who died in the 16th street baptist church bombing
Cynthia Wesley Addie Mae Collins Carole Robertson Carol Denise McNair
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(age 14, born April 24, 1949), and Cynthia Wesley (age 14, born April 30, 1949), were killed in the attack. The explosion was so intense that one of the girls' bodies was decapitated and so badly mutilated in the explosion that her body could only be identified through her clothing and a ring, whereas another victim had been killed by a piece of mortar embedded in her skull. The then-pastor of the church, the Reverend John Cross, would recollect in 2001 that the girls' bodies were found "stacked on top of each other, clung together". All four girls were pronounced
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FBI had concluded in 1965 that the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing had been committed by four known Ku Klux Klansmen and segregationists—Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr., Herman Frank Cash, Robert Edward Chambliss, and Bobby Frank Cherry—no prosecutions ensued until 1977, when Robert Chambliss was tried and convicted of the first degree murder of one of the victims, 11-year-old Carol Denise McNair. Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr. and Bobby Cherry were each convicted of four counts of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment in 2001 and 2002 respectively, whereas Herman Cash, who died in 1994, was never charged with his alleged involvement
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church bombing in 1963. Hanes also harked towards the testimony of several of the 12 witnesses the defense had called to testify as to Chambliss's whereabouts on the day of the bombing, including a policeman and a neighbor who had each testified as to Chambliss being at the home of a man named Clarence Dill on the day of the bombing. 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, Robert Chambliss was found guilty of the murder of Carol Denise McNair
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congregation, informing them: "The greatest tribute you can pay to Carole is to be calm, be lovely, be kind, be innocent." Carole Robertson was buried in a blue casket at Shadow Lawn Cemetery. 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, present at the girls' funerals were an estimated 800 clergymen of all races. Also present was Martin Luther King Jr. In a speech conducted before the burial of the girls, King addressed an estimated 3,300 mourners—including numerous white
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dead on arrival at the Hillman Emergency Clinic. More than 20 additional people were injured in the explosion, one of whom was Addie Mae's younger sister, 12-year-old Sarah Collins, who had 21 pieces of glass embedded in her face and was blinded in one eye. In her later recollections of the bombing, Collins would recall that in the moments immediately before the explosion, she had observed her sister, Addie, tying her dress sash. 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
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Theresa Johnston, and Karen Sunderland. Cherry was portrayed by Richard Jenkins in the 2002 television film "Sins of the Father". Bobby Frank Cherry Bobby Frank Cherry (June 20, 1930 – November 18, 2004) was an American white supremacist, terrorist, and Klansman who was convicted of murder in 2002 for his role in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in 1963. The bombing killed four young African-American girls (Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley, Addie Mae Collins, and Denise McNair) and injured more than 20 other people. Bobby Frank Cherry was born on June 20, 1930, in Mineral Springs, a neighborhood of Clanton,
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Bobby Frank Cherry Bobby Frank Cherry (June 20, 1930 – November 18, 2004) was an American white supremacist, terrorist, and Klansman who was convicted of murder in 2002 for his role in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in 1963. The bombing killed four young African-American girls (Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley, Addie Mae Collins, and Denise McNair) and injured more than 20 other people. Bobby Frank Cherry was born on June 20, 1930, in Mineral Springs, a neighborhood of Clanton, Alabama. He was born on the same day as Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr. He joined the United States Marine Corps
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of the bombing. On November 14, 1977, Robert Chambliss, then aged 73, stood trial in Birmingham's Jefferson County Courthouse. Chambliss was initially indicted on September 24, 1977, charged with four counts of murder relating to each victim of the 1963 church bombing; however, at an initial court hearing scheduled October 18, Judge Wallace Gibson ruled that the defendant would be tried upon one count of murder—that of Carol Denise McNair—and that the remaining three counts of murder would remain, but that he would not be charged in relation to these three deaths. Before his trial, Chambliss remained free upon a
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Baxley responded, on official state letterhead: "My response to your letter of February 19, 1976, is—kiss my ass." As attorney general, Baxley was made famous for his most prestigious case against the Ku Klux Klan, his 1977 prosecution of Robert Chambliss for the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in September 1963. Baxley succeeded in convicting Chambliss with minimal evidence (as the FBI refused to relinquish tapes necessary to the case). The victory eased the minds of the parents of Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley and Denise McNair. Baxley appeared in the Spike Lee documentary on the church bombing
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reading the Bible and had observed Addie Mae Collins tying the dress sash of Carol Denise McNair before she had herself returned upstairs to the ground floor of the church. 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. 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 to assist in quelling unrest. Birmingham City Council convened an emergency meeting to propose safety measures for
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to placate the crowd by loudly reciting the 23rd Psalm through a bullhorn. One individual who converged on 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". Four girls, Addie Mae Collins (age 14, born April 18, 1949), Carol Denise McNair (age 11, born November 17, 1951), Carole Robertson
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Henry is voting against the interests of his people. Henry is then visited by the spirit of Carol Denise McNair and her friends from Sunday school who were killed in the bombing at 16th Street Baptist Church. This is followed by a visit from James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner as well as Medgar Evers and Dr. King. The final visitor is Mamie Till, Emmett's mother who insisted on a public funeral service with an open casket so that her son's beaten face could be photographed and seen by the public. The old man explains that if Emmett chooses
