The call was answered by the acting Sunday School secretary, a 14-year-old girl named Carolyn Maull. Today marks the 55th anniversary of the tragedy. On September 15, 1963, a bomb explodes during Sunday morning services in the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing four young girls: Addie Mae Collins (14), Cynthia Wesley (14), Carole Robertson (14) and Carol Denise McNair (11). Relatives of the slain girls, prosecutor Doug Jones, Alabama Chief Deputy Attorney General Alice Martin, and Jefferson County district attorney Brandon Falls each spoke at the hearing to oppose Blanton's parole. Enter a date in the format M/D (e.g., 1/1), Four Black schoolgirls killed in Birmingham church bombing, https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/four-black-schoolgirls-killed-in-birmingham, The Four Seasons earn their first #1 hit with Sherry, Tanks introduced into warfare at the Somme, Muhammad Ali wins world heavyweight championship, First trenches are dug on the Western Front, South Vietnamese forces retake Quang Tri City, The first transcontinental mail service to San Francisco begins, Famous Marilyn Monroe skirt scene filmed, A Bible school instructor abducts a teenage girl. Thomas told those gathered "The greatest tribute you can pay to Carole is to be calm, be loving, be kind, be innocent. Violence broke out across the city in the aftermath of the bombing. Noting that no timing device was found, he disputed the governments long-held theory the bomb was planted by KKK members hours before the explosion.Mr. "[99] Cross testified that she would usually have accompanied her friends into the basement lounge to change into robes for the forthcoming sermon, but she had been given an assignment. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! He said the blast shredded the girls bodies.Some members of the jury looked down and grimaced as Mr. Brissie used a large screen to display black-and-white photographs of the bodies.Defendant Bobby Frank Cherry also turned his head away from the photos, which werent visible to a gallery that included several of the victims relatives sitting in the front row.Mr. Corrections? [83], In his closing argument before the jury on November 17,[84] Baxley acknowledged that Chambliss was not the sole perpetrator of the bombing. 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, terrorist attack in Birmingham, Alabama, on September 15, 1963, on the predominantly African American 16th Street Baptist Church by local members of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). Robinson, aged 16, was shot in the back by a policeman as he fled down an alley,[43] after ignoring police orders to halt. On September 18, the funeral of the three other girls killed in the bombing was held at the Sixth Avenue Baptist Church. YouTubes privacy policy is available here and YouTubes terms of service is available here. His testimony was restricted to the areas of the recordings permitted into evidence. In that important sense, the bombings impact was exactly the opposite of what its perpetrators had intended. Each received a $100 fine (the equivalent of $972 as of 2023[update]) and a suspended 180-day jail sentence. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). 2023 Advance Local Media LLC. Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke at the funeral of three of the girls. For more on the ceremony, please visit this story. As a known and popular rallying point for civil rights activists, the 16th Street Baptist Church was an obvious target. Fifty-seven years after the Klan bombed the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., murdering four Black girls and stunning the nation, a victim of the notorious hate crime sought a public . Jackson testified that Chambliss had expressed frustration that the Klan was "dragging its feet" on the issue of racial integration,[18] and said he was eager to form a splinter group more dedicated to resistance. (The first three schools in Birmingham to be integrated would do so on September 4. [36] She had 21 pieces of glass embedded in her face and was blinded in one eye. Upon learning of the bombing at the Church, Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. sent a telegram to Alabama Governor George Wallace, a staunch and vocal segregationist, stating bluntly: 'The blood of our little children is on your hands." The brutal attack and the deaths of the four little girls . [132] Nonetheless, a 1979 investigation cleared Rowe of any involvement in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. The sole stained-glass window largely undamaged in the explosion depicted Christ leading a group of young children. (A 1980 Justice Department report concluded that J. Edgar Hoover had blocked the prosecution of the four bombing suspects in 1965,[7] and he officially closed the FBI's investigation in 1968. After a jury convicted former Ku Klux Klan member Thomas E. Blanton Jr., who died in prison June 26, of participating in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham in 1963, then . After the blast, Christ's head was blown away. Within 24 hours of the bombing, a minimum of five businesses and properties had been firebombed and numerous carsmost of which were driven by whiteshad been stoned by rioting youths. Within one week of being sworn into office, Baxley had researched original police files into the bombing, discovering that the original police documents were "mostly worthless". The last convicted bomber in the 1963 Birmingham church bombing that killed