the church hours before the beginning of his
evening address. As the scheduled start time approached, every seat in the building was
occupied – making the main hall swelteringly hot. Despite this heat, still more attendees found
their way into the church, filling up the aisles and forming a large crowd just inside the main
doors. By the time Booker T Washington began to speak, there may have been as many as 4,000
people in the church, with more waiting outside. The sheer number of people so alarmed the Reverend
TW Walker that he made a point of asking that no more listeners be admitted. Police were present
to help manage the crowd, but their efforts were not sufficient to stop people crowding
into every available space both on the main floor of the church and on the gallery one floor above.
Washington’s speech went extremely well. He spoke eloquently about the importance of hard
work and of building community, and encouraged everyone present to steer the young people
around them towards learning trades, valuing education, and building up personal savings.
As his address came to an end, some people began moving towards the door, perhaps keen to exit into
the fresh air outside. Noting that it would take some time to clear the exceptionally crowded hall,
the Reverend began some hymns, aiming to keep people in their seats until the aisles were clear.
At this point, a small altercation took place. Up on a rostrum, where several important guests
were seated, two men came into conflict. Many survivors reported that the disagreement was over
an unoccupied chair, while some believed that it was down to one man having stepped on the toe of
the other. Still others note that the disagreement arose because one man almost sat down on a seat
that he had not noticed was already occupied. Whatever the reason for the argument,
it escalated when one man gestured as though he was about to draw a weapon from inside his coat.
He did not actually have a weapon, but the gesture was sufficient to cause someone nearby to scream.
At this point, at least one person shouted something. By some accounts,
their words were, “It’s a fight,” and by other accounts they were instead shouting
the words, “Quiet!” or, “Be quiet!” Whatever their actual words were,
though, at least some of those in the crowd near the door misheard them, and believed
instead that they had shouted the word “Fire!” The effect was immediate. The crowd around
the door, fearing a deadly fire in a clearly overcrowded building, surged forwards. Those
on the steps fell, and others fell on top of them. Hemmed in by the archway around the door,
and at a disadvantage because of the descending steps in the same location,
people were soon stacked in a struggling mass that may have been as many as ten people deep.
The panic only worsened as people caught in the crush screamed and called for help. Ushers within
the church attempted to calm the crowd and move them away from the doors… but their cries of,
“There is no fire!” or appeals for “Quiet!” were, again, misheard. As hundreds of people
struggled at the door of the church, their movement kicked up dust, which passingly
resembled smoke, still worsening the panic. The Reverend redoubled his efforts to calm
the crowd, while other delegates and ushers made their way out of the church through other
exits and ran to the front of the building. The sight that greeted them was a horrifying one:
a tightly-packed, struggling, frantic mass of humanity that almost completely blocked
the entryway to the church. The police and fire service were quickly called to the scene, and
began doing what they could to untangle the crush. Within minutes, the panic over a possible fire had
been calmed… but the work of freeing people from the crush took almost an hour. In many cases,
though they pulled with all their strength, rescuers could not free those who were
trapped. They resorted to speaking to them to keep them calm and providing
them with water while people and bodies were removed from above them in the crush.
A woman named Annie Bradford, who was caught in the crush, later described the experience:
“The dying people over me nearly pulled my hair out. They would scream and groan and
catch hold of anything they could get their hands on, and pull for life. I asked a man
who was trying to rescue us to put my hair up for me. The man did the best he could,
uttering a few words of sympathy. I saw that our sympathizers were doing all they could for us. I,
therefore, waited patiently for my turn to be rescued. They tell me that I was packed dawn
there one-half an hour, but it seemed much longer to me. I never want such experiences any more.”
It quickly became apparent that many of those who were caught in the crush had died – either
from heat exhaustion or asphyxiation or internal injuries. Just inside the doors
of the church the crush had been so intense that people had died standing up, their bodies unable
to fall until those around them were removed. Ambulances ferried the dead to funeral homes
around Birmingham. The large number of dead, and the fact that many were visitors from out of town,
made identification difficult. It took several days before a final casualty count was known.
In total, 115 people were killed in the crush. Many people also sustained serious injuries,
either from being caught in the crush, or from attempting to flee the church in a panic:
several people broke limbs as a result of falls, including one fall from a window.
Several collections were started, and raised over a thousand dollars to help
pay the funeral expenses of the dead, and the hospital bills of the injured.
The disaster made headlines around the country, and in the aftermath the design of the church
itself was called into question. The idea that the layout of the building had contributed to
the crush was, however, mostly dismissed, with the National Baptist Convention pointing out
that it was of sound construction, and had not failed or collapsed in any way.
At the time, many of the ideas that exist regarding the management of crowds today
had not been developed, and so it was not widely appreciated how the design of the entrance to the
church might have contributed to the catastrophe. Now, at a time when crowd crushes have been
studied much more extensively, it is rare to find a high-capacity building with a similar
arrangement of steps and a tunnel-like portico in front of its main entrance.
With lessons now learned from many crowd crushes throughout history,
it is much less likely – though not impossible – that a similar disaster could happen ever again.