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track, "Birmingham Jail", that tells the story of Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, and Cynthia Wesley, who were killed in the 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing. In "The Washington Post", Allison Stewart writes: Chatham County Line Chatham County Line is an American bluegrass musical group. Formed in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1999 from members of the band Stillhouse, the band has released seven albums including six on the Yep Roc label (whom they were linked with by the producer Chris Stamey), and have become popular in Europe as well as their native United States. Their most recent tour
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Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr. Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr. (born 1938) is an American terrorist and convicted felon, currently serving a life sentence for his role as conspirator in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in 1963 which killed four young African-American girls (Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley, Addie Mae Collins, and Denise McNair). Blanton, along with Bobby Frank Cherry, was convicted in a highly-publicized trial in 2001. Blanton is the son of Thomas Edwin "Pops" Blanton Sr., who was a notorious racist in the Birmingham, Alabama area. Blanton was convicted of murder in 2001 and sentenced to life in prison, with
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congressional gold medal to commemorate the lives of Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, and Cynthia Wesley (children who lost their lives in the September 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, an incident recognized as a catalyst during the Civil Rights Movement). It requires that the congressional gold medal to be given to the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute in Birmingham, AL, where it shall be available for display or temporary loan to other appropriate places. Finally, the law authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury to strike and sell bronze duplicates of the medal, with
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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. Nonetheless, a 1979 investigation cleared Rowe of any involvement in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. 16th Street Baptist Church bombing The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing was an act of white supremacist terrorism which occurred at the African American 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, on Sunday, September 15, 1963, when four members of the Ku Klux Klan planted at least 15 sticks of dynamite attached to a
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16th Street Baptist Church bombing The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing was an act of white supremacist terrorism which occurred at the African American 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, on Sunday, September 15, 1963, when four members of the Ku Klux Klan planted at least 15 sticks of dynamite attached to a timing device beneath the steps located on the east side of the church. Described by Martin Luther King Jr. as "one of the most vicious and tragic crimes ever perpetrated against humanity" the explosion at the church killed four girls and injured 22 others. Although the
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in the bombing. The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing marked a turning point in the United States during the civil rights movement and contributed to support for passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. 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 of any form was met with violent resistance. Martin Luther King described Birmingham as "probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States". The city had no black police officers or firefighters,
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the Lloyd Noland Hospital and Health Center on October 29, 1985, at the age of 81. 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—repeatedly insisting Gary Thomas Rowe Jr. was the actual perpetrator. Ten years after Chambliss had died, the FBI discreetly reopened their investigation into the bombing, resulting in the unsealing of 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 been unavailable
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16th Street Baptist Church The 16th Street Baptist Church is a Baptist church in Birmingham, Alabama, that is frequented predominantly by African Americans. In 1963, the church was the target of the racially motivated bombing that killed four young girls in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement. The church is still in operation and is a central landmark in the Birmingham Civil Rights District. It was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 2006. Since 2008, it has also been on the UNESCO list of tentative World Heritage Sites. The 16th Street Baptist Church was organized as the First
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for the bombing." The prosecution called a total of seven witnesses to testify in their case against Blanton, including relatives of the victims, the former reverend of the 16th Street Baptist Church, John Cross, an FBI agent named William Fleming, and a former Klansman who became a paid FBI informant, Mitchell Burns. Burns had secretly recorded several conversations with Blanton in which he (Blanton) had gloated when talking about the bombing, and had boasted the police would not catch him when he bombed another church. The most crucial piece of evidence presented at Blanton's trial was an audio recording secretly
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photo became one of only a few pieces of physical evidence of Rowe's involvement. In 1963, Gary Thomas Rowe may have helped perpetrate the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing that killed four young girls. One of the Klansman eventually convicted of the crime, Robert E. Chambliss, said that it was Rowe who bombed the church. Rowe, who was no stranger to dynamite, had twice failed polygraph tests when questioned as to his possible involvement in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, investigative records show. Because of this, the FBI and the prosecution did not use Rowe as a witness in
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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 prior to the bombing. Following the testimony of Tom Cook, Baxley then introduced a police sergeant named Ernie Cantrell, who testified that Chambliss had visited his headquarters in 1976, where he had attempted to affix the blame for the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing upon an altogether different member of the Ku Klux Klan. Cantrell also stated that Chambliss had boasted of
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against the suspects, and refused to disclose any evidence his agents had obtained with state or federal prosecutors. In 1968, the FBI formally closed their investigation into the bombing without filing charges against any of their named suspects. The files were sealed by order of J. Edgar Hoover. The Birmingham campaign, the March on Washington, the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist church, and the later 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—increased worldwide awareness of and sympathy towards the civil rights cause.
