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Do not fill this in! {{Short description|1963 terrorist attack in Birmingham, Alabama}} {{Use American English|date = February 2020}} {{Use mdy dates|date=May 2019}} {{Infobox civilian attack | title = 16th Street Baptist Church bombing | partof = the [[Civil Rights movement]] and the [[Birmingham campaign]] | image = 16th Street Baptist Church bombing girls.jpg | image_size = | alt = | caption = The four girls murdered in the bombing ''(clockwise from top left)'': Addie Mae Collins (14), Cynthia Wesley (14), Carole Robertson (14), and Carol Denise McNair (11) | map = | map_size = | map_alt = | map_caption = | location = [[Birmingham, Alabama]] | target = [[16th Street Baptist Church]] | coordinates = {{Coord|33|31|0|N|86|48|54|W|region:US-AL_type:event_scale:50000|display=inline,title}} | date = September 15, 1963; {{Years or months ago|1963|09}} | time = 10:22 a.m. | timezone = [[UTC]]-5 | type = Bombing <br/>[[Domestic terrorism]] <br/>[[Right-wing terrorism]] | fatalities = 4 | injuries = 14–22 | victims = Addie Mae Collins<br>Cynthia Wesley<br>Carole Robertson <br> Carol Denise McNair | perps = [[Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr.|Thomas Blanton]] {{nowrap|<small>([[Conviction|convicted]])</small>}}<br />{{nowrap|[[Robert Edward Chambliss|Robert Chambliss]] <small>(convicted)</small>}}<br />{{nowrap|[[Bobby Frank Cherry|Bobby Cherry]] <small>(convicted)</small>}}<br />{{nowrap|[[Herman Frank Cash|Herman Cash]] <small>(alleged)</small>}} | motive = [[Racism]] and support for [[racial segregation]] }} {{Campaignbox Birmingham campaign}} {{CRM in Alabama}} The '''16th Street Baptist Church bombing''' was a [[Terrorism|terrorist]] bombing of the [[16th Street Baptist Church]] in [[Birmingham, Alabama]] on September 15, 1963. The bombing was committed by a [[White supremacy|white supremacist]] terrorist group.<ref name=Hewitt05>{{cite book |last1=Hewitt |first1=Christopher |title=Political violence and terrorism in modern America : a chronology |date=2005 |publisher=[[Greenwood Publishing Group]] |location=Westport, Conn. |isbn=9780313334184 |page=12}}</ref><ref name=Britca>{{cite web |last1=Parrott-Sheffer |first1=Chelsea |title=16th Street Baptist Church bombing |url=https://www.britannica.com/event/16th-Street-Baptist-Church-bombing |website=Britannica |publisher=Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. |access-date=4 April 2019}}</ref><ref name=Graham15>{{cite news |last1=Graham |first1=David |title=How Much Has Changed Since the Birmingham Church Bombing? |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/06/historical-background-charleston-shooting/396242/ |access-date=6 June 2019 |work=[[The Atlantic]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160424174406/https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/06/historical-background-charleston-shooting/396242/ |archive-date=April 24, 2016 |url-status=live |publisher=The Atlantic Monthly Group |date=June 18, 2015}}</ref> Four members of a local [[Ku Klux Klan]] (KKK) chapter planted 19 sticks of [[dynamite]] attached to a timing device beneath the steps located on the east side of the church.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://ajccenter.wfu.edu/2013/09/15/tih-1963-16th-street-baptist-church/ |title=Today in 1963: The Bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church|website=ajccenter.wfu.edu |date=September 15, 2013 |access-date=June 17, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170813104615/http://ajccenter.wfu.edu/2013/09/15/tih-1963-16th-street-baptist-church/ |archive-date=August 13, 2017 }}</ref> Described by [[Martin Luther King Jr.]] as "one of the most vicious and tragic crimes ever perpetrated against humanity,"<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.nydailynews.com/news/justice-story/justice-story-birmingham-church-bombing-article-1.1441568 |title=Justice Story: Birmingham church bombing kills 4 innocent girls in racially motivated attack |first=David J. |last=Krajicek |work=[[New York Daily News]] |date=September 1, 2013 |access-date=May 28, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130902235405/http://www.nydailynews.com/news/justice-story/justice-story-birmingham-church-bombing-article-1.1441568 |archive-date=September 2, 2013 |url-status=live}}</ref> the explosion at the church killed four girls and injured between 14 and 22 other people. Although the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] had concluded in 1965 that the bombing had been committed by four known KKK members and [[Racial segregation|segregationists]]: [[Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr.]], [[Herman Frank Cash]], [[Robert Edward Chambliss]], and [[Bobby Frank Cherry]],<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2000/05/birm-m20.html |work=[[World Socialist Web Site]] |date=May 20, 2000 |title=Former Klansmen indicted for murder in 1963 bombing of Birmingham, Alabama church |first=Jerry |last=White |access-date=May 27, 2019 }}</ref> no prosecutions were conducted until 1977, when Robert Chambliss was tried by [[Attorney General of Alabama]] [[Bill Baxley]] and convicted of the first-degree murder of one of the victims, 11-year-old Carol Denise McNair. As part of a revival effort by states and the federal government to prosecute cold cases from the civil rights era, the state placed both Blanton Jr. and Cherry on trial, who were each convicted of four counts of murder and sentenced to [[life imprisonment]] in 2001 and 2002, respectively. Future [[United States Senator]] [[Doug Jones (politician)|Doug Jones]] successfully prosecuted Blanton and Cherry.<ref name="Times Daily May 23, 2002">{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=1FMeAAAAIBAJ&pg=2036,3416162 |title=Case closed; Cherry guilty |work=[[TimesDaily]] |date=May 23, 2002 |agency=Associated Press |first=Jay |last=Reeves |access-date=May 27, 2019 }}</ref> Herman Cash died in 1994, and was never charged with his alleged involvement in the bombing. The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing marked a turning point in the United States during the [[civil rights movement]] and also contributed to support for the passage of the [[Civil Rights Act of 1964]] by Congress.<ref name=":0" /> ==Background== In the years leading up to the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, Birmingham had earned a national reputation as a tense, violent and racially segregated city, in which even tentative [[racial integration]] in any form was met with violent resistance. [[Martin Luther King Jr.]] described Birmingham as "probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States."<ref>{{cite web |url=https://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/letter-from-birmingham-city-jail-excerpts/ |work=TeachingAmericanHistory.org |title=Letter From Birmingham City Jail (Excerpts) |publisher=[[Ashland University]] |author-link=Martin Luther King Jr. |first=Martin Luther Jr. |last=King |date=April 16, 1963 |access-date=May 27, 2019 }}</ref> Birmingham's Commissioner of Public Safety, [[Bull Connor|Theophilus Eugene "Bull" Connor]],<ref name=":4">{{Cite web |title=Theophilus Eugene "Bull" Connor (1897-1973) (U.S. National Park Service) |url=https://www.nps.gov/people/bull-connor.htm |access-date=October 27, 2022 |website=www.nps.gov |language=en}}</ref> led the effort in enforcing racial segregation in the city through the use of violent tactics.<ref name=":3">{{Cite journal |last=Morris |first=Aldon D. |date=1993 |title=Birmingham Confrontation Reconsidered: An Analysis of the Dynamics and Tactics of Mobilization |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2096278 |journal=American Sociological Review |volume=58 |issue=5 |pages=621–636 |doi=10.2307/2096278 |jstor=2096278 |issn=0003-1224}}</ref> Black and white residents of Birmingham were segregated between different public amenities such as water fountains and places of public gathering such as movie theaters.<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal |last=Cochran |first=Donald Q. |date=2006 |title=Ghosts of Alabama: The Prosecution of Bobby Frank Cherry for the Bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church |url=https://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1107&context=mjrl |journal=Michigan Journal of Race and Law |volume=12}}</ref> The city had no black police officers or firefighters<ref name=":1" /> and most black residents could expect to find only menial employment in professions such as cooks and cleaners.<ref name=":1" /> Black residents did not just experience segregation in the context of leisure and employment, but also in the context of their freedom and well-being. Given the state's [[Disfranchisement after Reconstruction era|disenfranchisement of most black people]] since the turn of the century, by making voter registration essentially impossible, few of the city's black residents were registered to vote. Bombings at black homes<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal |last=Meché |first=Brittany |date=March 1, 2020 |title=Memories of An Imperial City: Race, Gender, and Birmingham, Alabama |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/anti.12606 |journal=Antipode |language=en |volume=52 |issue=2 |pages=475–495 |doi=10.1111/anti.12606 |bibcode=2020Antip..52..475M |s2cid=213240633 |issn=0066-4812}}</ref> and institutions were a regular occurrence, with at least 21 separate explosions recorded at black properties and churches in the eight years before 1963. However, none of these explosions had resulted in fatalities.<ref name="Washington Post Sept. 16, 19632">{{cite news |date=September 16, 1963 |title=Six Dead After Church Bombing |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |agency=United Press International |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/churches/archives1.htm |access-date=May 27, 2019}}</ref> These attacks earned the city the nickname "[[Bombingham]]".<ref name=":2" /><ref>{{cite web |date=n.d. |title=Addie Mae Collins |url=https://www.biography.com/crime-figure/addie-mae-collins |access-date=May 27, 2019 |work=[[Biography (TV program)|Biography.com]]}}</ref> [[Image:16th Street Baptist Church.JPG|thumb|The [[16th Street Baptist Church]] in 2005. The steps beneath which the bomb was planted can be seen in the foreground.]] ===Birmingham Campaign=== {{Main|Birmingham campaign}} Civil Rights activists and leaders in Birmingham fought against the city's deeply-ingrained and institutionalized racism with tactics that included the targeting of Birmingham's economic and social disparities.<ref name=":3" /> Their demands included that public amenities such as lunch counters and parks be desegregated, the criminal charges against demonstrators and protestors should be removed'','' and an end to overt discrimination with regards to employment opportunities.<ref name=":3" /> The intentional scope of these activities was to see the end of segregation across Birmingham and [[Southern United States|the South]] as a whole.<ref name=":3" /> The work these Civil Rights activists were engaged in within Birmingham was crucial to the movement as the Birmingham campaign was seen as guidance for other cities in the South with regards to rising against segregation and racism.<ref name=":3" /> The three-story 16th Street Baptist Church was a rallying point for civil rights activities through the spring of 1963.<ref name=":0" /> When the [[Southern Christian Leadership Conference]] (SCLC) and the [[Congress on Racial Equality]] became involved in a campaign to register African Americans to vote in Birmingham, tensions in the city increased. The church was used as a meeting-place for civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr., [[Ralph Abernathy]], and [[Fred Shuttlesworth]], for organizing and educating marchers.<ref name=":0" /> It was the location where students were organized and trained by the SCLC Director of Direct Action, [[James Bevel]], to participate in the [[Birmingham campaign|1963 Birmingham campaign's Children's Crusade]] after other marches had taken place.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=16th Street Baptist Church Bombing (1963) (U.S. National Park Service) |url=https://www.nps.gov/articles/16thstreetbaptist.htm |access-date=September 29, 2022 |website=www.nps.gov |language=en}}</ref> On Thursday, May 2, more than 1,000 students, some reportedly as young as eight, opted to leave school and gather at the 16th Street Baptist Church. Demonstrators present were given instructions to march to downtown Birmingham and discuss with the mayor their concerns about racial segregation in the city, and to integrate buildings and businesses currently segregated. Although this march was met with fierce resistance and criticism, and 600 arrests were made on the first day alone, the Birmingham campaign and its Children's Crusade continued until May 5. The intention was to fill the jail with protesters. These demonstrations led to an agreement, on May 8, between the city's business leaders and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, to [[Racial integration|integrate]] public facilities, including schools, in the city within 90 days. (The first three schools in Birmingham to be integrated would do so on September 4.)<ref name="William O. Bryant">{{cite news |title=Six Negro Children Killed in Alabama Sunday |newspaper=[[Times-News (Hendersonville, North Carolina)|Times-News]] |date=September 16, 1963 |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=TEMaAAAAIBAJ&pg=7126,662830 |first=William O. |last=Bryant |access-date=November 21, 2010}}</ref> These demonstrations and the concessions from city leaders to the majority of demonstrators' demands were met with fierce resistance by other whites in Birmingham. In the weeks following the September 4 integration of public schools, three additional bombs were detonated in Birmingham.<ref name="Washington Post Sept. 16, 1963">{{cite news |date=September 16, 1963 |title=Six Dead After Church Bombing |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |agency=United Press International |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/churches/archives1.htm |access-date=May 27, 2019}}</ref> Other acts of violence followed the settlement, and several staunch Klansmen were known to have expressed frustration at what they saw as a lack of effective resistance to integration.<ref name="Observer-Reporter Nov. 19, 1977">{{cite news |title=Former Klansman Is Guilty Of Bomb Deaths |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=8_ddAAAAIBAJ&pg=2755,3260312 |work=[[Observer–Reporter]] |date=November 19, 1977 |access-date=May 27, 2019 |agency=Associated Press }}</ref> As a known and popular rallying point for [[civil rights]] activists, the 16th Street Baptist Church was an obvious target. ==Bombing== In the early morning of Sunday, September 15, 1963, four members of the [[United Klans of America]]—[[Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr.|Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr]]., [[Robert Edward Chambliss]], [[Bobby Frank Cherry]], and (allegedly) [[Herman Frank Cash]]<ref>{{cite web |title=16th Street Baptist Church Bombing (1963) |website=[[National Parks Service]] |url=https://www.nps.gov/articles/16thstreetbaptist.htm |access-date=March 28, 2024 }}</ref>—planted a minimum of 15 sticks<ref name="CrimeLibrary.com p. 5">{{Cite web |url=http://www.crimelibrary.com/terrorists_spies/terrorists/birmingham_church/5.html |title=CrimeLibrary.com p. 5 |access-date=February 10, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150210044215/http://www.crimelibrary.com/terrorists_spies/terrorists/birmingham_church/5.html |archive-date=February 10, 2015 |url-status=dead }}</ref> of dynamite with a time delay under the steps of the church, close to the basement. At approximately 10:22 a.m., an anonymous man phoned the 16th Street Baptist Church. The call was answered by the acting [[Sunday School]] secretary, a 14-year-old girl named Carolyn Maull.