four young African American girls has died in prison, nearly 60 years after the terror attack targeted the US civil. [39], Violence escalated in Birmingham in the hours following the bombing, with reports of groups of Black and white youth throwing bricks and shouting insults at each other. "It was just a matter of time," said Pastor John H. Cross of the bombing. [99]:ch. An estimated 2,000 Black people converged on the scene in the hours following the explosion. This page was last edited on 20 April 2023, at 15:09. Though Birminghams 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. Although this donation was accepted,[50]:274 Martin Luther King Jr. is known to have sent Wallace a telegram saying, "the blood of four little children is on your hands. The Robertsons made funeral arrangements before learning that the other families were planning a combined service with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, delivering the eulogy. Life is hard. "[45], Two more Black youths, Johnny Robinson and Virgil Ware, were shot to death in Birmingham within seven hours of the Sunday morning bombing. "This bombing of children was a dastardly act.". The bombing occurred days after black students began attending Birmingham city schools. here for reprint permission. Five children were in the basement at the time of the explosion,[23] in a restroom close to the stairwell, changing into choir robes[24] in preparation for a sermon entitled "A Rock That Will Not Roll". The day following the bombing, a young white lawyer named Charles Morgan Jr. addressed a meeting of businessmen, condemning the acquiescence of white people in Birmingham toward the oppression of Blacks. According to Vann's later testimony, Chambliss was standing "looking down toward the church, like a firebug watching his fire". "[9] Birmingham's Commissioner of Public Safety, Theophilus Eugene "Bull" Connor,[10] led the effort in enforcing racial segregation in the city through the use of violent tactics. On November 18, 1977,[87] they found Robert Chambliss guilty of the murder of Carol Denise McNair. HISTORY.com works with a wide range of writers and editors to create accurate and informative content. Robbins also discredited the testimony of FBI agent William Fleming, who had earlier testified as to a government witness claiming he had seen Blanton in the vicinity of the church shortly before the bombing. [11], The three-story 16th Street Baptist Church was a rallying point for civil rights activities through the spring of 1963. [111] When asked by the judge whether he had anything to say before sentence was imposed, Blanton said: "I guess the Lord will settle it on Judgment Day. )[16], These demonstrations and the concessions from city leaders to the majority of demonstrators' demands were met with fierce resistance by other whites in Birmingham. Both named individuals were charged with four counts of first-degree murder, and four counts of universal malice. Cochran also reminded the jury of a secretly obtained FBI recording, which had earlier been introduced into evidence, in which Cherry had told his first wife, Jean, that he and other Klansmen had constructed the bomb within the premises of business the Friday before the bombing. Petts then elaborated that the inspiration for the stained-glass image was a verse from the, On the 27th anniversary of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, a state historic marker was unveiled at Greenwood Cemetery, the final resting place of three of the four victims of the bombing (Carole Robertson's body had been reburied in Greenwood Cemetery in 1974, following the death of her father). On April 10, 2001, Judge James Garrett indefinitely postponed Cherry's trial, pending further medical analysis. Use of and/or registration on any portion of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement (updated 4/4/2023), Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement, and Your Privacy Choices and Rights (updated 1/26/2023). The service honoring Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley and two young boys killed shortly after the bombing, Johnny Robinson Jr. and Virgil Ware, recognized Birmingham as the center of the Civil Rights movement and emphasized that the march to justice and equality of all people is not over. As Birmingham took on the appearance of a battle zone, with hundreds of police, troopers and guardsmen patrolling the streets, another black teen, Johnny Robinson, was shot to death by police. Several dozen people were present at the unveiling, presided over by state Senator. Original caption: Juanita Jones, center, comforts her sister, Maxine McNair, whose daughter Denise McNair died earlier that day in the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing. Martin Luther King Jr. described Birmingham as "probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States. Omissions? On May 21, 2002, both prosecution and defense attorneys delivered their closing arguments to the jury. In a speech conducted before the burials of the girls, King addressed an estimated 3,300[56] mournersincluding numerous white peoplewith a speech saying: This tragic day may cause the white side to come to terms with its conscience. The Birmingham News. We strive for accuracy and fairness. Precisely because of its reputation as a stronghold for white supremacy, civil rights activists made Birmingham a major focus of their efforts to desegregate the Deep South. kern county opal mines,

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