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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 before becoming a paid FBI informant just two months after the bombing. In this role, Rowe acted as an agent provocateur between 1961 and 1965. Although informative to the FBI, Rowe participated in violence against blacks and white civil rights activists. By Rowe's own later admission, in his role as an FBI informant, he had shot
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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." Within one week of being sworn into office, Baxley had researched original police files into the bombing, discovering that most of the original police documents were lackluster and inefficient. Nonetheless, Baxley formally reopened the case into the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in 1971. Baxley was able to corroborate with and build trust with key witnesses, some of whom had been reluctant
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and killed an unidentified black man and had been an accessory to the murder of Viola Liuzzo. 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. 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, William Baxley had opted not to call Rowe as a witness after being informed of the results of these polygraph tests. Although never formally named
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within the decade. The neighborhood of Dynamite Hill was the most-frequently targeted area during this time. The bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church increased Federal involvement in Alabama. President Johnson passed the 1964 Civil Rights Act the following year; and in 1965 the Voting Rights Act was passed, making literacy tests and poll taxes illegal. Following the bombing, more than $300,000 in unsolicited gifts were received by the church and repairs were begun immediately. The church reopened on June 7, 1964. A stained glass window depicting a black Jesus, designed by John Petts, was donated by citizens of Wales
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and sentenced to life imprisonment for her murder. 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." The same afternoon Chambliss was convicted, William Baxley issued a subpoena to Thomas Blanton to appear in court in relation to the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. Although Baxley knew he had insufficient evidence to charge Blanton at this stage, this subpoena was issued in the hope of frightening Blanton into confessing his involvement
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theorized that a bomb thrown from a passing car had caused the explosion at the 16th Street Baptist church; however, by September 20, the FBI was able to confirm that the explosion had been caused by a device which had been purposely planted beneath the steps to the church, close to the women's lounge, where a section of wire and remnants of red plastic which could have been part of a timing device were discovered. (The plastic remnants were later lost by investigators.) Within days of the bombing, investigators began to focus their attention upon a Ku Klux Klan splinter
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began presenting witnesses. Crucial testimony at Cherry's trial was delivered by his former wife, Willadean Brogdon, whom Cherry had married 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 upon the dynamite. Brogdon also testified that Cherry had informed her of his regret that children had died in the bombing, before adding his contentment that they would never reproduce. Although the credibility of Brogdon's testimony was called into dispute at the trial,
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Robert Edward Chambliss Robert Edward Chambliss (January 14, 1904 – October 29, 1985), also known as "Dynamite Bob", was a terrorist convicted in 1977 of murder for his role as conspirator in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in 1963. A member of the United Klans of America, Chambliss allegedly also firebombed the houses of several black families in Alabama. A May 13, 1965 memo to Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director J. Edgar Hoover identified Chambliss, Bobby Frank Cherry, Herman Frank Cash and Thomas E. Blanton, Jr. as suspects in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing that killed four
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to 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 Ku Klux Klan splinter group known as the "Cahaba Boys." The four individuals named in the FBI report were Blanton, Cash, Chambliss, and Cherry. At the time of the announcement, Herman Cash was deceased; however, Thomas Blanton and Bobby Cherry were still alive. Both were arrested. On May 16, 2000, a grand jury in Alabama indicted Thomas Edwin Blanton and Bobby Frank Cherry with eight counts each of first-degree murder
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filled newspapers and television coverage, arousing national outrage. The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing during a Sunday service, which killed four African-American girls, caused a national outcry and gained support for the civil rights cause in the state. 16th Street Baptist Church had been a rallying point and staging area for civil rights activities in Birmingham prior to the bombing. Finally, Birmingham leaders King and Shuttlesworth agreed to end the marches when the businessmen's group committed to end segregation in stores and public facilities. Before his November, 1963 assassination, President John F. Kennedy had supported civil rights legislation. In 1964
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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. The following day, both men surrendered to police. The 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, which had concluded that vascular dementia had impaired his mind, therefore making Cherry mentally incompetent to stand trial or assist in his own defense. On April 10, 2001, Judge James Garrett indefinitely postponed Cherry's trial, pending further medical analysis.
