Johnny Robinson lived in Birmingham, Alabama, in which a bomb set at the 16th Street Baptist Church killed four African American girls on September 15, 1963. Though his departure was overlooked for a long time, Robinson is now recognized as being part of the Civil Rights Movement. Produced circa 1947, Johnny Robinson Jr.’s youth was marked by violence when his dad was killed, which left his mum on her own with three kids. Johnny Robinson lived in Birmingham, Alabama, which had its own risks.
As news of the disaster propagate through Birmingham farther igniting racial tensions Robinson met some friends at a gas station. There, the African American adolescents were taunted by whites who yelled racial slurs and threw bottles as they drove by. Robinson’s group fought back by throwing stone at an automobile bearing the Confederate flag. Then a police car arrived in the scene.
In the trunk of the police car, holding a shotgun, was Policeman Jack Parker. As Robinson and others ran away, Parker fired his gun, striking 16-year old Robinson in the rear. Robinson perished before reaching the hospital. It was still September 15, 1963, only hours following the bombing. Parker, a 48-year old white policeman who had openly opposed incorporating the Birmingham police force, said that his gun had gone off accidentally. Though his fellow policemen supported Parker, other witnesses questioned his report, claiming to have heard two shots. Two grand juries chosen never to charge Parker for Robinson’s departure.
Robinson’s mom was devastated by the loss of her son, and afterwards spent time in a psychiatric hospital. Robinson’s brother and sister learned to not speak in their brother, and were given very few details about his departure. That changed when Robinson’s murder, in addition to other cold cases in the civil rights era, was investigated by the FBI in 2009. In the months and years after September 15, 1963, the departures of the four girls received more interest than Robinson’s killing, or that of Virgil Ware, another African American son who had been killed in Birmingham that day. In 2013, fifty years following the bombing, he was inducted into Birmingham’s Gallery of Prominent Citizens.