Lisa McNair and Kim McNair Brock lost their 14-year-old sister Denise McNair in the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church that also killed 14-year-old Addie Mae Collins, 14-year-old Carole Robertson and 11-year-old Cynthia Morris . Over the years, the McNair sisters have continued to share the story of Denise’s death and the lessons their family learned in the aftermath of this great tragedy.

They recently teamed up with Hipped Interests, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit based in Birmingham, to launch a quarterly event called McNair Sisters Lunch and Learn.

The McNair sisters believe intimate dialogue among activists is one way to spread the importance of fighting for civil rights. Lisa says the lunch idea came to her on a whim after a conversation she had with Hipped Interests’ founder, Kameryn Thigpen.

The first lunch was hosted in November. Political ideas such as the 2024 election and the defunding of DEI served as the main topics. The second lunch was held this past Saturday from 12:00-2:00 p.m. with a focus on how to organize and strategize for effective activism. The lunches are hosted in the McNair sisters’ family home in the Powderly neighborhood.

“I thought people would like coming here because of the historic nature of the home,” Lisa said.

How the lunch events got started

Thigpen founded Hipped Interests in 2021 as a social justice project on Instagram to raise awareness about how to get involved in civil rights work in Birmingham. Since starting the organization, she has hosted several workshops and collaborations including a Black women’s appreciation luncheon and a Juneteenth book drive in collaboration with the Alabama Books to Prisons Project.

“Kameryn came over one day to borrow books for prisoners and we ended up having a 30-minute conversation. We talked about opening our home up to small, intimate groups,” Lisa said.

“I’ve been passionate about social justice since around eight years old,” Thigpen said. “It’s such a freeing experience being able to openly advocate for issues I care about.”

Hipped Interests doesn’t have a target demographic. The organization believes in meeting people where they are and educating them from there.

“We’ve done workshops with both students and young adults. We just try to give people the tools and ethics to start their social justice journey,” Thigpen said.

Hipped Interests’ core values are education, equity, liberation, radical self-care and solidarity.

Stressing the importance of organizing

Upon entering the McNair home, the aura of historical richness looms throughout. On the living room walls are family photos and other memorabilia. Glass bookcases are filled with encyclopedias and other historical texts. PBS’s “Eyes on the Prize,” a documentary about Civil Rights events in Birmingham, is paused on the television set at the front. A family friend, “Cherry,” sets up three tables: two with seating, glasses, plates and silverware and one with food prepared by Kim herself.

The doorbell rings intermittently as the McNair sisters and Cherry finish setting up, guests trickle in little by little. Chatter grows as everyone gets to know one another.

Lisa and Kameryn ask their guests to be seated and welcome them to the event before attendees dig into Kim’s homemade chicken and steak fajitas. Someone hits play on “Eyes on the Prize.” The success of the Birmingham bus boycott is the focus of the documentary for this lunch. Silence falls on the room as stomachs are filled with food and minds are filled with history. Images and dialogue of Birmingham icons such as Rosa Parks, Fred Shuttlesworth, Martin Luther King, Jr. and his wife Coretta Scott King grace the screen.

After about 45 minutes, Lisa pauses the documentary to begin an open dialogue based on questions that she, Kim and Thigpen collaborated on. Each of the three want to stress the importance of what they feel is missing in civil rights activism today: organization and strategy.

Lisa remembers how demonstrators were vetted back then: meetings were held to prepare people for what was and wasn’t allowed, what could and couldn’t be done and so on.

“Part of what we talk about each session, when we show documentaries, is real Civil Rights history and facts. Today, I think people of this generation just march because they were told that’s what happened,” she said. “This generation knows we marched for our freedom, but not the depth of it. Learning about the history and how things were coordinated is important to know.”

Thigpen also wants to offer clarity around the work of organizers versus the title of activist.

“I don’t believe organizing over social media is sustainable,” Thigpen said. “Activism is sexy and dressed up, cute for Instagram; organizing is behind the scenes and strategizing. Even the opposition is organizing—even Nazis organized. We need to get into that more. People are hungry to do this but don’t know how. They are angry but don’t know where to put it.”

Among the lunch attendees is Paulette Roby, Chairwoman of the Birmingham Civil Rights Activist Committee “Foot Soldiers Headquarters” downtown. She chimes in with a full-circle memory of her experience with the city buses.

“I think back to riding the bus, having to get on at the front to pay but then off again to go to the back for re-entry. Sometimes, the driver would pull off on you and just take your money,” Roby said. “Who were you going to tell on? Who would you tell?”