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Following the assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, newly-inaugurated President Lyndon Johnson continued to press for the 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 various leaders of the Civil Rights Movement including Martin Luther King Jr. This resulting legislation outlawed any discrimination based on race, color, religion, gender, or national origin; thus ensuring full, equal rights of African-Americans before the law. Officially, the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing remained unsolved until William Baxley was elected
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and few of the city's black residents were registered to vote. Bombings at black institutions were a regular occurrence: Birmingham had seen at least 21 separate explosions at black properties and churches in the eight years before 1963, although none of these explosions had resulted in fatalities. These attacks had earned the city the nickname "Bombingham". The three-story 16th Street Baptist Church had become a rallying point for civil rights activities through the spring of 1963, and became the location where students who were arrested during the 1963 Birmingham campaign's Children's Crusade had been organized and trained by Southern Christian
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the Sunday morning bombing. Robinson, aged 16, was shot in the back by a policeman as he fled down an alley, after ignoring police orders to halt. 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 in a residential suburb 15 miles 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
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as "four less niggers", as news of the church bombing and the fact that four young girls had been killed in the explosion reached the national and international 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 towards the oppression of blacks. In this speech, Morgan addressed his audience with a speech in which he lamented: "Who did it [the bombing]? We all did it! The 'who' is every
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Leadership Conference (SCLC) Director of Direct Action, James Bevel. The church was also used as a meeting-place for other civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr., Ralph David Abernathy, and Fred Shuttlesworth. Tensions further escalated when the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Congress on Racial Equality became involved in a campaign to register African-Americans to vote in Birmingham. On 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
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the United Klans of America—Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr., Herman Frank Cash, Robert Edward Chambliss, and Bobby Frank Cherry—planted a minimum of 15 sticks 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. To Maull, the anonymous caller simply said the words, "Three minutes", before terminating the call. Less than one minute later, the bomb exploded as five children were present within the basement assembly,
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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. In response to the church bombing, described by the Mayor of Birmingham, Albert Boutwell, as "just sickening", the Attorney General dispatched 25 FBI agents, including explosives experts, to Birmingham to conduct a thorough forensic investigation. 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
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or ignited the bomb, the combined evidence would illustrate that he had aided and abetted in the commission of the act. Cherry's defense attorney, Mickey Johnson, protested his client's innocence, citing that much of the evidence presented was circumstantial, and 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 then warned the jurors they would have to draw a distinction between evidence and proof. Following the opening statements, the prosecution
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to testify in the first trial. Other witnesses obtained were able to identify 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 less than two weeks before the bomb was planted, upon the pretext the dynamite was to be used to clear land the Ku Klux Klan had purchased near Highway 101. In addition, he also obtained testimony from witnesses who were able to place Robert Chambliss and his car in the vicinity of the church on the day of the bombing.
