Toward the end of the visit, the kids were asked to sit on the floor and watch a short video on a huge screen. “No talking,” a teacher said. “Listen.” Scenes from the August 1963 March on Washington flickered on the screen, including clips from King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. The fourth-graders applauded. It felt like a benediction.

The Sixteen Street Baptist Church sits across the street from the institute. Once inside, our guide gently reminded the small clutch of visitors that the church is more than a symbol of the civil rights movement; it’s a 21st century parish with services, meetings and Sunday school classes. But as we waited, I found it impossible to think about anything but the events of 50 years ago.

On Sept. 15, 1963, soon after the March on Washington, a dynamite blast ripped open the basement of the church, which had become the site of civil rights movement meetings. Four girls died; at least 20 people were injured. It took more than a decade for any of the suspects to be convicted of the killings, and the reverberations of the blast — national anguish and anger, a slow serving of justice — continue to this day.

After our small group watched a video that focuses on the history of the church and the headlines of 50 years ago, the tour guide, a parishioner, patiently recalled and repeated details of the bombing and its aftermath. It’s almost impossible to learn too much about this historical site.

In the afternoon, I ran into a colleague and persuaded her to join me as I explored some older monuments to Birmingham’s past. First stop: Sloss Furnaces, which opened just a few years after the town was founded in 1871.

The men who planned Birmingham (and named it after the industrial powerhouse of Birmingham, England) chose a place close to deposits of limestone, coal and iron ore, paving the way for the growth of local iron and steel manufacturing. Sloss Furnaces, now a national historic landmark, helped propel the city into industrial prominence that continued through the 1960s.

The abandoned blast furnaces, in a park-like setting, have a natural, desolate beauty. The size of those furnaces and the cars used to transport molten pig iron made us feel Lilliputian, excellent preparation for our next stop: the Vulcan Park and Museum, atop the city’s Red Mountain.

The highlight of any trip up the hill is a gigantic statue of the Roman god of the forge, cast in 1904 and long touted as the world’s largest cast-iron figure. He’s 56 feet tall and sits atop a 124-foot-high pedestal. A short elevator ride in a tower attached to the pedestal offered great views of the city.

The next morning, I spent a couple of hours in the Birmingham Museum of Art, where many of the galleries are devoted to European paintings and decorative arts from the 13th through the 19th centuries. The museum’s collection of American art includes works by Gilbert Stuart, John Singer Sargent, Frederick Remington and Georgia O’Keeffe. The top floor includes galleries devoted to African and Asian art, Native American and pre-Columbian works and, oddly, a large collection of Wedgwood ceramics. But some of the most striking pieces are displayed in a gallery devoted to recent acquisitions, including a “wearable sculpture” — fabric with applique crochet and buttons and yarn — by performance artist and sculptor Nick Cave.