Roby challenged herself to become a bus operator and join a union later in life because she wanted to make more money and have job security. After becoming a driver, she went through her old neighborhood. She says some of the same people she and her mother stood with at the stop were happy to see her, a stark contrast to the many times they had taken the bus with a white man driving.

“I tell this story to show that God has a way of bringing you back around—from riding in the back of the bus to now driving it,” Roby said.

The role of spirituality, education and storytelling

The McNair sisters and Thigpen hope to bridge the gap between this new generation of activists and the old. Along with organizing and strategizing, they each believe the art of storytelling has been lost, as well as the spiritual essence of the Civil Rights movement and the way it should be translated from elders in the Black community to younger people.

Kim doesn’t think organized religion is necessary to have a connection to God, nor is it her preferred method.

“But we do need to be talking about God to these other generations,” she said. “Everyone needs to have their own relationship, even if it’s just having a family Bible study every week. It’s vitally important.”

Roby hopes stories keep being told instead of pushed under the rug, and that people continue to do what is right. It’s her faith that has carried her for so long.

“I’m 75 now and started around eight or nine years old. We have to continue to do what we have to do and not let anyone change our mind from that,” said Roby. “I tell myself not to be scared because I know God is on our side. I have enough faith that has driven me to tell young people to do the right thing. When you do right, right is going to follow you.”

Lisa says the Civil Rights movement was a spiritual movement, and getting in touch with God and spiritual importance is a missing key of strength and community for this generation.

“It takes a village,” she said.

Learning how to communicate and educate across generations is how they hope messages won’t get lost in translation. The McNair sisters and Thigpen know not everyone speaks the same lingo, and it’s important for activists to keep that in mind.

Thigpen says a lot of what activism work is “just spiritual,” and that people are pushed by God to “just do something.” She says when she talks about activism with her relatives, she understands terms used in academia don’t always land. She says people can always get to the bottom line if they keep in mind the demographics they’re trying to reach and how to address them.

“I think being educated helps, especially coming from a family that wasn’t very educated,” said long-time Hipped Interests participant, Odyssey Crowell. “But at the same time, information isn’t a relationship. If we spout random facts back and forth but don’t have a connection and a relationship, we can never get through to each other.”

Zamir McNeal, a local Birmingham photographer and Hipped Interests advocate, says sometimes you have to force these important conversations on younger generations, but that later on they will appreciate it. He mentioned working at Phillips Academy and being impressed with kids who were able to spout off names like Fannie Lou Hamer and Mary McLeod Bethune.

“Once a child is taught something, it’s kept,” he said. “There are adults who don’t even know what these seven, eight, nine-year-olds do. I turn 18 in July, but I’ve already talked to people who knew Fred Shuttlesworth and Rosa Parks. So, I just pass that knowledge down.”

Continuing the fight with purpose

Thigpen’s civil rights work was inspired by the death of Trayvon Martin and other deaths of Black people at the hands of police brutality. These events were her driving force of inspiration to do more.

“I encourage people to get involved in something they have an intentional and genuine connection with. Connect yourself with an issue that moves you,” she said. “Center yourself on well-ness and radical self-care—because you will burn yourself out if you don’t. Balance organizing and finding community with joy. One person can’t solve 100 issues, but 100 people can solve one.”

Lisa hopes having the McNair Sisters Lunch and Learn events will leave attendees inspired and encouraged. She believes now, more than ever, is the time for people to amp their activism up as the Trump administration takes aim at certain rights.

“People think, ‘Well, we have all these rights now’—which we do,” Lisa said, “but the birthright citizenship law being threatened also gave African Americans the right to be here. So, it’s not just for Hispanics. The vast majority of people don’t know that.”

“A lot of people are discouraged and depressed by the news, but we still have to be engaged and have self-care.”

The lunch concluded with the guests talking, laughing and embracing one another, packing up leftovers and feeling “full of hope” for what’s to come.

Roby encourages activists of all ages to never give up, and to continue to converse and strategize in comfortable settings like these.

“I just ain’t gone let nobody turn me around, especially now. I’m gonna keep moving,” she said. “Whatever I can do to help, I’m available. Any questions, just ask and I will answer or find the answer.”

To learn more about Hipped Interests and how to attend the McNair Sisters Lunch and Learn events, go to www.hippedinterests.com or send an email to [email protected]. To get in touch with Lisa McNair, send an email to [email protected] or visit www.speaklisa.com. For more information on how to get involved with Paulette Roby’s work at the Birmingham Civil Rights Activist Committee, visit this section of the Birmingham Civil Rights District’s official webpage.