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from city leaders to the majority of demonstrators' demands, were met with fierce resistance in Birmingham. In the weeks following the September 4 integration of public schools, three further bombs had been detonated in Birmingham. Other acts of violence followed the settlement, and several staunch Ku Klux Klansmen were known to have expressed frustration at what they saw as a lack of effective resistance to integration. The 16th Street Baptist Church was a known and popular rallying point for civil rights activists, and had become an obvious target. In the early morning of Sunday, September 15, 1963, four members of
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by bombings at Montgomery's Bell Street Baptist Church, the Mount Olive Baptist Church, the Hutchinson Street Baptist Church, and the First Baptist Church and its parsonage (Abernathy's residence). Raymond C. Britt, Jr., was charged with the bombing of the First Baptist Church, and Henry Alexander and James D. York were charged with the bombing of Abernathy's house, but city prosecutor D. Eugene Loe ended up dropping the charges. In the spring of 1958, the basement of the church was the site of the formal initiation of John Lewis into the civil rights movement. Lewis, who had been active at American
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by the FBI. Acquaintances claimed that Cash was too nervous to be capable of committing a crime of the magnitude of the bombing. Cash died in 1994 in Pinson, Alabama. Herman Frank Cash Herman Frank Cash (July 25, 1918 – February 7, 1994) was suspected to have been a fourth conspirator in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing of 1963. Cash was married to Myrtle Cash and had two children, Clem and Dale. He was a truck driver for Dixie-Ohio Express Company. Cash was a member of United Klans of America, a Ku Klux Klan organization. Although officially named by
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Mauldin, who was called to testify in an effort to discredit prosecution witnesses' statements that they had seen Blanton in the vicinity of the church prior to the bombing. Mauldin testified on April 30 that he had observed two men in a 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, and neither Chambliss, Cash nor Cherry had owned such a vehicle.) Both counsels delivered their closing
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years old, where he eventually died. Chambliss never confessed to the bombing. On May 16, 2000, the remaining suspects were indicted. The jury convicted UKA members Robert Chambliss, Thomas E. Blanton, Jr., and Bobby Frank Cherry of planting the 19 sticks of dynamite that were used in the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church. In 2001, Thomas E. Blanton, Jr., was sentenced to life in prison following his trial, in which he was charged with murder. In 2002, Bobby Frank Cherry also was tried for murder and he, too, received life in prison. In 1965, 39-year-old Viola Liuzzo,
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on protesters. John Cross Jr. John H. Cross Jr. (January 27, 1925 – November 15, 2007) was an American pastor and Civil Rights activist. He was best known as the pastor of the 16th Street Baptist Church, an African American Baptist congregation in Birmingham, Alabama, at the time of church's racially motivated bombing in 1963. The bombing, which ripped through the church and killed four young girls, became a rallying cry for the Civil Rights Movement and propelled the problems of racial segregation in The South into the national spotlight. Cross spent much of the rest of his life working
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John Cross Jr. John H. Cross Jr. (January 27, 1925 – November 15, 2007) was an American pastor and Civil Rights activist. He was best known as the pastor of the 16th Street Baptist Church, an African American Baptist congregation in Birmingham, Alabama, at the time of church's racially motivated bombing in 1963. The bombing, which ripped through the church and killed four young girls, became a rallying cry for the Civil Rights Movement and propelled the problems of racial segregation in The South into the national spotlight. Cross spent much of the rest of his life working for racial
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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." 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." Two more black youths, Johnny Robinson and Virgil Ware, were shot to death in Birmingham within seven hours of
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a reputation as a liberal, but its impact was limited in a county where the population was 97 percent white. His relations with the increasingly militant civil rights movement were sometimes troubled. In a number of desegregation disputes involving private property, Agnew appeared to prioritize law and order, showing a particular aversion to any kind of demonstration. His reaction to the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Alabama, in which four children died, was to refuse to attend a memorial service at a Baltimore church, and to denounce a planned demonstration in support of the victims. As county executive, Agnew
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Institute, which plans events that teach and promote the history of human rights. The 16th Street Baptist Church engaged in a $3 million restoration of the building in the first decade of the 21st century. Persistent water damage problems and exterior brick facing failure were addressed. The first phase of restoration, mainly below-grade waterproofing, was completed in 2007, followed by work on the exterior masonry. Additional funds were sought to handle unexpected problems uncovered during the work and to provide for ongoing physical maintenance. 16th Street Baptist Church The 16th Street Baptist Church is a Baptist church in Birmingham, Alabama,
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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. The jury deliberated for just two and a half hours before returning with a verdict finding Thomas Edwin Blanton guilty of four counts of first-degree murder. When asked by the judge whether he had anything to say before sentence was imposed, Blanton simply said: "I guess the Lord will settle it on Judgment Day." Blanton was sentenced to serve a sentence of life imprisonment, and remains the sole perpetrator of the 1963 Birmingham