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www1.cbn.com/700club/carolyn-mckinstry-choosing-forgive |work=[[Christian Broadcasting Network]] |access-date=May 27, 2019 |title=Carolyn McKinstry: Choosing to Forgive }}</ref> The anonymous caller simply said the words, "Three minutes"<ref name=terror/>{{rp|10}} to Maull before terminating the call. Less than one minute later, the bomb exploded. Five children were in the basement at the time of the explosion,<ref>{{cite magazine |url=https://time.com/5394093/16th-street-baptist-church-bombing-anniversary |title=16th Street Baptist Church Bombing Survivors Recall a Day That Changed the Fight for Civil Rights: 'I Will Never Stop Crying Thinking About It' |magazine=Time |access-date=March 3, 2020}}</ref> in a restroom close to the stairwell, changing into choir robes<ref name="Eugene Register-Guard Oct. 29, 1985">{{cite news |agency=Associated Press |title=Killer of Four in 1963 Blast Dies in Prison |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=yOZVAAAAIBAJ&pg=5125,7516950 |work=[[The Register-Guard]] |date=October 29, 1985 |access-date=May 27, 2019 }}</ref> in preparation for a [[sermon]] entitled "A Rock That Will Not Roll".<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.nysun.com/obituaries/john-cross-jr-pastor-at-bombed-church-dies-at-82/66673 |title=John Cross Jr. Pastor at Bombed Church, Dies at 82 |work=nysun.com |access-date=December 2, 2020 |archive-date=November 7, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201107181202/https://www.nysun.com/obituaries/john-cross-jr-pastor-at-bombed-church-dies-at-82/66673/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> According to one survivor, the explosion shook the entire building and propelled the girls' bodies through the air "like rag dolls".<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.crimelibrary.com/terrorists_spies/terrorists/birmingham_church/4.html |title=The Birmingham Church Bombing: Bombingham |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150210044214/http://www.crimelibrary.com/terrorists_spies/terrorists/birmingham_church/4.html |archive-date=February 10, 2015 |work=CrimeLibrary.com |page=4 |access-date=May 28, 2019 }}</ref> The explosion blew a hole measuring {{convert|7|ft|m|spell=in}} in diameter in the church's rear wall, and a [[Explosion crater|crater]] {{convert|5|ft|m|spell=in}} wide and {{convert|2|ft|m|spell=in}} deep in the ladies' basement lounge, destroying the rear steps to the church and blowing a passing motorist out of his car.<ref name=history.com>{{cite web |url=https://www.history.com/news/remembering-the-birmingham-church-bombing |work=History.com |date=September 13, 2013 |access-date=May 27, 2019 |first=Barbara |last=Maranzani |title=Remembering the Birmingham Church Bombing }}</ref> Several other cars parked near the site of the blast were destroyed, and windows of properties located more than two blocks from the church were also damaged. All but one of the church's stained-glass windows were destroyed in the explosion. The sole stained-glass window largely undamaged in the explosion depicted [[Christ]] leading a group of young children.<ref name="Washington Post Sept. 16, 1963" /> Hundreds of individuals, some of them lightly wounded, converged on the church to search the debris for survivors as police erected barricades around the church and several outraged men scuffled with police. An estimated 2,000 black people converged on the scene in the hours following the explosion. The church's [[pastor]], the [[John Cross Jr.|Reverend John Cross Jr.]], attempted to placate the crowd by loudly reciting the [[23rd Psalm]] through a [[Megaphone|bullhorn]].<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nysun.com/obituaries/john-cross-jr-pastor-at-bombed-church-dies-at-82/66673/ |work=[[The New York Sun]] |title=John Cross Jr., Pastor at Bombed Church, Dies at 82 |first=Matt |last=Schudel |date=November 19, 2007 |access-date=May 27, 2019 |archive-date=May 27, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190527142333/https://www.nysun.com/obituaries/john-cross-jr-pastor-at-bombed-church-dies-at-82/66673/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> Four girls—Addie Mae Collins (age 14, born April 18, 1949), Carol Denise McNair (age 11, born November 17, 1951), Carole Rosamond Robertson (age 14, born April 24, 1949), and Cynthia Dionne Wesley (age 14, born April 30, 1949)—were killed in the attack.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.congress.gov/congressional-record/2013/04/24/house-section/article/H2261-1 |title=Awarding Congressional Gold Medal to Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, and Cynthia Wesley |publisher=[[United States House of Representatives]] |website=congress.gov |date=April 24, 2013 |access-date=March 7, 2015 }}</ref> The explosion was so intense that one of the girls' bodies was [[Decapitation|decapitated]] and so badly mutilated that her body could be identified only through her clothing and a ring.<ref>{{cite news |title=From the archive, 16 September 1963: Black church bombed in Birmingham, Alabama |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/16/16th-street-baptist-church-birmingham-alabama-1963 |work=[[The Guardian]] |date=September 16, 2014 |access-date=May 27, 2019 }}</ref> Another victim was killed by a piece of [[Mortar (masonry)|mortar]] embedded in her skull.<ref name=recalls>{{cite news |url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94640715 |title=Father Recalls Deadly Blast At Ala. Baptist Church |website=npr.org |date=September 15, 2008 |access-date=May 27, 2019 }}</ref> The pastor of the church, the Reverend John Cross, recollected in 2001 that the girls' bodies were found "stacked on top of each other, clung together".<ref name="Lakeland Ledger Apr. 25, 2001">{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=heRNAAAAIBAJ&pg=6486,3411789 |work=[[The Ledger]] |date=April 25, 2001 |access-date=May 27, 2019 |title=Trial of Bombing Suspect Begins |first=Jay |last=Reeves |agency=Associated Press }}</ref> All four girls were pronounced dead on arrival at the [[UAB Hospital|Hillman Emergency Clinic]].<ref>{{cite news |url=http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2013/09/inside_the_emergency_room_wher.html |work=[[al.com]] |date=September 15, 2013 |title='No screaming, only crying': Witnesses remember infamous Sunday of 1963 church bombing (photos, videos) |first=Barnett |last=Wright |access-date=May 27, 2019 }}</ref> Between 14 and 22 additional people were injured in the explosion,<ref>{{Cite web|date=October 8, 2019|title=1963 Birmingham Church Bombing Fast Facts|url=https://www.cnn.com/2013/06/13/us/1963-birmingham-church-bombing-fast-facts/index.html|access-date=June 17, 2020|website=CNN}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|last=Birmingham Times|date=February 12, 2019|title=New Memorial for 16th St. Baptist Church on Sun, 56 Years After Bombing|url=https://www.birminghamtimes.com/2019/09/new-memorial-for-16th-st-baptist-church-on-sun-56-years-after-bombing/|access-date=June 17, 2020|website=The Birmingham Times|language=en-US}}</ref> one of whom was Addie Mae's younger sister, 12-year-old Sarah Collins.<ref>{{cite news|title=16th Street Baptist Church Bombing: Forty Years Later, Birmingham Still Struggles with Violent Past|work=National Public Radio: All Things Considered|date=September 15, 2003|url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1431932 |access-date=May 27, 2019 }}</ref> She had 21 pieces of glass embedded in her face and was blinded in one eye.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.thedailybeast.com/40-years-for-justice-did-the-fbi-cover-for-the-birmingham-bombers |work=[[The Daily Beast]] |date=September 15, 2013 |access-date=May 27, 2019 |title=40 years for Justice: Did the FBI Cover for the Birmingham Bombers? }}</ref> In her later recollections of the bombing, Collins would recall that in the moments immediately before the explosion, she had watched her sister, Addie, tying her [[sash|dress sash]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/m_r/randall/birmingham.htm |title=About the 1963 Birmingham Bombing |editor-first=Cary |editor-last=Nelson |work=The Modern American Poetry Site |publisher=Department of English, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign |access-date=May 28, 2019 |archive-date=June 20, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100620081816/http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/m_r/randall/birmingham.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref> Another sister of Addie Mae Collins, 16-year-old Junie Collins, would later recall that shortly before the explosion, she had been sitting in the basement of the church reading the [[Bible]] and had observed Addie Mae Collins tying the dress sash of Carol Denise McNair before she returned upstairs to the ground floor of the church.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/beauty-from-the-ashes-of-16th-street-baptist-church/ |work=TheGospelCoalition.org |title=Beauty from the Ashes of 16th Street Baptist Church |date=September 11, 2013 |first=Melissa |last=Huff |access-date=May 27, 2019 }}</ref> ==Reactions== ===Unrest and tensions=== {{Further|Shooting of Johnny Robinson}} 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.<ref>{{cite magazine |last1=Padgett | first1=Tim |last2=Sikora | first2=Frank |date=September 22, 2003 |title=The Legacy of Virgil Ware | url=http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,485698,00.html |magazine=TIME | access-date=July 19, 2018 }}</ref> Police urged parents of black and white youths to keep their children indoors, as the Governor of Alabama, [[George Wallace]], ordered an additional 300 state police and 500 [[Alabama National Guard]]smen to assist in quelling unrest.<ref>{{cite news |title=Church Bomb Kills 4 Girls in Ala.; 2 Die in Fighting|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/33870324/16th-street-baptist-church-bombing-63/ |work=[[Detroit Free Press]] |date=September 16, 1963 |access-date=February 26, 2023 |agency=United Press International }}</ref> The Birmingham City Council convened an emergency meeting to propose safety measures for the city, although proposals for a [[curfew]] were rejected. Within 24 hours of the bombing, a minimum of five businesses and properties had been firebombed and numerous cars—most of which were driven by whites—had been stoned by rioting youths.<ref name="Washington Post Sept. 16, 1963"/> In response to the church bombing, described by the Mayor of Birmingham, [[Albert Boutwell]], as "just sickening", the [[United States Attorney General|Attorney General]], [[Robert F. Kennedy]], dispatched 25 FBI agents, including explosives experts, to Birmingham to conduct a thorough [[Forensic science|forensic]] investigation.<ref>{{cite news |title=Six Dead After Church Bombing |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/churches/archives1.htm |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |agency=United Press International|date=September 16, 1963 |access-date=February 26, 2023 }}</ref> [[File:Congress of Racial Equality and members of the All Souls Church, Unitarian march in memory of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing victims.jpg|thumb|right|[[Congress of Racial Equality]] and members of the [[All Souls Church, Unitarian (Washington, D.C.)|All Souls Church]] march in memory of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing victims on September 22, 1963]] Although reports of the bombing and the loss of four children's lives were glorified by white supremacists, who in many instances chose to celebrate the loss as "four less [[nigger]]s",<ref name=freeatlast>{{cite book |title=Free at Last: A History of the Civil Rights Movement and Those Who Died in the Struggle |date=May 20, 1993 |first=Sara |last=Bullard |url=https://archive.org/details/freeatlasthistor0000bull |url-access=registration |isbn=978-0195083811 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |pages=[https://archive.org/details/freeatlasthistor0000bull/page/63 63]–64 }}</ref> as news of the church bombing and the fact that four young girls had been killed in the explosion reached the national and international [[news media|press]], many felt that they had not taken the civil rights struggle seriously enough. 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. In this speech, Morgan lamented: "Who did it [the bombing]? We all did it! The 'who' is every little individual who talks about the 'niggers' and spreads the seeds of his hate to his neighbor and his son ... What's it like living in Birmingham? No one ever really has known and no one will until this city becomes part of the United States."<ref name=cohen>{{cite news |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/09/the-speech-that-shocked-birmingham-the-day-after-the-church-bombing/279565/ |work=[[The Atlantic]] |date=September 13, 2013 |title=The Speech That Shocked Birmingham the Day After the Church Bombing |first=Andrew |last=Cohen |access-date=May 28, 2019 }}</ref> A ''[[Milwaukee Sentinel]]'' editorial opined, "For the rest of the nation, the Birmingham church bombing should serve to goad the conscience. The deaths ... in a sense, are on the hands of each of us."<ref>{{cite magazine|last=McKissack|first=Frederick|url=https://progressive.org/op-eds/50-years-birmingham-bombing-we/ |title=Fifty Years After Birmingham Bombing, Where are We? |magazine=[[The Progressive]] |date=September 15, 2013 |access-date=August 10, 2023}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title= Our American Story: America Sees the Truth |url=https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/america-sees-truth|work=National Museum of African American History and Culture|access-date=August 10, 2023}}</ref> Two more black youths, [[Shooting of Johnny Robinson|Johnny Robinson]] and [[Virgil Lamar Ware|Virgil Ware]], were shot to death in Birmingham within seven hours of the Sunday morning bombing. Robinson, aged 16, was shot in the back by Birmingham police officer Jack Parker as he fled down an alley, after ignoring police orders to halt.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Mangun |first=Kimberley |date=January 2, 2014 |title=Driving the Discussion from Relevance to Resonance: How Historians Can Inspire Passion for Place and People |url=http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08821127.2014.881234 |journal=American Journalism |language=en |volume=31 |issue=1 |pages=150–160 |doi=10.1080/08821127.2014.881234 |s2cid=155045692 |issn=0882-1127}}</ref> The police were reportedly responding to black youths throwing rocks at cars driven by white people. Robinson died before reaching the hospital. Ware, aged 13, was shot in the cheek and chest with a revolver<ref name="William O. Bryant" /> in a residential suburb {{convert|15|mi|km}} north of the city. A 16-year-old white youth named Larry Sims fired the gun (given to him by another youth named Michael Farley) at Ware, who was sitting on the handlebars of a bicycle ridden by his brother. Sims and Farley had been riding home from an anti-integration rally which had denounced the church bombing.<ref name="TIME Sep. 22, 2003">{{cite magazine |url=http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,485698,00.html |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]] |date=September 22, 2003 |title=The Legacy of Virgil Ware |first1=Tim |last1=Padgett |first2=Frank |last2=Sikora |access-date=May 27, 2019}}</ref> When he spotted Ware and his brother, Sims fired twice, reportedly with his eyes closed. (Sims and Farley were later convicted of second-degree manslaughter,<ref>{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?&id=AmYeAAAAIBAJ&pg=4698,902659 |first=Jay |last=Reeves |work=[[TimesDaily]] |date=May 7, 2004 |access-date=May 27, 2019 |agency=Associated Press |title=Ceremony recalls victim of civil rights violence }}</ref> although the judge [[Suspended sentence|suspended]] their sentences and imposed two years' [[probation]] upon each youth.<ref name="TIME Sep. 22, 2003"/><ref name=informant>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RsPxhQil8vwC&pg=PA88 |title=The Informant: The FBI, the Ku Klux Klan, and the Murder of Viola Liuzzo |page=88 |isbn=978-0300106350 |publisher=[[Yale University Press]] |date=May 11, 2005}}</ref>) Some civil rights activists blamed [[George Wallace]], Governor of Alabama and an outspoken segregationist, for creating the climate that had led to the killings. One week before the bombing, Wallace granted an interview with ''[[The New York Times]]'', in which he said he believed Alabama needed a "few first-class funerals" to stop racial integration.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.sptimes.com/2003/05/04/Columns/Drawn_back_to_Birming.shtml |title=Columns: Drawn back to Birmingham |first=Bill |last=Maxwell |work=[[Tampa Bay Times|St. Petersburg Times]] |date=May 4, 2003 |access-date=May 27, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030513050541/http://www.sptimes.com/2003/05/04/Columns/Drawn_back_to_Birming.shtml |archive-date=May 13, 2003 }}</ref> The city of Birmingham initially offered a $52,000 reward for the arrest of the bombers. Governor Wallace offered an additional $5,000 on behalf of the state of Alabama. Although this donation was accepted,<ref name="crimes and trials"/>{{rp|274}} Martin Luther King Jr. is known to have sent Wallace a [[Telegraphy|telegram]] saying, "the blood of four little children ... is on your hands. Your irresponsible and misguided actions have created in Birmingham and Alabama the atmosphere that has induced continued violence and now murder."<ref name="Washington Post Sept. 16, 1963" /><ref>{{cite book |title=1963: The Year of Hope and Hostility |publisher=Lulu.com |isbn=978-0989662000 |date=2013 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/1963yearofhopeho0000will/page/184 184]–185 |url=https://archive.org/details/1963yearofhopeho0000will |url-access=registration |first=Byron |last=Williams |access-date=May 27, 2019 }}</ref> ===Funerals=== Carole Rosamond Robertson was laid to rest in a private family funeral held on September 17, 1963.<ref name="Park City Daily News Sept. 19, 1963">{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=jRsfAAAAIBAJ&pg=4194,1375176 |title=Three Bomb Victims Are Buried |work=[[The Daily News (Kentucky)|Park City Daily News]] |agency=Associated Press |date=September 19, 1963 |access-date=May 27, 2019 }}</ref> Reportedly, Carole's mother, Alpha, had expressly requested that her daughter be buried separately from the other victims. She was distressed about a remark made by Martin Luther King, who had said that the mindset that enabled the murder of the four girls was the "[[apathy]] and [[Contentment|complacency]]" of black people in Alabama.<ref name="crimes and trials">{{cite book |isbn=978-0313341090 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UNex7XqLuiIC&pg=PA272 |first1=Steven |last1=Chermak |first2=Frankie Y. |last2=Bailey |title=Crimes and Trials of the Century |access-date=May 27, 2019 |date=2007 | publisher=ABC-CLIO }}</ref>{{rp|272}} The service for Carole Rosamond Robertson was held at St. John's African Methodist Episcopal Church. In attendance were 1,600 people. At this service, the Reverend C. E. Thomas told the congregation: "The greatest tribute you can pay to Carole is to be calm, be lovely, be kind, be innocent."<ref>{{cite news |title=Hundreds Mourn At Rites |agency=Associated Press |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=X7wqAAAAIBAJ&pg=3807,3815099 |work=[[Sarasota Herald-Tribune]] |date=September 18, 1963 |access-date=May 27, 2019 }}</ref> Carole Robertson was buried in a blue casket at Shadow Lawn Cemetery.<ref>{{cite news |title=First of 4 Birmingham Bomb Victims is Buried |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=sGY8AAAAIBAJ&pg=686,1625362 |work=[[Baltimore Afro-American]] |date=September 21, 1963 |access-date=May 27, 2019 |first=James D. |last=Williams }}</ref> [[File:Funeral program for church bombings.jpg|180px|right|thumb|Funeral program for Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, and Carol Denise McNair]] On September 18, the funeral of the three other girls killed in the bombing was held at the Sixth Avenue Baptist Church. Although no city officials attended this service,<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/civilrights/ |title=We Shall Overcome Historic Places of the Civil Rights Movement |website=nps.gov |publisher=[[National Public Radio]] |access-date=November 19, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190525184307/https://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/civilrights/ |archive-date=May 25, 2019 |url-status=bot: unknown }}</ref> an estimated 800 clergymen of all races were among the attendees. Also present was Martin Luther King Jr. In a speech conducted before the burials of the girls, King addressed an estimated 3,300<ref>{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=XcZaAAAAIBAJ&pg=4313,3210110 |title=Over 3,000 Attend Bomb Victims' Rites |work=[[Pittsburgh Post-Gazette]] |date=September 19, 1963 |access-date=May 27, 2019 |agency=Associated Press }}</ref> mourners—including numerous white people—with a speech saying: {{Quote|This tragic day may cause the white side to come to terms with its conscience. In spite of the darkness of this hour, we must not become bitter ... We must not lose faith in our white brothers. Life is hard. At times as hard as [[crucible steel]], but, today, you do not walk alone.<ref name="not in vain">{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=yswpAAAAIBAJ&pg=6166,4124115 |work=Ocala [[Star-Banner]] |title=Funeral Speakers Say Deaths Of Three Children Not In Vain |date=September 19, 1963 |agency=Associated Press |access-date=May 27, 2019 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.huffpost.com/entry/rev-martin-luther-kings-e_b_3930450 |title=Martin Luther King's 'Eulogy for the Martyred Children' |first=Peter |last=Dreier |date=September 15, 2013 |work=[[Huffington Post]] |access-date=May 28, 2019 }}</ref>}} As the girls' coffins were taken to their graves, King directed that those present remain solemn and forbade any singing, shouting or demonstrations. These instructions were relayed to the crowd present by a single youth with a bullhorn.<ref name="not in vain"/> ==Initial investigation== Initially, investigators theorized that a bomb thrown from a passing car had caused the explosion at the 16th Street Baptist church. But by September 20, the FBI was able to confirm that the explosion had been caused by a device that was purposely planted beneath the steps to the church, close to the women's lounge.<ref>{{cite magazine|last=Garrow|first=David|url=https://www.newsweek.com/back-birmingham-174224 |title=Back To Birmingham |magazine=[[Newsweek]] |date=July 20, 1997 |access-date=May 11, 2023}}</ref> A section of wire and remnants of red plastic were discovered there, which could have been part of a timing device. (The plastic remnants were later lost by investigators.)<ref name=terror/>{{rp|63}} Within days of the bombing, investigators began to focus their attention upon a KKK [[Schism|splinter group]] known as the "Cahaba Boys". The Cahaba Boys had formed earlier in 1963, as they felt that the KKK was becoming restrained and impotent in response to concessions granted to black people to end racial segregation. This group had previously been linked to several bomb attacks at black-owned businesses and the homes of black community leaders throughout the spring and summer of 1963.<ref name=terror>{{cite book |title=1963 Birmingham Church Bombing: The Ku Klux Klan's History of Terror |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SRSljuExVuIC&pg=PT31 |isbn=9780756540920 |first=Lisa |last=Klobuchar |year = 2009| publisher=Capstone }}</ref>{{rp|57}} Although the Cahaba Boys had fewer than 30 active members,<ref name=ghosts>{{cite news |title=The ghosts of Alabama: After 37 years, two men are indicted for a bombing that transfigured the civil rights movement |url=http://edition.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/time/2000/05/22/ghosts.html |work=[[CNN]] |date=May 22, 2000 |access-date=May 27, 2019 |first=Christopher John |last=Farley }}</ref> among them were Thomas Blanton Jr., Herman Cash, Robert Chambliss, and Bobby Cherry. Investigators also gathered numerous witness statements attesting to a group of white men in a turquoise [[1957 Chevrolet]] who had been seen near the church in the early hours of the morning of September 15.<ref name=painful>{{cite news |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-apr-14-mn-50901-story.html |title=Birmingham's Painful Past Reopened |first=Mike |last=Clary |work=[[Los Angeles Times]] |date=April 14, 2001 |access-date=May 27, 2019 }}</ref> These witness statements specifically indicated that a white man had exited the car and walked toward the steps of the church. (The physical description by witnesses of this person varied, and could have matched either Bobby Cherry or Robert Chambliss.<ref name="crimes and trials"/>) Chambliss was questioned by the FBI on September 26.<ref name=informant/>{{rp|386}} On September 29, he was [[indictment|indicted]] upon charges of illegally purchasing and transporting [[dynamite]] on September 4, 1963. He and two acquaintances, John Hall and Charles Cagle, were each convicted in state court upon a charge of illegally possessing and transporting dynamite on October 8. Each received a $100 fine ({{Inflation|US|100|1963|r=-1|fmt=eq}}){{Inflation/fn|US}} and a suspended 180-day jail sentence.<ref>{{cite book |title=It Happened in Alabama |isbn=978-0762761135 |page=102 |publisher=[[Globe Pequot Press]] |date=2011 |first=Jackie |last=Sheckler Finch |access-date=May 28, 2019 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cRwPIgSBlygC&pg=PA102 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news|first=John |last=Herbers |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1963/10/09/archives/birmingham-klansman-guilty-in-dynamite-case-two-other-defendants.html |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=October 9, 1963 |access-date=September 16, 2013 |title=Birmingham Klansman Guilty in Dynamite Case; Two Other Defendants Face Trial Today--Dr. King Gives City an Ultimatum on Jobs }}</ref> At the time, no federal charges were filed against Chambliss or any of his fellow conspirators in relation to the bombing.<ref name="fbi">{{cite web |url=https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/news/stories/2007/september/bapbomb_092609 |url-status=live |title=FBI: A Byte Out of History: The '63 Baptist Church Bombing |website=fbi.gov |publisher=[[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] |access-date=November 21, 2010| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20101013071422/https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2007/september/bapbomb_092609| archive-date=13 October 2010 }}</ref> ===FBI closure of case=== The FBI encountered difficulties in their initial investigation into the bombing. A later report stated: "By 1965, we had [four] serious suspects—namely Thomas Blanton Jr., Herman Frank Cash, Robert Chambliss, and Bobby Frank Cherry, all Klan members—but witnesses were reluctant to talk and [[Real evidence|physical evidence]] was lacking. Also, at that time, information from our surveillance was not admissible in court. As a result, no federal charges were filed in the '60s."<ref name="FBI">{{cite web |url=https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/news/stories/2007/september/bapbomb_092609 |url-status=live |title=FBI: A Byte Out of History: The '63 Baptist Church Bombing |website=fbi.gov |publisher=[[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] |access-date=November 21, 2010| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20101013071422/https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2007/september/bapbomb_092609| archive-date=13 October 2010}}</ref> On May 13, 1965, local investigators and the FBI formally named Blanton, Cash, Chambliss, and Cherry as the perpetrators of the bombing, with Robert Chambliss the likely ringleader of the four.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://blackhistorycollection.org/2014/09/30/murderer-of-4-birmingham-girls-found-guilty-38-yrs-later/ |access-date=May 28, 2019 |work=blackhistorycollection.org |first=Chris |last=Preitauer |title=Murderer Of 4 Birmingham Girls Found Guilty (38 yrs later) |date=September 30, 2014 }}</ref> This information was relayed to the Director of the FBI, [[J. Edgar Hoover]];<ref name="wsws.org May 5, 2001">{{cite news |url=https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2001/05/birm-m05.html |work=[[World Socialist Web Site]] |date=May 5, 2001 |access-date=May 27, 2019 |title=Former Klansman convicted in deadly 1963 bombing of Birmingham, Alabama church |first=Kate |last=Randall }}</ref> however, no prosecutions of the four suspects ensued. There had been a history of mistrust between local and [[Federal government of the United States|federal]] investigators.<ref name="Al.com May 23, 2002">{{Cite web |work=[[Al.com]] |first=Chanda |last=Temple |url=http://www.al.com/specialreport/index.ssf?bombing%2Fbhm_cherry.html |title=Cherry convicted: Jury verdict in bombing hailed as 'justice finally' |access-date=February 13, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150921001131/http://www.al.com/specialreport/index.ssf?bombing%2Fbhm_cherry.html |archive-date=September 21, 2015 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Later the same year, J. Edgar Hoover formally blocked any impending federal prosecutions against the suspects,<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2001/05/05/no-thanks-to-hoover/4fdbbadb-c7d7-4ed5-aa65-cd3a45c1ed20/ |title=No Thanks to Hoover |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |date=May 5, 2001 |first=Colbert I. |last=King |access-date=September 25, 2021 }}</ref> and refused to disclose any evidence his agents had obtained with state or federal prosecutors.<ref name=waddell>{{cite news |url=https://www.huffpost.com/entry/that-which-might-have-bee_b_3927505 |title="That Which Might Have Been, Birmingham, 1963": 50 Year Anniversary |work=[[Huffington Post]] |date=September 15, 2013 |first=Amy |last=Waddell |access-date=May 27, 2019 }}</ref> In 1968, the FBI formally closed their investigation into the bombing without filing charges against any of their named suspects. The files were [[Record sealing|sealed]] by order of J. Edgar Hoover. ==Resulting legislation== [[File: Lyndon Johnson signing Civil Rights Act, July 2, 1964.jpg|thumb|right|President [[Lyndon Johnson]] signs into effect the [[Civil Rights Act of 1964]]. July 2, 1964]] The Birmingham campaign, the [[March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom|March on Washington]] in August, the September bombing of the 16th Street Baptist church, and the November [[assassination of John F. Kennedy]]—an ardent supporter of the civil rights cause who had proposed a Civil Rights Act of 1963 on national television<ref name="Civil Rights Act of 1964">{{cite web |url=https://www.nps.gov/articles/civil-rights-act.htm |access-date=May 28, 2019 |title=Civil Rights Act of 1964 |work=[[National Park Service]] }}</ref>—increased worldwide awareness of and sympathy toward the civil rights cause in the United States. Following the assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, newly-[[Inauguration|inaugurated]] President [[Lyndon Johnson]] continued to press for passage of the civil rights bill sought by his predecessor. On July 2, 1964, President Lyndon Johnson signed into effect the [[Civil Rights Act of 1964]]. In attendance were major leaders of the Civil Rights Movement, including Martin Luther King Jr.<ref name="Civil Rights Act of 1964"/> This legislation prohibited discrimination based on race, color, religion, gender, or national origin; to ensure full, equal rights of African Americans before the law. ==Formal reopening of the investigation== Officially, the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing remained unsolved until after [[Bill Baxley|William Baxley]] was elected [[Attorney General of Alabama]] in January 1971. Baxley had been a student at the University of Alabama when he heard about the bombing in 1963, and later recollected: "I wanted to do something, but I didn't know what."<ref>{{cite news |title=Birmingham Church Bombing Conviction Ended an Obsession of the Prosecutor |first=Ray |last=Jenkins |newspaper=[[The Day (New London)|The Day]] |date=November 21, 1977 |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=zAoiAAAAIBAJ&pg=1080,4019968 |access-date=November 21, 2010}}</ref> 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".<ref>{{cite news |title=Bill Baxley Reflects on 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing |first=Yasmin |last=Moreno |url=https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/10/17/bill-baxley-reflects-on-16th-street-baptist-church-bombing/ |work=[[The Harvard Crimson]] |date=October 17, 2013 |access-date=May 27, 2019 }}</ref> Baxley formally reopened the case in 1971. He was able to build trust with key witnesses, some of whom had been reluctant to testify in the first investigation. Other witnesses obtained identified Chambliss as the individual who had placed the bomb beneath the church. Baxley also gathered evidence proving Chambliss had purchased dynamite from a store in [[Jefferson County, Alabama|Jefferson County]] less than two weeks before the bomb was planted,<ref>{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/wearyfeetresteds00town |url-access=registration |title=Weary Feet, Rested Souls: A Guided History of the Civil Rights Movement |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |page=[https://archive.org/details/wearyfeetresteds00town/page/84 84] |access-date=May 27, 2019 |first=Townsend |last=Davis |isbn=978-0393045925 |date=1998 }}</ref> upon the pretext the dynamite was to be used to clear land the KKK had purchased near Highway 101.<ref name=carry>{{cite book|first=Diane|last=McWhorter|author-link=Diane McWhorter|date=2001|title=Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama, the Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution|publisher=Simon & Schuster|isbn=978-1-4767-0951-2 |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780743217729 |url-access=registration|page=[https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780743217729/page/496 496]}}</ref>{{rp|497}} This testimony of witnesses and evidence was used to formally construct a case against Robert Chambliss. After Baxley requested access to the original FBI files on the case, he learned that evidence accumulated by the FBI against the named suspects between 1963 and 1965 had not been revealed to the local prosecutors in Birmingham.<ref name=painful/> Although he met with initial resistance from the FBI,<ref name="crimes and trials" />{{rp|278}} in 1976 Baxley was formally presented with some of the evidence which had been compiled by the FBI, after he publicly threatened to expose the [[United States Department of Justice|Department of Justice]] for withholding evidence which could result in the prosecution of the perpetrators of the bombing.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=131059 |work=[[ABC News]] |date=May 5, 2002 |title=Former Prosecutor Says FBI Delayed Alabama Conviction |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180719085413/https://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=131059 |archive-date=July 19, 2018 |access-date=May 27, 2019 }}</ref> ===Prosecution of Robert Chambliss=== On November 14, 1977, Robert Chambliss, then aged 73, stood trial in Birmingham's Jefferson County Courthouse. Chambliss had been indicted by a grand jury on September 24, 1977, charged with four counts of murder, for each dead child in the 1963 church bombing.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=jC4dAAAAIBAJ&pg=4849,7822272 |work=[[The Tuscaloosa News]] |date=October 30, 1977 |title=Bombing Trial Postponed |agency=Associated Press |access-date=May 27, 2019 }}</ref> But at a pre-trial hearing on October 18,<ref name=changed>{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=-XMpAAAAIBAJ&pg=1210,4566059 |work=[[Gadsden Times]] |date=October 30, 1977 |title=Trial Date Changed |access-date=May 27, 2019 |agency=Associated Press }}</ref> Judge Wallace Gibson ruled that the defendant would be tried upon one count of murder—that of Carol Denise McNair<ref name=changed/>—and that the remaining three counts of murder would remain, but that he would not be charged in relation to these three deaths.<!--Why? What was the explanation? --> Before his trial, Chambliss remained free upon a $200,000 bond raised by family and supporters and posted October 18.<ref name=changed/><ref>{{cite news |title=Trial Set For Nov. 14 |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=-HMpAAAAIBAJ&pg=1078,4507733 |work=[[Gadsden Times]] |date=October 29, 1977 |access-date=May 27, 2019 |agency=Associated Press }}</ref> Chambliss pleaded [[Not guilty (plea)|not guilty]] to the charges, insisting that although he had purchased a case of dynamite less than two weeks before the bombing, he had given the dynamite to a Klansman and FBI [[agent provocateur]] named [[Gary Thomas Rowe|Gary Thomas Rowe Jr.]]<ref>{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=RggdAAAAIBAJ&pg=6968,1341697 |work=[[Tuscaloosa News]] |date=October 4, 1978 |title=Rowe Will Fight Extradition To State |access-date=May 27, 2019 |agency=Associated Press }}</ref> To discredit Chambliss's claims that Rowe had committed the bombing, prosecuting attorney William Baxley introduced two law enforcement officers to testify as to Chambliss's inconsistent claims of innocence. The first of these witnesses was Tom Cook, a retired Birmingham police officer, who testified on November 15 as to a conversation he had had with Chambliss in 1975. Cook testified that Chambliss had acknowledged his guilt regarding his 1963 arrest for possession of dynamite, but that he (Chambliss) was insistent he had given the dynamite to Rowe before the bombing. Following Cook's testimony, Baxley introduced police sergeant Ernie Cantrell.<ref>{{cite book|first=Elizabeth H.|last=Cobbs|author2=Smith, Petric J.|date=1994|title=Long Time Coming: An Insider's Story of the Birmingham Church Bombing that Rocked the World|publisher=Crane Hill Publishers|isbn=978-1-881548-10-2|url=https://archive.org/details/longtimecoming00petr}}</ref> He testified that Chambliss had visited his headquarters in 1976 and that he had attempted to affix the blame for the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing upon an altogether different member of the KKK. Cantrell also stated that Chambliss had boasted of his knowledge of how to construct a "drip-method bomb" using a [[fishing float]] and a leaking bucket of water. (Upon cross-examination by defense attorney Art Hanes Jr., Cantrell conceded that Chambliss had emphatically denied bombing the church.) One individual who went to the scene to help search for survivors, Charles Vann, later recollected that he had observed a solitary white man whom he recognized as Robert Edward Chambliss (a known member of the Ku Klux Klan) standing alone and motionless at a barricade. According to Vann's later testimony, Chambliss was standing "looking down toward the church, like a firebug watching his fire".<ref name="CrimeLibrary.com p. 5"/> One of the key witnesses to testify on behalf of the prosecution was the Reverend Elizabeth Cobbs, Chambliss's niece. Reverend Cobbs stated that her uncle had repeatedly informed her he had been engaged in what he referred to as a "one-man battle" against blacks since the 1940s.<ref>{{cite news |title=Chambliss is Identified |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=wyFUAAAAIBAJ&pg=5737,2303047 |work=[[Boca Raton News]] |date=November 16, 1977 |access-date=May 27, 2019 |agency=United Press International }}</ref> Moreover, Cobbs testified on November 16 that, on the day before the bombing, Chambliss had told her that he had in his possession enough dynamite to "flatten half of Birmingham". Cobbs also testified that approximately one week after the bombing, she had observed Chambliss watching a news report relating to the four girls killed in the bombing. According to Cobbs, Chambliss had said: "It [the bomb] wasn't meant to hurt anybody ... it didn't go off when it was supposed to."<ref name="Eugene Register-Guard Oct. 29, 1985"/> Another witness to testify was William Jackson, who testified as to his joining the KKK in 1963 and becoming acquainted with Chambliss shortly thereafter. Jackson testified that Chambliss had expressed frustration that the Klan was "dragging its feet" on the issue of racial integration,<ref name="Observer-Reporter Nov. 19, 1977"/> and said he was eager to form a splinter group more dedicated to resistance.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=Q11OAAAAIBAJ&pg=7109,5438808 |work=[[Lakeland Ledger]] |date=November 19, 1977 |title=Former Klansman Convicted Of Murder |access-date=May 27, 2019 |agency=Associated Press }}</ref> In his [[closing argument]] before the jury on November 17,<ref>{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=Fk80AAAAIBAJ&pg=3876%2C1257552 |title=Former Klansman Convicted In Bombing Death |work=[[Sarasota Herald-Tribune]] |date=November 19, 1977 |access-date=May 27, 2019 |first=Garry |last=Mitchell |agency=Associated Press }}</ref> Baxley acknowledged that Chambliss was not the sole perpetrator of the bombing.<ref>{{cite magazine |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=exnkHesj3bAC&pg=PA314 |magazine=[[The Crisis]] |date=November 1978 |page=314 |title=Another Redemption: Baxley in Birmingham |first=Louis D. |last=Mitchell |access-date=May 27, 2019 }}</ref> He expressed regret that the state was unable to request the death penalty in this case, as the death penalty in effect in the state in 1963 had been [[repeal]]ed. The current state death penalty law applied only to crimes committed after its passage. Baxley noted that the day of the closing argument fell upon what would have been Carol Denise McNair's 26th birthday and that she would have likely been a mother by this date. He referred to testimony given by her father, Chris McNair, about the family's loss, and requested that the jury return a verdict of guilty.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=umdQAAAAIBAJ&pg=3036,2084932 |title=Birmingham Bomb Case Goes to Jury |first=Howell |last=Raines |work=[[St. Petersburg Times]] |date=November 18, 1977 |access-date=May 27, 2019 }}</ref> In his [[rebuttal]] closing argument, defense attorney Art Hanes Jr. attacked the evidence presented by the prosecution as being purely [[circumstantial evidence|circumstantial]],<ref name="Rome News-Tribune Nov. 18, 1977">{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=2fUuAAAAIBAJ&pg=5876,2757715 |title=Chambliss Guilty |work=[[Rome News-Tribune]] |date=November 18, 1977 |access-date=May 27, 2019 |agency=Associated Press }}</ref> adding that, despite the existence of similar circumstantial evidence, Chambliss had not been prosecuted in 1963 of the church bombing. Hanes noted conflicting testimony among several of the 12 witnesses called by the defense to testify as to Chambliss's whereabouts on the day of the bombing. A policeman and a neighbor had each testified that Chambliss was at the home of a man named Clarence Dill on that day. Following the closing arguments, the jury retired to begin their deliberations, which lasted for over six hours and continued into the following day. On November 18, 1977,<ref name="Rome News-Tribune Nov. 18, 1977" /> they found Robert Chambliss guilty of the murder of Carol Denise McNair.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=3A4pAAAAIBAJ&pg=2363,3186990 |work=[[Gadsden Times]] |date=November 20, 1977 |agency=Associated Press |title=Puzzle Pieces Put Together in Bombing Case |access-date=May 27, 2019 }}</ref> He was sentenced to life imprisonment for her murder.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Anderson |first=S. Willoughby |title=The Past on Trial: Birmingham, the Bombing, and Restorative Justice |journal=California Law Review |volume=96 |number=2 |date=April 2008 |page=482 |jstor=20439181 }}</ref> At his sentencing, Chambliss stood before the judge and stated: "Judge, your honor, all I can say is God knows I have never killed anybody, never have bombed anything in my life ... I didn't bomb that church."<ref>{{cite news|title=Alabamian Guilty in '63 Blast that Killed Four Girls|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1977/11/19/archives/alabamian-guilty-in-63-church-blast-that-killed-4-girls-exklansman.html|work=The New York Times|date=November 18, 1977|access-date=October 4, 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=O8ZVAAAAIBAJ&pg=3258,4579574 |title=Ex-Klansman Found Guilty Of Bombing |work=[[Eugene Register-Guard]] |date=November 18, 1977 |access-date=May 28, 2019 |agency=UPI }}</ref> On the same afternoon that Chambliss's guilty verdict was announced, prosecutor Baxley issued a [[subpoena]] to Thomas Blanton to appear in court about the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. Although Baxley knew he had insufficient evidence to charge Blanton at this stage, he intended the subpoena to frighten Blanton into confessing his involvement and negotiating a plea deal to turn state evidence against his co-conspirators. Blanton, however, hired a lawyer and refused to answer any questions.<ref name=carry/>{{rp|574}} Chambliss appealed his conviction, as provided under the law, saying that much of the evidence presented at his trial—including testimony relating to his activities within the KKK—was circumstantial; that the 14-year delay between the crime and his trial violated his [[constitutional right]] to a speedy trial; and the prosecution had deliberately used the delay to try to gain an advantage over Chambliss's defense attorneys. This appeal was dismissed on May 22, 1979.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=1HMpAAAAIBAJ&pg=2768,4097430 |title=Ex-Klansman Loses Appeal |work=[[Gadsden Times]] |date=May 23, 1979 |access-date=May 27, 2019 |agency=Associated Press }}</ref> Robert Chambliss died in the Lloyd Noland Hospital and Health Center on October 29, 1985, at the age of 81.<ref>{{cite news |title=Klansman Guilty in Death |newspaper=[[The Pittsburgh Press]] |date=November 19, 1977 |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=dDYcAAAAIBAJ&pg=1601,1317883 |agency=UPI |access-date=November 21, 2010}}</ref> In the years since his incarceration, Chambliss had been confined to a solitary cell to protect him from attacks by fellow inmates. He had repeatedly proclaimed his innocence, insisting [[Gary Thomas Rowe|Gary Thomas Rowe Jr.]] was the actual perpetrator.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=gXk0AAAAIBAJ&pg=7041,945039 |title=Baxley Draws Attack |work=The Tuscaloosa News |date=September 4, 1978 |agency=Associated Press |access-date=May 27, 2019 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1985/10/30/us/robert-e-chambliss-figure-in-63-bombing.html |title=Robert E. Chambliss, Figure in '63 Bombing |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=October 30, 1985 |access-date=August 29, 2013 |quote=Robert Edward Chambliss ... who was convicted of murder in the 1963 bombing of a Birmingham church ... died yesterday in a hospital in Birmingham.}}</ref> ==Later prosecutions== In 1995, ten years after Chambliss died, the FBI reopened their investigation into the church bombing. It was part of a coordinated effort between local, state and federal governments to review cold cases of the civil rights era in the hopes of prosecuting perpetrators.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/may/23/usa.duncancampbell |work=[[The Guardian]] |date=May 23, 2002 |access-date=May 27, 2019 |title=Former Klansman Convicted of Deadly Alabama Church Bombing 40 Years On |first=Duncan |last=Campbell}}</ref> They unsealed 9,000 pieces of evidence previously gathered by the FBI in the 1960s (many of these documents relating to the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing had not been made available to DA William Baxley in the 1970s). In May 2000, the FBI publicly announced their findings that the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing had been committed by four members of the KKK splinter group known as the ''Cahaba Boys.'' The four individuals named in the FBI report were Blanton, Cash, Chambliss, and Cherry.<ref name=ghosts /> By the time of the announcement, Herman Cash had also died; however, Thomas Blanton and Bobby Cherry were still alive. Both were arrested.<ref>{{cite news|last=Leith |first=Sam |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1395117/Klansman-convicted-of-killing-black-girls.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220112/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1395117/Klansman-convicted-of-killing-black-girls.html |archive-date=January 12, 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |title=Klansman Convicted of Killing Black Girls |website=The Telegraph |date=May 23, 2002 |access-date=September 16, 2013 |location=London}}{{cbignore}}</ref> On May 16, 2000, a [[grand jury]] in Alabama indicted Thomas Edwin Blanton and Bobby Frank Cherry on eight counts each in relation to the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. Both named individuals were charged with four counts of first-degree murder, and four counts of universal malice.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://edition.cnn.com/2013/06/13/us/1963-birmingham-church-bombing-fast-facts/ |work=[[CNN]] |date=September 7, 2018 |access-date=May 28, 2019 |title=1963 Birmingham Church Bombing Fast Facts }}</ref> The following day, both men surrendered to police.<ref name=lastchance>{{cite book|first=T. K.|last=Thorne|date=2013|title=Last Chance for Justice: How Relentless Investigators Uncovered New Evidence Convicting the Birmingham Church Bombers|publisher=Lawrence Books|isbn=978-1-61374-864-0|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GaFuAAAAQBAJ |access-date=May 28, 2019 }}</ref>{{rp|162}} The state prosecution had originally intended to try both defendants together; however, the trial of Bobby Cherry was delayed due to the findings of a court-ordered psychiatric evaluation.<ref>{{cite news |title=As Church Bombing Trial Begins in Birmingham, the City's Past Is Very Much Present |first=Kevin |last=Sack |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |date=April 25, 2001 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/25/us/church-bombing-trial-begins-birmingham-city-s-past-very-much-present.html |access-date=November 21, 2010}}</ref> It concluded that [[vascular dementia]] had impaired his mind, therefore making Cherry mentally incompetent to stand trial or assist in his own defense.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=pF1IAAAAIBAJ&pg=2769,2868949 |title=A Long Time Coming |work=[[Toledo Blade]] |date=April 26, 2001 |access-date=May 28, 2019 }}</ref> On April 10, 2001, Judge James Garrett indefinitely postponed Cherry's trial, pending further medical analysis.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=fUogAAAAIBAJ&pg=5553,42631 |title=Cherry Found Mentally Sound |work=[[The Tuscaloosa News]] |date=June 1, 2001 |access-date=May 28, 2019 |agency=Associated Press }}</ref> In January 2002, Judge Garrett ruled Cherry mentally competent to stand trial and set an initial trial date for April 29. ===Thomas Edwin Blanton=== Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr. was brought to trial in Birmingham, Alabama, before Judge James Garrett on April 24, 2001.<ref name="wsws.org May 5, 2001"/> Blanton pleaded not guilty to the charges and chose not to testify on his behalf throughout the trial. In his [[opening statement]] to the jurors, defense attorney John Robbins acknowledged his client's affiliation with the Ku Klux Klan and his views on racial segregation. But, he warned the jury: "Just because you don't like him, that doesn't make him responsible for the bombing."<ref name="Lakeland Ledger Apr. 25, 2001"/> The prosecution called a total of seven witnesses to testify in their case against Blanton, including relatives of the victims, John Cross, the former pastor of the 16th Street Baptist Church; an FBI agent named William Fleming, and Mitchell Burns, a former Klansman who had become a paid FBI informant. Burns had secretly recorded several conversations with Blanton in which the latter (Blanton) had gloated when talking about the bombing, and had boasted the police would not catch him when he bombed another church.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=L1wpAAAAIBAJ&pg=5456,7112358 |work=[[The Tuscaloosa News]] |date=November 23, 2002 |title=Former Klansman who was Key Witness at Bombing Trial Dies |agency=Associated Press |access-date=May 28, 2019 }}</ref> The most crucial piece of evidence presented at Blanton's trial was an audio recording secretly taped by the FBI in June 1964, in which Blanton was recorded discussing his involvement in the bombing with his wife, who can be heard accusing her husband of conducting an affair with a woman named Waylen Vaughn two nights before the bombing. Although sections of the recording—presented in evidence on April 27—are unintelligible, Blanton can twice be heard mentioning the phrase "plan a bomb" or "plan the bomb". Most crucially, Blanton can also be heard saying that he was not with Miss Vaughn but, two nights before the bombing, was at a meeting with other Klansmen on a bridge above the [[Cahaba River]].<ref name="Star-News Apr. 28, 2001">{{cite news |title=Secret Tape Played at Trial |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=SQlPAAAAIBAJ&pg=6533,3381307 |work=[[Star-News]] |date=April 28, 2001 |first=Jay |last=Reeves |agency=Associated Press |access-date=May 28, 2019 }}</ref> He said: "You've got to have a meeting to plan a bomb."<ref name="Star-News Apr. 28, 2001"/> In addition to calling attention to flaws in the prosecution's case, the defense exposed inconsistencies in the memories of some prosecution witnesses who had testified. Blanton's attorneys criticized the validity and quality of the 16 tape recordings introduced as evidence,<ref>{{cite news |title=Church Bombing Verdict Hinges on how Jurors Understand Tapes |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=l7oeAAAAIBAJ&pg=6433,11863857 |first=Bob |last=Johnson |work=[[Spartanburg Herald-Journal]] |date=April 29, 2001 |access-date=May 28, 2019 }}</ref> arguing that the prosecution had edited and spliced the sections of the audio recording that were secretly obtained within Blanton's kitchen, reducing the entirety of the tape by 26 minutes. He said that the sections introduced as evidence were of poor audio quality, resulting in the prosecution presenting text transcripts of questionable accuracy to the jury. About the recordings made as Blanton conversed with Burns, Robbins emphasized that Burns had earlier testified that Blanton had never expressly said that he had made or planted the bomb.<ref>{{cite news |title=Jury Hears More Old Tapes in Church Bombing Trial |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=-YsvAAAAIBAJ&pg=4971,8096242 |work=[[Southeast Missourian]] |date=April 29, 2001 |access-date=May 28, 2019 |agency=[[Associated Press]] }}</ref> The defense portrayed the audiotapes introduced into evidence as the statements of "two [[redneck]]s driving around, drinking" and making false, ego-inflating claims to one another.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://edition.cnn.com/2001/LAW/05/01/church.bombing.05/index.html |work=[[CNN]] |date=May 1, 2001 |title=Birmingham church bomber guilty, gets four life terms |access-date=May 28, 2019 }}</ref> The trial lasted for one week. Seven witnesses testified on behalf of the prosecution, and two for the defense. One of the defense witnesses was a retired chef named Eddie Mauldin, who was called to testify to [[Discrediting tactic|discredit]] prosecution witnesses' statements that they had seen Blanton in the vicinity of the church before the bombing. Mauldin testified on April 30 that he had observed two men in a [[Rambler (automobile)|Rambler]] station wagon adorned with a Confederate flag repeatedly drive past the church immediately before the blast, and that, seconds after the bomb had exploded, the car had "burned rubber" as it drove away. (Thomas Blanton had owned a Chevrolet in 1963;<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/01/us/testimony-concludes-in-trial-on-birmingham-church-blast.html |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=May 1, 2001 |title=Testimony Concludes in Trial On Birmingham Church Blast |access-date=May 28, 2019 |agency=Associated Press }}</ref> neither Chambliss, Cash nor Cherry had owned such a vehicle.) Both counsels delivered their closing arguments before the jury on May 1. In his closing argument, prosecuting attorney and future U.S. Senator [[Doug Jones (politician)|Doug Jones]] said that although the trial was conducted 38 years after the bombing, it was no less important, adding: "It's never too late for the truth to be told ... It's never too late for a man to be held accountable for his crimes." Jones reviewed Blanton's extensive history with the Ku Klux Klan, before referring to the audio recordings presented earlier in the trial. Jones repeated the most damning statements Blanton had made in these recordings, before pointing at Blanton and stating: "That is a confession out of this man's mouth."<ref>''Crimes and Trials of the Century'' {{ISBN|978-0-313-34110-6}} p. 280</ref> Defense attorney John Robbins reminded the jury in his closing argument that his client was an admitted segregationist and a "loudmouth", but that was all that could be proven. He said this past was not the evidence upon which they should return their verdicts. Stressing that Blanton should not be judged for his beliefs, Robbins again vehemently criticized the validity and poor quality of the audio recordings presented, and the selectivity of the sections which had been introduced into evidence. Robbins also attempted to show that 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, could have been mistaken.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=pm4qAAAAIBAJ&pg=3211,8452 |title=Testimony Wraps up in Bombing Trial |work=[[The Dispatch (Lexington)|The Dispatch]]|agency=Associated Press |date=May 1, 2001 |access-date=May 28, 2019 }}</ref> The jury deliberated for two and a half hours before returning with a verdict finding Thomas Edwin Blanton guilty of four counts of first-degree murder.<ref>{{cite news |title=Former Klansman Convicted in 1963 Church Bombing |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=ros1AAAAIBAJ&pg=1516,107734 |work=[[Argus-Press|The Argus-Press]] |date=May 2, 2001 |access-date=May 28, 2019 |agency=Associated Press |first=Bob |last=Johnson }}</ref> 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 [[Last Judgment|Judgment Day]]."<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1328858/Klansman-given-life-for-1963-killings.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220112/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1328858/Klansman-given-life-for-1963-killings.html |archive-date=January 12, 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |title=Klansman given life for 1963 killings |first=Philip Delves |last=Broughton |date=2 May 2001 |work=[[The Daily Telegraph|The Telegraph]] |access-date=May 28, 2019 }}{{cbignore}}</ref> Blanton was sentenced to life imprisonment.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.alabamacivilrights.ua.edu/bham/cherry.html |website=alabamacivilrights.ua.edu |title=Birmingham: Bobby Frank Cherry |access-date=May 28, 2019 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Former Klansman faces prison in 1963 Killings |newspaper=[[The Vindicator (Ohio newspaper)|The Vindicator]] |date=May 2, 2001 |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=bQtJAAAAIBAJ&pg=6300%2C399406 |access-date=April 18, 2011}}</ref> He was incarcerated at the St. Clair Correctional Facility in [[Springville, Alabama]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.doc.state.al.us/InmateSearch |title=Blanton, Thomas Edwin |work=[[Alabama Department of Corrections]] }}</ref> Blanton was confined in a one-man cell under tight security. He seldom spoke of his involvement in the bombing, shunned social activity and rarely received visitors.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.apnews.com/f9ba07ddd38645b2951a0be9843abf41 |work=[[Associated Press]] |first=Jay |last=Reeves |date=September 10, 2013 |access-date=May 28, 2019 |title=1 Klansman survives Ala church bombing cases }}</ref> His first parole hearing was held on August 3, 2016. 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. Martin said: "The cold-blooded callousness of this hate crime has not diminished by the passage of time." The Board of Pardons and Paroles debated for less than 90 seconds before denying parole to Blanton.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.al.com/news/birmingham/2016/07/sixteenth_street_baptist_churc.html |title=Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bomber up for parole next month |first=Kent |last=Faulk |date=July 14, 2016 |work=[[The Birmingham News]] |access-date=July 16, 2016 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.al.com/news/birmingham/2016/08/alabama_board_considering_paro.html |title=16th Street Baptist Church bomber Thomas Blanton denied parole |first=Kent |last=Faulk |date=August 3, 2016 |work=[[The Birmingham News]] |access-date=August 6, 2016 }}</ref> Blanton died in prison from unspecified causes on June 26, 2020.<ref>{{cite web|title=Thomas Blanton, Who Bombed a Birmingham Church, Dies at 82|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/26/us/thomas-blanton-dead.html|last=Genzlinger|first=Neil|work=The New York Times|date=June 26, 2020|access-date=June 27, 2020}}</ref> ===Bobby Frank Cherry=== Bobby Frank Cherry was tried in Birmingham, Alabama, before Judge James Garrett, on May 6, 2002.<ref>{{cite book |title=Race, Law and Public Policy |isbn=978-1-58073-019-8 |page=426 |first=Robert Jr. |last=Johnson |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LRYDK0baMa4C&pg=PA426 |access-date=May 28, 2019 |publisher=[[Black Classic Press]] |year=1998 }}</ref> Cherry pleaded not guilty to the charges and did not testify on his own behalf during the trial. In his opening statement for the prosecution, Don Cochran presented his case: that the evidence would show that Cherry had participated in a conspiracy to commit the bombing and conceal evidence linking him to the crime and that he had later gloated over the deaths of the victims. Cochran also added that although the evidence to be presented would not conclusively show that Cherry had personally planted or ignited the bomb, the combined evidence would illustrate that he had [[aiding and abetting|aided and abetted]] in the commission of the act.<ref name=lastchance/>{{rp|ch. 35}} Cherry's defense attorney, Mickey Johnson, protested his client's innocence, citing that much of the evidence presented was circumstantial. He also noted that Cherry had initially been linked to the bombing by the FBI via an informant who had claimed, fifteen months after the bombing, that she had seen Cherry place the bomb at the church shortly before the bombing. Johnson warned the jurors they would have to distinguish between evidence and proof. Following the opening statements, the prosecution began presenting witnesses. Crucial testimony at Cherry's trial was delivered by his former wife, Willadean Brogdon, who had married Cherry in 1970. Brogdon testified on May 16 that Cherry had boasted to her that he had been the individual who planted the bomb beneath the steps to the church, then returned hours later to light the fuse to the dynamite. Brogdon also testified that Cherry had told her of his regret that children had died in the bombing, before adding his satisfaction that they would never reproduce. Although the credibility of Brogdon's testimony was called into dispute at the trial, forensic experts conceded that, although her account of the planting of the bombing differed from that which had been discussed in the previous perpetrators' trials, Brogdon's recollection of Cherry's account of the planting and subsequent lighting of the bomb could explain why no conclusive remnants of a timing device were discovered after the bombing.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/17/us/witnesses-say-ex-klansman-boasted-of-church-bombing.html |work=[[The New York Times]] |title=Witnesses Say Ex-Klansman Boasted of Church Bombing |first=Rick |last=Bragg |date=May 17, 2002 |access-date=May 28, 2019 }}</ref> (A fishing float attached to a section of wire, which may have been part of a timing device, was found {{convert|20|ft|m}} from the explosion crater<ref name="Rome News-Tribune Nov. 18, 1977"/> following the bombing. One of several vehicles severely damaged in the explosion was found to have carried fishing tackle.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=hT0dAAAAIBAJ&pg=6528,5860385 |title=Design of Bomb Still Uncertain 38 Years Later |work=[[The Tuscaloosa News]] |date=April 20, 2001 |first=Jay |last=Reeves |access-date=May 28, 2019 |agency=Associated Press }}</ref>) Barbara Ann Cross also testified for the prosecution. She is the daughter of the Reverend John Cross and was aged 13 in 1963. Cross had attended the same Sunday School class as the four victims on the day of the bombing and was slightly wounded in the attack. On May 15,<ref>{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=K9wfAAAAIBAJ&pg=1567,3065168 |work=[[Nevada Daily Mail]] |date=May 15, 2002 |first=Bob |last=Johnson |title=Explosives Expert Testifies In Church Bombing Trial |access-date=May 28, 2019 |agency=Associated Press }}</ref> Cross testified that prior to the explosion, she and the four girls killed had each attended a Youth Day Sunday School lesson in which the theme taught was how to react to a physical injustice. Cross testified that each girl present had been taught to contemplate how Jesus would react to affliction or injustice, and they were asked to learn to consider, "What Would Jesus Do?"<ref name=lastchance/> 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. Shortly thereafter, she had heard "the most horrible noise", before being struck on the head by debris. Throughout the trial, Cherry's defense attorney, Mickey Johnson, repeatedly observed that many of the prosecution's witnesses were either circumstantial or "inherently unreliable". Many of the same audiotapes presented in Blanton's trial were also introduced into evidence in the trial of Bobby Cherry. A key point contested as to the validity of the audiotapes being introduced into evidence, outside the hearing of the jury, was the fact that Cherry had no grounds to contest the introduction of the tapes into evidence, as, under the [[Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fourth Amendment]], neither his home or property had been subject to discreet recording by the FBI. Don Cochran disputed this position, arguing that Alabama law provides for "conspiracies to conceal evidence" to be proven by both inference and circumstantial evidence.<ref name=lastchance/> In spite of a rebuttal argument by the defense, Judge Garrett ruled that some sections were too prejudicial, but also that portions of some audio recordings could be introduced as evidence. Through these rulings, Mitchell Burns was called to testify on behalf of the prosecution. His testimony was restricted to the areas of the recordings permitted into evidence. [[File:Doug Jones Cherry Trial (cropped).jpg|160px|thumb|Prosecutor [[Doug Jones (politician)|Doug Jones]] points toward Bobby Cherry as he delivers his [[closing argument]] to the jury. May 21, 2002]] On May 21, 2002, both prosecution and defense attorneys delivered their closing arguments to the jury. In his closing argument for the prosecution, Don Cochran said the victims' "Youth Sunday [sermon] never happened ... because it was destroyed by this defendant's hate."<ref name=washingtontimes2002>{{cite news |url=https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2002/may/22/20020522-025235-4231r/ |title=Prosecutor Says Justice 'Overdue' in '63 Bombing |access-date=May 28, 2019 |agency=Associated Press |work=[[The Washington Times]] |date=May 22, 2002}}</ref> Cochran outlined Cherry's extensive record of racial violence dating back to the 1950s, and noted that he had experience and training in constructing and installing bombs from his service as a Marine demolition expert. 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. He said that Cherry had signed an [[affidavit]] in the presence of the FBI on October 9, 1963, confirming that he, Chambliss, and Blanton were at these premises on this date.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/22/us/more-than-just-a-racist-now-the-jury-must-decide.html |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=May 22, 2002 |access-date=May 28, 2019 |first=Rick |last=Bragg |title=More Than Just a Racist? Now the Jury Must Decide }}</ref> In the closing argument for the defense, attorney Mickey Johnson argued that Cherry had nothing to do with the bombing, and reminded the jurors that his client was not on trial for his beliefs, stating: "It seems like more time has been spent here throwing around the [[nigger|n-word]] than proving what happened in September 1963."<ref name=washingtontimes2002/> Johnson stated that there was no [[Smoking gun|hard evidence]] linking Cherry to the bombing, but only evidence attesting to his racist beliefs dating from that era, adding that the family members who had testified against him were all estranged and therefore should be considered unreliable witnesses. Johnson urged the jury against convicting his client by [[Association fallacy|association]]. Following these closing arguments, the jury retired to consider their verdicts. These deliberations continued until the following day. On the afternoon of May 22, after the jury had deliberated for almost seven hours, the forewoman announced they had reached their verdicts: Bobby Frank Cherry was convicted of four counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.<ref name="CherryObitNYT">{{cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/19/us/bobby-frank-cherry-74-klansman-in-bombing-dies.html | title=Bobby Frank Cherry, 74, Klansman in Bombing, Dies | work=[[The New York Times]] |date= November 19, 2004 | first=Michelle | last=O'Donnell | access-date = February 5, 2009}}</ref> Cherry remained stoic as the sentence was read aloud. Relatives of the four victims openly wept in relief.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=z_suAAAAIBAJ&pg=1203,4665805 |title=Former Klansman Convicted in 1963 Church Bombing |work=[[Reading Eagle]]|date=May 23, 2002 |access-date=May 28, 2019 |agency=Associated Press}}</ref> When asked by the judge whether he had anything to say before sentence was imposed, Cherry motioned to the prosecutors and stated: "This whole bunch lied through this thing [the trial]. I told the truth. I don't know why I'm going to jail for nothing. I haven't done anything!"<ref name="Al.com May 23, 2002"/> Bobby Frank Cherry died of cancer on November 18, 2004, at age 74, while incarcerated at the [[Kilby Correctional Facility]].<ref name="CherryObitNYT" /> Following the convictions of Blanton and Cherry, Alabama's former Attorney General, William Baxley, expressed his frustration that he had never been informed of the existence of the FBI audio recordings before they were introduced in the 2001 and 2002 trials. Baxley acknowledged that typical juries in 1960s Alabama would have likely leaned in favor of both defendants, even if these recordings had been presented as evidence,<ref>{{cite news |url=http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2001-05-07/news/0105070214_1_blanton-justice-denied-birmingham |work=[[The Baltimore Sun]] |date=May 7, 2001 |archive-date=March 27, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160327232736/http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2001-05-07/news/0105070214_1_blanton-justice-denied-birmingham |title=Delayed, not Denied |access-date=May 28, 2019 }}</ref> but said that he could have prosecuted Thomas Blanton and Bobby Cherry in 1977 if he had been granted access to these tapes. (A 1980 Justice Department report concluded that J. Edgar Hoover had blocked the prosecution of the four bombing suspects in 1965,<ref name="Times Daily May 23, 2002"/> and he officially closed the FBI's investigation in 1968.<ref name="wsws.org May 5, 2001"/>) ==A possible fifth conspirator== Although both Blanton and Cherry denied their involvement in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, until his death in 1985, Robert Chambliss repeatedly insisted that the bombing had been committed by Gary Thomas Rowe Jr. Rowe had been encouraged to join the Klan by acquaintances in 1960. He became a paid FBI [[informant]] in 1961.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=z_tLAAAAIBAJ&pg=6777,1768735 |work=[[The Spokesman-Review]] |date=February 18, 1980 |title=Hoover Let 4 Off Hook In Murders |first=Howell |last=Raines |access-date=May 28, 2019 }}</ref> In this role, Rowe acted as an agent provocateur between 1961<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/04/us/gary-t-rowe-jr-64-who-informed-on-klan-in-civil-rights-killing-is-dead.html |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=October 4, 1998 |title=Gary T. Rowe Jr., 64, Who Informed on Klan In Civil Rights Killing, Is Dead |first=Michael T. |last=Kaufman |access-date=May 28, 2019 }}</ref> and 1965. Although informative to the FBI, Rowe actively participated in violence against both black and white civil rights activists. By Rowe's own later admission, while serving as an FBI informant, he had shot and killed an unidentified black man and had been an [[Accessory (legal term)|accessory]] to the murder of [[Viola Liuzzo]].<ref>{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=qWdPAAAAIBAJ&pg=6790,3991996 |work=The Times-News |date=October 3, 1978 |title=Long Fight Predicted In Case Against Rowe |access-date=May 28, 2019 |agency=Associated Press }}</ref> Investigative records show that Rowe had twice failed [[polygraph]] tests when questioned as to his possible involvement in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing and two separate, non-fatal explosions.<ref name=informer>{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=PP4xAAAAIBAJ&pg=6080%2C3226591 |title=Paid FBI Informer Tells Of Murder, Silence |first=Howell |last=Raines |work=[[Ocala Star-Banner]] |date=July 11, 1978 |access-date=May 28, 2019 }}</ref> These polygraph results had convinced some FBI agents of Rowe's culpability in the bombing. Prosecutors at Chambliss's 1977 trial had initially intended to call Rowe as a witness; however, DA William Baxley had chosen not to call Rowe as a witness after being informed of the results of these polygraph tests. Although never formally named as one of the conspirators by the FBI, Rowe's record of deception on the polygraph tests leaves open the possibility that Chambliss's claims may have held a degree of truth.<ref name=informer /> Nonetheless, a 1979 investigation cleared Rowe of any involvement in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-3379 |website=encyclopediaofalabama.org |title=Gary Thomas Rowe Jr. |first=Keith S. |last=Hebert |access-date=May 28, 2019 }}</ref> ==Aftermath== {| class="toccolours" style="float: right; margin-left: 0.5em; margin-right: 1em; font-size: 85%; background:#t5dbf1; color:black; width:27em; max-width: 27%;" cellspacing="5" | style="text-align: left;" | They forever changed the face of this state and the history of this state. Their deaths made all of us focus upon the ugliness of those who would punish people because of the color of their skin.<ref name="Gadsden Times Sept. 16, 1990">{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=rEVHAAAAIBAJ&pg=1119,1596621 |title=Memorial Dedicated For Church Bombing Victims On Anniversary |work=[[Gadsden Times]] |date=September 16, 1990 |access-date=May 28, 2019 |agency=Associated Press }}</ref> |- | style="text-align: left;" | —State Senator [[Roger Bedford Jr.|Roger Bedford]] at the unveiling of a state historic marker to the victims. September 15, 1990 |} * Following the bombing, the 16th Street Baptist Church remained closed for over eight months, as assessments and, later, repairs were conducted upon the property. Both the church and the bereaved families received an estimated $23,000 {{USDCY|23000|1963}} in cash donations from members of the public.<ref name="crimes and trials"/> Gifts totalling over $186,000 {{USDCY|186000|1963}} were donated from around the world. The church reopened to members of the public on June 7, 1964, and continues to remain an active place of worship today, with an average weekly attendance of nearly 2,000 worshippers. {{as of|May 2019}}, the pastor of the church is the Reverend Arthur Price Jr.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://16thstreetbaptist.org/team-page/ |title=Our Ministry Team |website=16thstreetbaptist.org |access-date=May 28, 2019 |archive-date=May 28, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190528113618/https://16thstreetbaptist.org/team-page/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> * The most seriously injured survivor of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, Sarah Jean Collins, remained hospitalized for more than two months<ref>{{cite news |url=http://edition.cnn.com/2013/09/14/us/birmingham-church-bombing-anniversary-victims-siblings/ |work=[[CNN]] |date=September 14, 2013 |title=Siblings of the bombing: Remembering Birmingham church blast 50 years on |first=Jessica |last=Ravitz |access-date=May 28, 2019 }}</ref> following the bombing. Collins' injuries were so extensive that medical personnel did initially fear she would lose the sight in both eyes, although, by October, they were able to inform Collins she would regain the sight in her left eye.<ref name="darkness">{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=clMvAAAAIBAJ&pg=2465,4212807 |title=Girl Living in Darkness After Church Bombing |work=[[Argus-Press|The Owosso Argus-Press]] |date=October 16, 1963 |access-date=May 28, 2019 |agency=Associated Press |first=Jim |last=Purks }}</ref> When asked her feelings towards the bombers on October 15, 1963, Collins first thanked those who had cared for her and sent messages of condolence, flowers and toys, then said: "As for the bomber, people are praying for him. We wonder what he would be thinking today if he had children ... He will face God. We turn this problem over to God because no one else can solve Birmingham's problems. We leave it up to God to solve them."<ref name="darkness"/> * [[Charles Morgan Jr.]], the young white lawyer who had delivered an impassioned speech on September 16, 1963, deploring the tolerance and complacency of much of the white population of Birmingham towards the suppression and intimidation of blacks—thereby contributing to the climate of hatred in the city—himself received death threats directed against him and his family in the days following his speech. Within three months, Morgan and his family were forced to flee Birmingham.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1964/04/26/page/298/article/a-time-to-speak |title=A Time to Speak |url-access=subscription |work=[[Chicago Tribune]] |date=April 26, 1964 }}</ref><ref name=cohen /> * [[James Bevel]], a prominent figure within the Civil Rights Movement and organizer of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, was galvanized to create what became known as the Alabama Project for Voting Rights as a direct result of the 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing. Following the bombing, Bevel and his then-wife, [[Diane Nash|Diane]], relocated to Alabama,<ref>{{cite book |title=Historical Dictionary of the Civil Rights Movement |page=401 |isbn=9780810860643 |first=Christopher M. |last=Richardson |publisher=[[Rowman & Littlefield]] |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CafcAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA401 |access-date=May 28, 2019 |date=June 11, 2014 }}</ref> where they tirelessly worked upon the Alabama Project for Voting Rights, which aimed to extend full voting rights for all eligible citizens of Alabama regardless of race. This initiative subsequently contributed to the 1965 [[Selma to Montgomery marches]], which themselves resulted in the [[Voting Rights Act of 1965]], thus prohibiting any form of racial discrimination within the process of voting. * [[Image:Stained glass window at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham.jpg|thumb|right|180px|The ''[[Wales|Welsh]] Window''. Designed by artist [[John Petts (artist)|John Petts]], the stained-glass window depicts a [[Race of Jesus#African|Black Christ]] with his arms outstretched; his right arm pushing away hatred and injustice, the left extended in an offering of forgiveness.<ref name=welsh>{{cite news |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-12692760 |work=[[BBC News]] |date=March 10, 2011 |first=Neil |last=Prior |access-date=May 28, 2019 |title=Alabama church bombing victims honoured by Welsh window }}</ref>]] Within the 16th Street Baptist Church, there still stands the ''[[Wales|Welsh]] Window''. Sculpted by [[Carmarthenshire]]-based artist [[John Petts (artist)|John Petts]], who had initiated a campaign in [[Wales]] to raise money to fund a replacement stained-glass window which had been destroyed in the bombing. Petts had opted to construct a stained-glass image of a [[Race of Jesus#African|Black Christ]] to replace one of the windows destroyed in the bombing.<ref name=welsh /> * Within two days of the church bombing, Petts had contacted then-pastor of the church, the Reverend John Cross, announcing he had launched a fundraising campaign to create this artwork via an appeal conducted through the ''[[Western Mail (Wales)|Western Mail]],'' requesting funds from the Welsh public to pay for the construction of the structure in Wales, and its delivery and installation at the 16th Street Baptist Church.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=SxcfAAAAIBAJ&pg=7271,2571972 |work=[[Tuscaloosa News]] |date=September 19, 1963 |title=Welsh Launch Bombing Fund |access-date=May 28, 2019 |agency=Associated Press }}</ref> * John Petts died in 1991 at the age of 77. In a 1987 interview focusing upon his recollections of the bombing, Petts recollected: "Naturally, as a father, I was horrified by the deaths of those children." Petts then elaborated that the inspiration for the stained-glass image was a verse from the [[Gospel of Matthew]]: "Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me."<ref name=younge>{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/mar/06/racist-attack-alabama-1963-gary-younge |work=[[The Guardian]] |date=March 6, 2011 |title=American civil rights: the Welsh connection |first=Gary |last=Younge |access-date=May 28, 2019 }}</ref> The ''Welsh Window'' bears the inscription, "Given by The People of Wales".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00z5zxv |title=The Wales Window of Alabama |work=BBC Radio 4 |first=Gary |last=Younge |access-date=May 28, 2019 }}</ref> * 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). Several dozen people were present at the unveiling, presided over by state Senator [[Roger Bedford Jr.|Roger Bedford]]. At the service, the four girls were described as martyrs who "died so freedom could live".<ref name="Gadsden Times Sept. 16, 1990"/> * Herman Frank Cash died of cancer in February 1994. He was never charged with his alleged involvement in the bombing and did maintain his innocence. Although Cash is known to have passed a polygraph test in which he was questioned as to his potential involvement in the bombing,<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.al.com/specialreport/?bombing/97-spares.html |work=[[AL.com]] |date=September 7, 1997 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080526074834/http://www.al.com/specialreport/?bombing%2F97-spares.html |archive-date=May 26, 2008 |title=Death spares scrutiny of Cash in bomb probe |first1=John |last1=Archibald |first2=Jeff |last2=Hansen |access-date=May 28, 2019 }}</ref> the FBI had concluded in May 1965 that Cash was one of the four conspirators.<ref name=painful/> Cash is interred at Northview Cemetery in [[Polk County, Georgia]]. * The Reverend John Cross, who had been the pastor of the 16th Street Baptist Church at the time of the 1963 bombing, died of natural causes on November 15, 2007. He was 82 years old. The Reverend Cross is interred at Hillandale Memorial Gardens in [[DeKalb County, Georgia]].<ref>{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=dfEeAAAAIBAJ&pg=3414,5167785 |title=Pastor Was At Church When Bomb Killed Four |work=[[Sarasota Herald-Tribune]] |date=November 19, 2007 |access-date=May 28, 2019 }}</ref> * Former Secretary of State [[Condoleezza Rice]] was eight years old at the time of the bombing and both a classmate and friend of Carol Denise McNair. On the day of the bombing, Rice was at her father's church, located a few blocks from the 16th Street Baptist Church. In 2004, Rice recalled her memories of the bombing: <blockquote>I remembered the bombing of that Sunday School at 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham in 1963. I did not see it happen, but I heard it happen and I felt it happen, just a few blocks away at my father's church. It is a sound that I will never forget, that will forever reverberate in my ears. That bomb took the lives of four young girls, including my friend and playmate [Carol] Denise McNair. The crime was calculated, not random. It was meant to suck the hope out of young lives, bury their aspirations, and ensure that old fears would be propelled forward into the next generation.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.weeklystandard.com/scott-w-johnson/birminghams-new-legacy |title=Birmingham's New Legacy |work=The Weekly Standard |first=Scott W. |last=Johnson |access-date=May 28, 2019 }}</ref></blockquote> * On May 24, 2013, President [[Barack Obama]] awarded a posthumous [[Congressional Gold Medal]] to the four girls killed in the 1963 Birmingham Church Bombing. This medal was awarded through signing into effect [[Public Law 113–11]];<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-113publ11/html/PLAW-113publ11.htm |work=[[United States Government Publishing Office]] |access-date=May 28, 2019 |title=Public Law 113-11 |quote=An Act To award posthumously a Congressional Gold Medal to Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, and Cynthia Wesley to commemorate the lives they lost 50 years ago in the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, where these 4 little black girls' ultimate sacrifice served as a catalyst for the Civil Rights Movement.}}</ref> a bill which awarded one Congressional Gold Medal to be created in recognition of the fact the girls' deaths served as a major catalyst for the Civil Rights Movement, and invigorated a momentum ensuring the signing into passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.<ref name=360summary>{{cite web|title=H.R. 360 – Summary|url=https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house-bill/360 |website=congress.gov |publisher=United States Congress |access-date=30 May 2013 |date=May 24, 2013 }}</ref> The gold medal was presented to the [[Birmingham Civil Rights Institute]] to display or loan to other museums.<ref name="360summary"/> [[File:Terri Sewell and 4 Little Girls - 2019.jpg|216px|thumb|Politician [[Terri Sewell]], with actresses from the play ''4 Little Girls'', pictured upon the steps of the 16th Street Baptist Church (2019)]] ==Media and memorials== <!---PLEASE DO NOT ADD REFERENCES TO INCIDENTAL DEPICTIONS OF THIS BOMBING UPON ALBUM COVERS OR INCIDENTAL DEDICATIONS UPON SONG TRACKS, OTHER DEPICTIONS/RECREATIONS UPON TV SHOWS - OR OTHER IRRELEVANT TRIVIA HERE. IT DOES NOT BELONG HERE AND WILL BE REMOVED WITH NO FURTHER DISCUSSION. TRIVIA IS INAPPROPRIATE PER THE PROJECT GOVERNING THIS ARTICLE.---> ===Music=== * The song "[[Birmingham Sunday]]" is directly inspired by the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. Written in 1964 by [[Richard Fariña]] and recorded by Fariña's sister-in-law, [[Joan Baez]], the song was included on Baez's 1964 album ''[[Joan Baez/5]]''. The song would also be covered by [[Rhiannon Giddens]], and is included on her 2017 album ''[[Freedom Highway (Rhiannon Giddens album)|Freedom Highway]]''.<ref name="AllMusic">{{cite web |last=Erlewine |first=Stephen Thomas |author-link=Stephen Thomas Erlewine |url=http://www.allmusic.com/album/freedom-highway-mw0003008277 |title=Freedom Highway – Rhiannon Giddens |publisher=[[AllMusic]] |accessdate=February 1, 2021}}</ref> * [[Nina Simone]]'s 1964 civil rights anthem "[[Mississippi Goddam]]" is partially inspired by the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. The lyric "Alabama's got me so upset" refers to this incident.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://longreads.com/2017/04/20/a-history-of-american-protest-music-when-nina-simone-sang-what-everyone-was-thinking/|title=A History of American Protest: When Nina Simone Sang what Everyone was Thinking|website=longreads.com|date=April 20, 2017|access-date=September 13, 2020}}</ref> * Jazz musician [[John Coltrane]]'s 1964 album ''[[Live at Birdland (John Coltrane album)|Live at Birdland]]'' includes the track "[[Alabama (John Coltrane song)|Alabama]]", recorded two months after the bombing. This song was written as a direct musical tribute to the victims of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.allaboutjazz.com/john-coltrane-live-at-birdland|title=On John Coltrane's "Alabama"|website=allaboutjazz.com|date=August 10, 2005 |access-date=September 13, 2020}}</ref> * African-American composer [[Adolphus Hailstork]]'s 1982 work for wind ensemble titled ''American Guernica'' was composed in memory of the victims of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.halleonard.com/product/viewproduct.action?itemid=40936|title=American Guernica, LKM Music - Hal Leonard Online|website=halleonard.com|access-date=December 8, 2017}}</ref> ===Film=== * A 1997 documentary, ''[[4 Little Girls]],'' exclusively focuses on the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. Directed by [[Spike Lee]], this documentary includes interviews with family and friends of the victims and received an [[Academy Awards|Academy Award]] nomination for [[Academy Award for Best Documentary|Best Documentary]].<ref>{{cite news|title=Still Reeling From the Day Death Came to Birmingham|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1997/07/09/movies/still-reeling-from-the-day-death-came-to-birmingham.html|access-date=September 13, 2020|work=The New York Times|date=July 9, 1997}}</ref> * 2002 [[docudrama]], ''[[Sins of the Father (2002 film)|Sins of the Father]],'' directly focuses on the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. Directed by [[Robert Dornhelm]], the film casts [[Richard Jenkins]] as Bobby Cherry and Bruce McFee as Robert Chambliss.<ref>{{cite news|title=Television Review: A Father's Guilt; A Son's Wrenching Decision |date=January 4, 2002 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/04/movies/television-review-a-father-s-guilt-a-son-s-wrenching-decision.html |work=The New York Times|access-date=September 15, 2020}}</ref> * The 2014 American [[historical drama]], ''[[Selma (film)|Selma]],'' which focuses on the 1965 [[Selma to Montgomery marches]], also includes a scene which depicts the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. This film was directed by [[Ava DuVernay]].{{citation needed|date=September 2020}} ===Television=== * The 1993 documentary, ''Angels of Change'', focuses on the events leading up to the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing as well as the aftermath of the bombing. This documentary was produced by the Birmingham-based TV station [[WVTM-TV]] and subsequently received a [[Peabody Award]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.peabodyawards.com/award-profile/angels-of-change |title=The Peabody Awards: Angels of Change |work=peabodyawards.com |access-date=January 11, 2021 }}</ref> * The [[History (U.S. TV channel)|History Channel]] has broadcast a documentary entitled ''Remembering the Birmingham Church Bombing.'' Broadcast to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the bombing, this documentary includes interviews with the head of education at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.<ref name=history.com /> ===Books (non-fiction)=== *{{cite book|first=Susan|last=Anderson|date=2008|title=The Past on Trial: The Sixteenth Street Baptist Church Bombing, Civil Rights Memory and the Remaking of Birmingham|publisher=Chapel Hill|isbn=978-0-54988-141-4}} *{{cite book|first=Taylor|last=Branch|author-link=Taylor Branch|year=1988|title=Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954–1963|publisher=Simon & Schuster|isbn=978-0-671-68742-7|title-link=Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954–1963}} *{{cite book|first=David|last=Chalmers|date=2005|title=Backfire: How the Ku Klux Klan Helped the Civil Rights Movement|publisher=Chapel Hill|isbn=978-0-7425-2311-1}} *{{cite book|first=Elizabeth H.|last=Cobbs|author2=Smith, Petric J.|date=1994|title=Long Time Coming: An Insider's Story of the Birmingham Church Bombing that Rocked the World|publisher=Crane Hill Publishers|isbn=978-1-881548-10-2|url=https://archive.org/details/longtimecoming00petr}} *{{cite book|first=Christopher M.