On September 15, 1963, Denise McNair (11), Addie Mae Collins (14), Cynthia Wesley (14) and Carole Robertson (14) were in Sunday School at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, when the ground shook violently.
At first, the girls thought the ground shaking was an earthquake. But it was only 10:22 a.m. and a bomb had just exploded in the church basement, right after 26 children were walking into the basement for closing prayers after a sermon entitled, The Love that Forgives.
Debris from the floors above rained down upon the girls.
The girls had no chance of escape.
The 16th Street baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. public domain.
Earlier that morning, Bobby Frank Cherry, Thomas Blanton, Herman Cash, and Robert Chambliss from the Ku Klux Klan had planted the bomb the day before, setting the bomb to explode exactly at that moment.
The KKK knew that children -- not only children but black children--would be attending Sunday school when the bomb exploded.
Twenty two others were injured in the attack that blew a hole in the church's rear wall, destroyed the back steps, and left intact only the frames of one stained-glass window.
The window that survived was one in which Christ was depicted as leading young children. Five cars were damaged, two of them completely destroyed, and windows across the street were blown out.
The KKK had designed this attack as a protest against the recent settlement by city leaders to integrate Birmingham and to instill fear in the minds of residents.
This KKK plan backfired, and this incident is regarded as one of the turning points in the civil rights movement.
This brutally tragic incident sparked race riots, in which many had wanted to retaliate, but Rev. King strongly advised against such retaliation.
This incident served as a marker when many whites joined the civil rights movment at their outrage at the bombing deaths of these four little girls.
This particular church had often served as a rallying point for many in the civil rights movement during the previous spring of 1963.
* * *
The Sixties is a continuing series I posted originally in 2006 on Gather.
It discusses certain events that were in the news during the 1960s, in chronological order.
* * *
Writing is a form of Activism.
You can join my group, The Renewed Activist.
Join my group, The Sixties.
You can join Tom Brokaw's group, Boom!
***
Previous articles in The Sixties series:
The Sixties: Early Stirrings - June 12, 1963 - Medgar Evers, Civil Rights Activist, Slain (14)
The Sixties: Early Stirrings - Governor Wallace Violates Federal Desegregation Law at University of Alabama - June 1963 (13)
The Sixties: Early Stirrings - The Children's Crusade: The March in Birmingham, May 1963 (12)
The Sixties: Cuba After Castro, A Sidebar (10)
The Sixties: Early Stirrings - The Cuban Missile Crisis - 14 Days in October, 1962 (9)
The Sixties: Early Stirrings - Sentencing of the Bay of Pigs Invaders (8)
The Sixties: Early Stirrings - The Cuban Trade Embargo - No More Cuban Cigars (7)
The Sixties: Early Stirrings, November 14, 1961 - 16,000 Advisors Sent to Vietnam (6)
The Sixties: Early Stirrings - The Bay of Pigs Invasion (4)
The Sixties: Early Stirrings - JFK Elected President (3)
The Sixties: Early Stirrings - Martin Luther King is Jailed (2)
The Sixties: Early Stirrings - Lunch Counters (1)
The Sixties: Rosa Parks and her effect on Ruby Bridges - (prequel)
Previous Boom! articles:
My review of Tom Brokaw's book:
Boom! Voices of The Sixties: Personal reflections on the 60s and Today
My Other Boom! articles:
Copyright ©2006, 2007, 2008 Kathryn Esplin-Oleski
recommend this
email
print
link to this page
Comments: 56
We hear everywhere of 'DWB = Driving While Black - a horrible thing - but it exists. My SIL is married to a great African American guy but she gave him our phone number when he drives through our town, just in case - this great, affluent guy who drives a great car, is stopped for DWB.
Boston, for being a Northern town, is not known for a non racist community. However, things are improving.
I think we have to ask ourselves - we have these laws - and things may have or definitely have improved for some people some where - Oprah is a great example and many of the musical and sports celebrities - regarding African Americans, for example = but we can probably find many examples of hidden discriminatino.
For example, there are many more millions in jail now than even in 1992.
One in 15 adults in the US is in jail.
For African Americans, that number is 1 in 8.
Yet. when Death Row inmates are given DNA tests, a sizable number are found to have had NO DNA for the crimes they are on Death Row.
So we need to ask ourselves:
Have things improved?
Are there other hidden or subtle areas in US society where African Americans and other minorities are not given equal rights?
The TWO MONTHS AFTER THIS EVENT (I won't mention it but you all know what I am referring to) will be the NEXT one in this series.
That is very sad - what happened to you.
In the Muslim countries, it is the sect to which one belongs (Shia or Sunni), that discriminates the population, leading to frequent clashes. In India, an artificial gradation of the people, based on their work (caste system), is the basis of discrimination. People engaged in doing dirty work, like cleaning the neighborhood, are considered inferior to those doing intellectual work.
Just like Adam's temptation to eat the fruit from the forbidden tree led to the creation of "hell", the temptation to discriminate one set of people from another, based on the person's birth, may eventually lead to the destruction of this world, much before "global warming" does it!
Randall, a good reminder then - I did not hear about this at the time, though I did of most of the events in the early 60s.
ISABEL, it was a very sad day.
WIlliam, wow - yes quite wrongheaded people. that is interesting - maybe they were afraid of what white people thought.
Tom Brokaw's group is gone.
Secondly - Excellent evocation. I was in Korea at the time (US Army medic), and we all just stood around and couldn't look at the black guys when the news reached us. It was a terrible couple of days, with race-based fights (there were Klansmen in our base), knifings (as a medic, I got to pactch 'em up - those guys were LOUSY knife-fighters), and one attempted emasculation.
Chuck, I was not aware Brokaw's group was gone. Last time I checked, it was still here.