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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 Waylene 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 describing his not being with Miss Vaughn, but at a meeting with other Ku Klux Klansmen on a bridge above the Cahaba River two
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fishing tackle.) Another witness to testify on behalf of the prosecution was Barbara Ann Cross, the daughter of the Reverend John Cross, who was aged 13 in 1963. Cross had been slightly wounded in the bombing, and had attended the same Sunday School class as the four victims on the day of the bombing. On May 15, 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
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had informed her 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 article relating to the four girls killed in the bombing. According to Cobbs, Chambliss had informed her: "It [the bomb] wasn't meant to hurt anybody ... it didn't go off when it was supposed to." Another witness to testify was a man named William Jackson, who testified as to his joining the Ku Klux Klan in 1963 and his becoming acquainted with Chambliss shortly thereafter. Jackson testified that
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Blanton were at these premises on this date. 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 n-word than proving what happened in September 1963." Johnson then reiterated that there was no hard evidence linking Cherry to the bombing, but only evidence attesting to his racist beliefs dating from that era, and that the family members who had testified against him were
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$200,000 bond raised by family and supporters and posted October 18. Chambliss pleaded not guilty to the charges, insisting that although he had indeed purchased a case of dynamite less than two weeks before the bombing, he had given the dynamite to a known Klan member named Gary Thomas Rowe Jr. 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 a retired Birmingham police officer named Tom Cook, who testified on November 15 as to
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use of 9-1-1 as an emergency telephone number in the United States. Months later, Connor won another term, but he was defeated in 1972. He suffered another stroke on February 26, 1973, which left him unconscious. He died a few weeks later, in March of that year. Survivors included his widow, Beara, a daughter and a brother, Edward King Connor. Connor's brutality and tolerance for violence against civil rights activists contributed to KKK and other violence against blacks in the city of Birmingham. On a Sunday in September 1963, the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing destroyed much of the church
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significantly, one recording from the car raised the subject of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. In the recording, the men spoke of it with approval. Blanton began to say something that sounded as if he were about to implicate himself and Cherry by bragging, but Cherry, who was less acquainted with the informant, sharply cut him off by saying, "Now, this good ol' boy doesn't need to know about that!" and laughed. Burns also reported unrecorded references made by Blanton and Cherry to their involvement in the bombing. Also presented at Bobby Cherry's trial were videos showing explosives in
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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. These witness statements specifically indicated that a white man had exited the car and walked towards the steps of the church. (The physical description of the individual who had exited the car varied, and could have matched either Bobby Cherry or Robert Chambliss.) Chambliss was questioned by the FBI on September 26. On September 29, Chambliss was indicted solely upon charges of illegally purchasing and transporting dynamite on September 4, 1963. He and
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his knowledge of how to construct a "drip-method bomb" using a fishing float and leaking bucket of water. (Upon cross examination by defense attorney Art Hanes Jr., Cantrell did concede that Chambliss had emphatically denied actually bombing the church.) One of the key witnesses to testify on behalf of the prosecution was the Reverend Elizabeth Cobbs—Chambliss's own 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. Moreover, Cobbs testified on November 16 that, on the day before the bombing, Chambliss
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a bicycle ridden by his brother. Sims and Farley had been riding home from an anti-integration rally which had denounced the church bombing. 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, although the judge suspended their sentences and imposed two years' probation upon each youth.) Some civil rights activists blamed George Wallace, the 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",
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John Petts (artist) John Petts (10 January 1914 – 26 August 1991) was born in London, but is considered a Welsh artist, known for his engravings and stained glass. With his partner, Brenda Chamberlain, Petts set up the Caseg Press in Snowdonia in 1937, and collaborated with poet Alun Lewis before the latter died in the Second World War. In later life Petts lived and worked in Abergavenny. In 1963, Petts designed and created a stained glass window featuring a Black Jesus for the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, following a racially motivated bombing that killed four African-American
John Petts (artist)
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Shortly afterwards, a bomb goes off at a nearby church where Joetta is attending Sunday school. (This was the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, a real historical event.) Kenny wanders into the still-smoking church in the immediate aftermath looking for his sister, but instead sees the Wool Pooh in the smoke clinging to a torn girl's shoe that looks like Joetta's. In shock, he walks back to Grandma Sands' house without anyone noticing that he had been at the church, and he's again shocked and confused to find Joetta already there. She claims that it was Kenny who had called
