Sixteenth Baptist Church
Today marks the 50th anniversary of the bombing of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Four girls, Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson, and Cynthia Wesley, (all aged 14), and Denise McNair, (age 11), were killed in the explosion. Twenty-two others were injured in the attack, mostly children.
A witness identified Ku Klux Klan member, Robert Chambliss, as the man who placed the bomb at the church. He was found not guilty of murder, but was fined one hundred dollars for possessing dynamite and received a six-month jail sentence. The horrific crime shocked the nation but many years would pass before the murderers were brought to justice.
In 1977, Chambliss was tried again. He was convicted of murder at the age of 73 and sentenced to life in prison. In 2000, the FBI announced that Robert Chambliss, Herman Cash, Thomas Blanton, and Bobby Cherry had been responsible for the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church Bombing. Although Cash had died, Blanton and Cherry were arrested and both were tried and convicted of murder.
In Fearless Freedom, Bernice Givens’ best friend, Sharon, was a member of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. She could have been one of the girls who were injured or killed in the blast.
On Tuesday, September 10, Congress awarded the highest civilian honor, the Congressional Gold medal, to Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley, and Denise McNair. Instead of striking a blow against civil rights, as the bombers had hoped, the tragic deaths of the four girls brought the nation’s attention to the fight for civil rights and fueled the movement.
To get a feeling for what happened on that terrible day, and learn a little about each of the girls, read Birmingham, 1963, by Carole Boston Weatherford, a book that tells the story of the bombings through poetry and photographs.