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It would act as a turning point in the Civil Rights Movement and this cowardly, cold, calculating event saw Addie Mae Collins (14) Denise McNair (11), Carole Robertson (14), and Cynthia Wesley (14) killed in an act of racially motivated terrorism. Showing clearly to the World the heart of racial injustice and hatred that today shockingly has not disappeared. This is just one part of the landscape of America that should not be forgotten.
The dynamite was placed outside 16th Street Baptist Church under a set of stairs. The girls were gathered in a downstairs washroom before Sunday services when the blast exploded. A fifth girl, Sarah Collins Rudolph, the sister of Addie Mae, was in the room and was severely injured , losing an eye to the explosion. The bombing came during the height of the civil rights movement, eight months after then-Gov. George Wallace pledged, “segregation forever” and two weeks after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his iconic, “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington.
Outrage over the incident and the violent clash between protesters and police that followed helped draw national attention to the hard-fought, often-dangerous struggle for civil rights for African Americans.
Civil Rights activists blamed George Wallace, the Governor of Alabama, for the killings. Birmingham, a violent city, was nicknamed 'Bombingham,. because it had experienced more than 50 bombings in black institutions and homes since World War 1 probably by Ku Klux Klan members. 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.
In the aftermath of the bombing, thousands of angry Black protesters gathered at the scene of the bombing. When Governor Wallace sent police and state troopers to break the protests up, violence broke out across the city; a number of protesters were arrested, and two young African American men were killed (one by police) before the National Guard was called in to restore order.
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered a powerful eulogy before 8,000 people at the funeral for three of the girls murdered (the family of the fourth girl held a smaller private service) “These children — unoffending, innocent and beautiful — were the victims of one of the most vicious and tragic crimes ever perpetrated against humanity,” Dr. King said. “And yet they died nobly. They are the martyred heroines of a holy crusade for freedom and human dignity.”
If they had lived, the four girls would be in their 70s today. But they never had the chance to grow up, complete their educations, get jobs, pursue their dreams, get married or have children and grandchildren..
Though Birmingham’s white supremacists (and even certain individuals) 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. (J. Edgar Hoover, then-head of the FBI, disapproved of the civil rights movement; he died in 1972.)
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.
Even though the legal system was slow to provide justice, the effect of the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church was immediate and significant. Outrage over the death of the four young girls helped build increased support behind the continuing struggle to end segregation—support that would help lead to the passage of both the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In that important sense, the bombing’s impact was exactly the opposite of what its perpetrators had intended.
But in Birmingham, change was slow to come. Racially-motivated bombings continued in the city nicknamed "Bombingham" for the sheer number of attacks on Black homes, churches, and businesses that went unpunished.
In the 60 years since the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, the church has been rebuilt, and stained glass has been repaired, but there are still wounds time has yet to heal. Family and friends say decades later they are still holding on to their memories and grieving the loss of the four girls who were killed that day.
We can and must remember the Black victims of racism murdered. We must tell their stories to teach children of all races the truth about the awful consequences of racism and all other forms of bigotry and prejudice.
Racism won’t disappear if we pretend it doesn’t exist, any more than cancer will disappear if we refuse to acknowledge it is real. Just as we fight cancer when it strikes, we must unite across racial, ethnic and religious lines to fight racism and other noxious forms of prejudice.
Services for Victim of Birmingham Church Bombing
4 little girls :Birmingham Church Bombing
4 little girls :Birmingham Church Bombing
