Remembering the Racial Injustice of 1963, Birmingham Church Bombings.

 

On September 15, 1963, a dynamite bomb exploded , blowing apart the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. .Four young girls who were getting ready for Sunday School were killed almost instantly.

This cowardly, cold, calculating event should not be forgotten that saw Addie Mae Collins (14) Denise McNair (11), Carole Robertson (14), and Cynthia Wesley (14) killed in an act of racially motivated terrorism, as a result of a bomb placed under the church by members of the Ku Klux Klan. Twenty-two others, including Collins' younger sister Sarah, were injured.Showing clearly to the world the heart of racial injustice and hatred that today shockingly has not disapeared. In the months leading up to the bombing, Birmingham had become the focal point of the civil rights front. The city was all too familiar with racial violence. Both African Americans and moderate whites had been long terrorized by the Klan. This is  just one part of the landscape of America  that should not be forgotten.

The Church itself was the 16th Street Baptist Church and was designed by the State of Alabama 's only black Architect and was finished in 1911. The church was a large part of a heavily segregated in arguably one of the most racist towns in America. Birmingham had no colored Police officers of Firefighters and very few blacks could vote. The Church was very significant. The Church, besides having mass meetings of the local black community and holding various events was also a Rally point for the Civil Rights community.  

Immediately after the bombing, violence surged throughout the city as police clashed with enraged members of the Black community. Before the day ended, at least two other African American children had been slain: 16-year-old Johnny Robinson was shot by police as he fled down an alley, and 13-year-old Virgil Ware was shot and killed by white youths while riding his bicycle.

In the aftermath Civil Rights activists blamed George Wallace, the Governor of Alabama, for the killings.Only a week before the bombing Wallace had told the New York Times that to stop the civil rights movement and the march towards integration Alabama needed a 'few first-class funerals.'

Birmingham, a violent city, was nicknamed 'Bombingham, because it had been the scene of more than 50 bombings between 1947 and 1963. This bombing, however, would not go unnoticed. The murderous event awakened the nation and effectively galvanized the civil rights movement.

Years earlier, Birmingham minister Fred L. Shuttlesworth founded the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR) to directly confront racism and segregation in the city. In the spring of 1963, Shuttlesworth's group joined forces with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and his Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the largest and best known organization fighting for equal rights at the time. Together, the men formulated a plan that called for months-long protests to end segregation in Birmingham.

In May of that year, after weeks of marches, sit-ins, boycotts, bus strikes, and prayer vigils, an agreement was reached. It had the input of local government leaders, white business owners, African American leaders and civil rights groups. The city would actively begin working toward integration. The agreement did not sit well with segregationists, among the most violent of which was the notorious KKK.

Civil Rights activists blamed George Wallace, the Governor of Alabama, for the killings.Only a week before the bombing Wallace had told the New York Times that to stop the civil rights movement and the march towards integration Alabama needed a 'few first-class funerals.'

Though Birmingham’s white supremacists were immediately suspected in the bombing, repeated calls for the perpetrators to be brought to justice went unanswered for more than a decade. It was later revealed that the FBI had information concerning the identity of the bombers by 1965 and did nothing. In 1977, Alabama Attorney General Bob Baxley reopened the investigation and Klan leader Robert E. Chambliss was brought to trial for the bombings and convicted of murder. Continuing to maintain his innocence, Chambliss died in prison in 1985. The case was again reopened in 1980, 1988 and 1997, when two other former Klan members, Thomas Blanton and Bobby Frank Cherry, were finally brought to trial; Blanton was convicted in 2001 and Cherry in 2002. A fourth suspect, Herman Frank Cash, died in 1994 before he could be brought to trial. To this day, the perpetrators of the bombing still remain a mystery

The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing is cited by many historians as the turning point in the civil rights movement. An editorial in the Milwaukee Sentinel said the bombing should “ continue to serve to goad the conscience” of the country. “The deaths...in a sense are on the hands of each of us.”

We should always keep in mind that the four girls who died, while immortalized in history, were children with children's dreams. Carol Robertson was a straight A student who loved to dance. Cynthia Wesley excelled in math. Addie Mae Collins was quiet, athletic, and had a flare for art. Denise McNair wrote plays for the kids in her neighborhood.

History is not scripted. In the case of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing it was shaped out of racist hatred that ended the lives of four young girls.

Services for Victim of Birmingham Church Bombing

The following Alabama was written by John Coltrane in response to the racially-driven bombings which took place in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963. It features a melancholy melody, a much slower tempo than many of Coltrane’s songs, and a hauntingly sorrowful tone from Coltrane’s saxophone. These aspects not only capture the tragedy and sorrow of the Birmingham event, but of the human injustice that ignited the civil rights movement.

 

 

 “Alabama,” among other politically motivated songs, remains known as an anthem of a kind for the Civil Rights Movement. Not an anthem that was sung during protests or at speeches by Civil Rights leaders, but that was heard on the radio and sparked a remembrance for the four girls who lost their lives in Birmingham in 1963. The piece was released on the album Live In Birdland in 1964.

 It is said that Coltrane was motivated by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s eulogy for the girls In his eulogy, King stated, “These children, unoffending, innocent and beautiful, were the victims of one of the most vicious and tragic crimes ever perpetrated against humanity…They did not die in vain. God still has a way of bringing good out of evil.” 

This video, featuring King’s eulogy, also shows clips from the aftermath of the Charleston church shooting from 2015, which has evocative parallels to the 1963 Birmingham bombing. We  must remember and continue to stand against racial injustice wherever it occurs.: