He's worried that the country is backtracking today. Jones says the overall climate gave the Klan cover to wreak terror. Now it was Fall and public schools were desegregating. George Wallace had tried to defy the federal courts and block Black students from enrolling in the University of Alabama. The bombing came three months after Alabama's staunch segregationist Gov. And how political leaders can sometimes stoke violence." "Where we were as a people, and how divided we were under Jim Crow laws and how horrific those were. "I don't think I recognized it as much at the time, but over time, it has become so important for people to reflect on where we were as a country," he says. Attorney in Alabama who re-opened and prosecuted the case nearly 40 years later. "It was an unsolved murder in which there were four families that were destroyed, and those families never had had the full measure of justice," says former U.S. The fourth killer died, never being brought to account. But the first prosecution didn't come until 1977. The FBI determined that four members of a local KKK klavern known as the "Cahaba River Bridge Boys" were responsible for the bombing. Lynsey Weatherspoon for NPR The Four Spirits statue honors the four girls who were killed at the 16th Street Baptist Church. The 16th Street Church had been targeted because it was used as a gathering place for protesters during the Birmingham movement.īombing survivor Carolyn McKinstry remembers her confusion when the church reopened after repairs. Racially-motivated bombings continued in the city nicknamed " Bombingham" for the sheer number of attacks on Black homes, churches, and businesses that went unpunished. And I thank God for that."īut in Birmingham, change was slow to come. "Our history changed things," says Collins Rudolph. The events in Birmingham galvanized Congress to pass the Civil Rights Act. "If these cruel and tragic events can only awaken that city and state - if they can only awaken this entire nation to a realization of the folly of racial injustice and hatred and violence - then it is not too late for all concerned to unite in steps toward peaceful progress before more lives are lost," he said in a statement. Lynsey Weatherspoon for NPR A photo of Addie Mae Collins and her obituary sit in her sister Sarah Collins Rudolph's home. Kennedy condemned the racial violence in Birmingham. She takes solace in how the bombing drew attention to the brutal tactics employed to maintain white supremacy in the American South.Ī day later, on Sept. Still doing that today."Ĭollins Rudolph has tried to get restitution from the state of Alabama, arguing political leaders of the day helped foment the violence that killed the girls and injured her. "Every time I would hear a loud sound, I would jump. "I had a lot of fear during that time," she says. There's still glass embedded in her other eye. Her wounds remain, both physical and emotional. "I didn't know what had happened," she says.Ī deacon dug her out of the rubble and she was taken by ambulance to the hospital with shrapnel in her eyes, face and body. "And when she reached her hand out to tie it – boom!"Ĭollins Rudolph says she called out her sister's name but got no answer. She was in the ladies' lounge freshening up with the four other girls, including her sister Addie Mae who was helping Denise McNair tie the sash on her purple plaid dress. Lynsey Weatherspoon for NPR Sarah Collins Rudolph survived the bombing. "I am the 5th little girl that survived the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing," she says. Sarah Collins Rudolph was 12 at the time. "60 years later, I see things that are frighteningly reminiscent of what happened in the 1960s," says McKinstry. Now McKinstry and other survivors of the blast say there are lessons for the country today in a climate where politicians are seeking to whitewash racist history. She later learned four of her classmates were killed - 11-year-old Denise McNair, and Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, and Addie Mae Collins, all 14. Klansmen had planted the bomb beneath a stairwell on the side of the church. She scooted under the first pew in the sanctuary where she remained until she heard the rest of the congregation fleeing the building. "And I heard someone say, 'hit the floor.'" "When the bomb exploded you heard screaming," McKinstry says. Moments later the bomb went off, shattering stained glass windows and shaking the building. "When I reached the top of the stairs, the phone is ringing and there's a male caller on the other end who simply says 'three minutes.' And as quickly as he says that he hangs up." Joseph King Carolyn McKinstry was the Sunday School secretary at 16th Street Baptist Church in 1963.
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