Today, American citizens can visit the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute in Birmingham, Alabama and learn about the powerful connection that the city had with the American civil rights movement in the 1950s and 60s. From 1963 to 1964, leaders in Birmingham lead a movement to gradually desegregate downtown merchants. This led to a great deal of rioting and violence. While he was in a jail in Alabama Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., wrote his famous, "Letter from Birmingham Jail." The Institute is home to a great deal of memorabilia from this rocky time in American history.