|last=Hamlin|date=1998|title=Behind the Stained Glass: A History of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church|publisher=Crane Hill Publishers|isbn=978-1-57587-083-0}} *{{cite book |last1=Jones |first1=Doug |author-link1= Doug Jones (politician) |title=Bending Toward Justice: The Birmingham Church Bombing that Changed the Course of Civil Rights |date=2019 |publisher=All Points Books |isbn=9781250201447}} *{{cite book|first=Lisa|last=Klobuchar|date=2009|title=1963 Birmingham Church Bombing: The Ku Klux Klan's History of Terror|publisher=Compass Point Books|isbn=978-0-7565-4092-0}} *{{cite book|first=Carolyn|last=McKinstry|author2=George, Denise|date=2011|title=While the World Watched: A Birmingham Bombing Survivor Comes of Age During the Civil Rights Movement|publisher=Tyndale House Publishers|isbn=978-1-4143-3636-7|url=https://archive.org/details/whileworldwatche00caro}} *{{cite book|first=Diane|last=McWhorter|author-link=Diane McWhorter|date=2001|title=Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama, the Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution|url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780743217729|url-access=registration|publisher=Simon & Schuster|isbn=978-1-4767-0951-2}} *{{cite book|first=Frank|last=Sikora|date=1991|title=Until Justice Rolls Down: The Birmingham Church Bombing Case|url=https://archive.org/details/untiljusticeroll0000siko|url-access=registration|publisher=University of Alabama Press|isbn=978-0-8173-0520-8}} *{{cite book|first=T. K.|last=Thorne|date=2013|title=Last Chance for Justice: How Relentless Investigators Uncovered New Evidence Convicting the Birmingham Church Bombers|publisher=Lawrence Books|isbn=978-1-61374-864-0}} ===Books (fiction)=== * [[Christopher Paul Curtis]]'s 1995 novel ''[[The Watsons Go to Birmingham – 1963]]'' conveys the events of the bombing.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Curtis|first=Christopher|year=1995|title=The Watsons Go to Birmingham – 1963|edition=1st|publisher=[[Dell Publishing|Delacorte Press]] |isbn=9780385382946 |title-link=The Watsons Go to Birmingham – 1963}}</ref> This fictional account of the bombing was later converted into a movie.<ref>{{Cite web|title=The Watsons Go to Birmingham|url=https://www.hallmarkchannel.com/the-watsons-go-to-birmingham |url-status=live |work=[[Hallmark Channel]] |access-date=April 5, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180623054054/https://www.hallmarkchannel.com/the-watsons-go-to-birmingham |archive-date=June 23, 2018}}</ref> * The 2001 novel ''Bombingham'', written by [[Anthony Grooms]], is set in Birmingham in 1963. This novel portrays a fictional account of the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church and the shootings of Virgil Ware and Johnny Robinson. * The [[American Girl]] book ''No Ordinary Sound'', set in 1963 and featuring the character of [[Melody Ellison]], has the bombing as a major plot point. ===In sculpture and symbolism=== [[File:Four Spirits Statue Kelly Ingram Park Alabama.jpg|thumb|The ''Four Spirits'' sculpture, unveiled at Birmingham's [[Kelly Ingram Park]], September 2013]] * Welsh craftsman and artist John Petts was inspired to construct and deliver the iconic stained-glass ''Welsh Window'' to the 16th Street Baptist Church in 1965. The ''Welsh Window'' is a large stained-glass edifice depicting a black Jesus, with arms outstretched, reminiscent of the [[Crucifixion of Jesus]]. Erected at the church in 1965,<ref name=younge/> the Welsh Window stands over the front door of the sanctuary.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uivtCqOlpTsC&pg=PA1029 |section=Sixteenth Street Baptist Church |title=Encyclopedia of African-American History |page=1029 |isbn=9780195167795 |last1=Alexander |first1=Leslie M |author2=Walter C Rucker JR |date=February 9, 2010 |publisher=ABC-CLIO }}</ref> * The American sculptor [[John Henry Waddell]] has created a memorial symbolizing those killed in the bombing. Entitled ''That Which Might Have Been: Birmingham 1963'', the sculpture—depicting four adult women in differing postures—was created over a period of 15 months.<ref name=waddell /> The four women in the sculpture are each depicted in symbolic terms; representing the four victims of the bombing, had they been allowed to mature to womanhood.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.artbyjohnwaddell.com/JHW/That_which_might_have_been.html |title=That which might have been |publisher=Artbyjohnwaddell.com |access-date=September 16, 2013 }}</ref> The sculpture was originally displayed at the First Unitarian Universalist Church in [[Phoenix, Arizona|Phoenix]] in 1969. A second casting of the sculpture was intended for display in Birmingham; however, due to controversy over the nudity of the women depicted in the sculpture, this second casting is now on display at the George Washington Carver Museum.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM8ZFV_That_Which_Might_Have_Been_Birmingham_1963_Phoenix_Arizona |website=Waymarking.com |title=That Which Might Have Been, Birmingham 1963 - Phoenix, Arizona - Smithsonian Art Inventory Sculptures on Waymarking.com |access-date=May 28, 2019 }}</ref> * The names of the four girls killed in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing are engraved upon the [[Civil Rights Memorial]]. Erected in [[Montgomery, Alabama]] in 1989.<ref name=splcenter>{{cite web|url=https://www.splcenter.org/civil-rights-memorial |title=Civil Rights Memorial |work=[[Southern Poverty Law Center]] |access-date=April 11, 2015 }}</ref> The Civil Rights Memorial is an inverted, [[cone|conical]] granite fountain and is dedicated to 41 people who died in the struggle for the equal rights and integrated treatment of all people between the years 1954 and 1968. The names of the 41 individuals themselves are chronologically engrained upon the surface of this fountain. Creator [[Maya Lin]] has described this sculpture as a "contemplative area; a place to remember the Civil Rights Movement, to honour those killed during the struggle, to appreciate how far the country has come in its quest for equality".<ref name=splcenter/> * The ''Four Spirits'' sculpture was unveiled at Birmingham's [[Kelly Ingram Park]] in September 2013 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the bombing. Crafted in [[Berkeley, California]] by Birmingham-born sculptor Elizabeth MacQueen<ref>{{cite news |url=http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2013/09/memorial_project_for_16th_stre.html |title=Memorial project for 16th Street Baptist Church bombing raises $200,000 of $250,000 goal |work=al.com |date=September 2, 2013 |access-date=May 28, 2019 |first=Jeremy |last=Gray }}</ref> and designed as a memorial to the four children killed on September 15, 1963, the bronze and steel life-size sculpture depicts the four girls in preparation for the church sermon at the 16th Street Baptist Church in the moments immediately before the explosion. The youngest girl killed in the explosion (Carol Denise McNair) is depicted releasing six doves into the air as she stands tiptoed and [[barefoot]]ed upon a bench as another barefooted girl (Addie Mae Collins) is depicted kneeling upon the bench, affixing a dress sash to McNair; a third girl (Cynthia Wesley) is sat upon the bench alongside McNair and Collins with a Bible in her lap.<ref>{{cite news |title=Four Spirits unveiled across from Sixteenth Street Baptist Church |url=https://weldbham.com/blog/2013/09/14/four-spirits-unveiled-across-from-sixteenth-street-baptist-church/ |first=Tom |last=Gordon |work=Weld: Birmingham's Newspaper |date=September 14, 2013 |access-date=May 28, 2019 }}</ref> The fourth girl (Carole Robertson) is depicted standing and smiling as she motions the other three girls to attend their church sermon.<ref name=fourspirits>{{cite news |url=https://www.wbrc.com/story/23436446/four-spirits-statue-unveiled-to-the-public/ |work=[[WBRC]] |date=September 15, 2013 |title='Four Spirits' Sculpture Unveiled to the Public |first=Alan |last=Collins |access-date=May 28, 2019 }}</ref> * At the base of the sculpture is an inscription of the title of the sermon the four girls were to attend before the bombing—"A Love That Forgives". Oval photographs and brief biographies of the four girls killed in the explosion, the most seriously injured survivor (Sarah Collins), and the two teenage boys who were shot to death later that day also adorn the base of the sculpture. More than 1,000 people were present at the unveiling of the memorial, including survivors of the bombing, friends of the victims and the parents of Denise McNair, Johnny Robinson and Virgil Ware.<ref name=fourspirits/> Among those to speak at the unveiling was [[Joseph Lowery|the Reverend Joseph Lowery]], who informed those present: "Don't let anybody tell you these children [[died in vain]]. We wouldn't be here right now, had they not gone home before our eyes."<ref>{{cite news |url=https://wbhm.org/feature/2013/four-spirits-statue-memorial-to-16th-street-baptist-church-bombing-victims-unveiled/ |work=[[WBHM]] |date=September 15, 2013 |first=Andrew |last=Yeager |access-date=May 28, 2019 |title=Four Spirits Statue, Memorial to 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing Victims, Unveiled }}</ref> <!-- PLEASE DO NOT ADD REFERENCES TO INCIDENTAL DEPICTIONS OF THIS BOMBING UPON ALBUM COVERS OR INCIDENTAL DEDICATIONS UPON SONG TRACKS, OTHER DEPICTIONS/RECREATIONS UPON TV SHOWS, OR OTHER IRRELEVANT TRIVIA HERE. IT DOES NOT BELONG HERE AND WILL BE REMOVED WITH NO FURTHER DISCUSSION. TRIVIA IS INAPPROPRIATE PER THE PROJECT GOVERNING THIS ARTICLE. --> ==See also== {{div col|colwidth=28em}} * [[African-American history]] * [[African Americans in Alabama]] * [[Domestic terrorism in the United States]] * [[Mass racial violence in the United States]] * [[Racial segregation of churches in the United States]] * [[Racism against Black Americans]] * [[Racism in the United States]] * [[Terrorism in the United States]] * [[Timeline of terrorist attacks in the United States]] * [[Timeline of African-American history]] * [[Timeline of the civil rights movement]] {{div col end}} ==References== {{Reflist|30em}} ==Cited works and further reading== * {{cite book|first=Taylor|last=Branch|year=1988|title=Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954–1963|publisher=Simon & Schuster|isbn=978-0-671-68742-7|url=https://archive.org/details/partingwatersame00bran_0}} * {{cite book|first=Elizabeth H.|last=Cobbs|author2=Smith, Petric J.|date=1994|title=Long Time Coming: An Insider's Story of the Birmingham Church Bombing that Rocked the World|publisher=Crane Hill Publishers|isbn=978-1-881548-10-2|url=https://archive.org/details/longtimecoming00petr}} * {{cite book|first=Christopher M.|last=Hamlin|date=1998|title=Behind the Stained Glass: A History of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church|publisher=Crane Hill Publishers|isbn=978-1-57587-083-0}} * {{cite book|first=Lisa|last=Klobuchar|date=2009|title=1963 Birmingham Church Bombing: The Ku Klux Klan's History of Terror|publisher=Compass Point Books|isbn=978-0-7565-4092-0}} * {{cite book|first=Carolyn|last=McKinstry|author2=George, Denise|date=2011|title=While the World Watched: A Birmingham Bombing Survivor Comes of Age During the Civil Rights Movement|publisher=Tyndale House Publishers|isbn=978-1-4143-3636-7|url=https://archive.org/details/whileworldwatche00caro}} * {{cite book|first=Frank|last=Sikora|date=1991|title=Until Justice Rolls Down: The Birmingham Church Bombing Case|url=https://archive.org/details/untiljusticeroll0000siko|url-access=registration|publisher=University of Alabama Press|isbn=978-0-8173-0520-8}} * {{cite book|first=T. K.|last=Thorne|date=2013|title=Last Chance for Justice: How Relentless Investigators Uncovered New Evidence Convicting the Birmingham Church Bombers|publisher=Lawrence Books|isbn=978-1-61374-864-0}} * {{cite book|first=Wyn C.|last=Wade|date=1998|title=The Fiery Cross: The Ku Klux Klan in America|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-512357-9}} ==External links== {{External media| float = right| video1 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?163715-1/carry-home ''Booknotes'' interview with Diane McWhorter on ''Carry Me Home'', May 27, 2001], [[C-SPAN]]| video2 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?457874-1/after-words-senator-doug-jones ''After Words'' interview with Doug Jones on ''Bending Toward Justice'', March 9, 2019], [[C-SPAN]]}} * [https://web.archive.org/web/20150209235649/http://www.crimelibrary.com/terrorists_spies/terrorists/birmingham_church/index.html 16th Street Baptist Church bombing] at [[CrimeLibrary.com]] * [https://16thstreetbaptist.org/ ''Official website''] of the 16th Street Baptist Church * [https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2013/september/16th-street-baptist-church-bombing FBI article] documenting the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing * FBI.gov [https://vault.fbi.gov/16th%20Street%20Church%20Bombing%20/16th%20Street%20Church%20Bombing%20Part%2046%20of%2051-1 archive of newspaper clippings] relating to the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing * October 1963 ''[[Jet (magazine)|Jet]]'' magazine article "[https://books.google.com/books?id=gcEDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA16 'Where Was God' When Bomb Hit]", by Larry Still, covering the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing * [http://www.bplonline.org/resources/Digital_Project/SixteenthStBaptistBomb.asp Online archives] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060329123131/http://www.bplonline.org/resources/digital_project/SixteenthStBaptistBomb.asp |date=March 29, 2006 }} available at the Birmingham Public Library. These archives include photographic and newspaper archives * Chambliss vs. State: [https://law.justia.com/cases/alabama/court-of-appeals-criminal/1979/373-so-2d-1185-0.html Details of Robert Chambliss's 1979 appeal against his conviction] * [http://wpsu.psu.edu/tv/programs/conversations/sarah-collins-rudolph/ Audio interview] with 16th Street Baptist Church bombing survivor Sarah Collins Rudolph * [http://www.fourspirits1963.com/ ''FourSpirits1963.com''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150212073142/http://www.fourspirits1963.com/ |date=February 12, 2015 }}—A website devoted to the construction and preservation of the ''Four Spirits'' memorial sculpture at Kelly Ingram Park {{Civil Rights Memorial|state=collapsed}} {{Civil rights movement|state=collapsed}} {{Portal bar|1960s|United States|Christianity|Civil rights movement|Law}} {{Authority control}} {{DEFAULTSORT:16th Street Baptist Church Bombing}} [[Category:1960s in Birmingham, Alabama]] [[Category:1963 in Alabama]] [[Category:1963 in Christianity]] [[Category:1963 murders in the United States]] [[Category:African-American history in Birmingham, Alabama]] [[Category:Anti-black racism in Alabama]] [[Category:Attacks on African-American churches]] [[Category:Birmingham campaign]] [[Category:Building bombings in the United States]] [[Category:Child murder in the United States]] [[Category:Church bombings]] [[Category:Church massacres in North America]] [[Category:Civil rights movement]] [[Category:Conflicts in 1963]] [[Category:Events in Birmingham, Alabama]] [[Category:Explosions in 1963]] [[Category:History of Alabama]] [[Category:History of Birmingham, Alabama]] [[Category:Incidents of violence against girls]] [[Category:Ku Klux Klan crimes in Alabama]] [[Category:Mass murder in 1963]] [[Category:Massacres in the United States]] [[Category:Murder in Alabama]] [[Category:Murdered African-American people]] [[Category:People murdered in Alabama]] [[Category:Racially motivated violence against African Americans]] [[Category:September 1963 events in the United States]] [[Category:Terrorist incidents in the United States in 1963]] Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. 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