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nights before the bombing, adding: "You've got to have a meeting to plan a bomb." In addition to calling attention to flaws in the prosecution's case, the defense was able to expose inconsistencies in the memories of some prosecution witnesses who had testified. Blanton's attorneys also criticized the validity and quality of the 16 tape recordings introduced as evidence, arguing that the prosecution had deliberately spliced the sections of the audio recording secretly obtained within Blanton's kitchen, reducing the entirety of the tape by 26 minutes, and that the sections presented were of a poor audio quality, requiring the prosecution
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degree in divinity from Virginia Union University in 1959. Cross met his wife, Julia Ball, who was also a student at Virginia Union University. The couple married on September 3, 1949. Julia Cross died in 2003. John Cross Jr was named the new pastor of the 16th Street Baptist Church in 1962. He was serving as a pastor of a Baptist church in Richmond, Virginia at the time. Cross was asked to serve at the church because he seemed to be a good match for its , who largely consisted of conservative, well educated African Americans. Cross had no real
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forensic experts did concede 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 subsequently discovered after the bombing. (A fishing float attached to a section of wire which may have been part of a timing device was found 20 feet from the explosion crater following the bombing, although one of several vehicles heavily damaged in the explosion was found to have carried
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Africans for two centuries, and after slavery was abolished racist groups like the Ku Klux Klan led mobs to engage in boycotts at the least and outright violence against Black businesses (1921 Tulsa Race Riot), churches (16th Street Baptist Church bombing), schools, and other pillars of Black society at worst. Though these individuals have since died, their wealth has been passed down until the present in the form of inheritance and historical business investment. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, which forbade employers from discriminating on the basis of race, was one of the earliest and greatest influences on the
Racial wage gap in the United States
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to "kill segregation or be killed by it". When Shuttlesworth and his wife Ruby attempted to enroll their children in a previously all-white public school in Birmingham in 1957, a mob of Klansmen attacked them, with the police nowhere to be seen. His assailants included Bobby Frank Cherry, who six years later was involved in the 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing. The mob beat Shuttlesworth with chains and brass knuckles in the street while someone stabbed his wife. Shuttlesworth drove himself and his wife to the hospital where he told his kids to always forgive. In 1956, Shuttlesworth survived another
Fred Shuttlesworth
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and negotiating a deal to turn state evidence against his co-conspirators. Blanton, however, simply hired a lawyer and refused to answer any questions. Chambliss did appeal his conviction, citing that much of the evidence presented at his trial—including testimony relating to his activities within the Ku Klux Klan—was circumstantial; that the 14-year delay between the crime and his eventual trial violated his constitutional right to a speedy trial; and that this delay was a tactic used by the prosecution to gain an advantage over his own defense attorneys. This appeal was dismissed on May 22, 1979. Robert Chambliss died in
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judge whether he had anything to say before sentence was imposed, Cherry motioned to the prosecutors and stated: "This whole bunch lied all the way 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!" Bobby Frank Cherry died of cancer on November 18, 2004, at age 74, while incarcerated at the Kilby Correctional Facility. Following the convictions of Blanton and Cherry, Alabama's former Attorney General, William Baxley, expressed his frustration at his never being informed of the existence of these audio recordings before their emergence at
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Church bombing still alive. 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, with Martin addressing the hearing by stating: "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 opting to deny parole to Blanton. He is next eligible for parole in 2021. Bobby Frank Cherry was tried
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as his vision could be only partially corrected. Nevertheless, he said, "I always felt I was only half blind, and never considered myself handicapped." He lived in the United States for the remainder of his life. He was married twice. He and his second wife, who was White, lived in Birmingham, Alabama, and attended the African-American 16th Street Baptist Church. After the infamous fire bombing of the church in September 1963, he and his wife decided to leave the South and settled in San Francisco, where there was less racial tension and interracial marriage was more accepted. He had an
Ira Lunan Ferguson
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full of regional detail, and crisply drawn characters.". Most recently, he has written several screenplays, including " Four Negro Girls in a Church", a historical drama about the 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing, "The Man Who Bore The Myth", a J.D. Salinger biopic, Finalist at Hill Country Film Festival, "Within These Walls, The Angela Davis Story", which was an Official Selection of the Richmond International Film Festival and "Once Upon A Time In LA" that won a Gold Medal for best thriller at the Beverly Hills Screenplay Competition. In 2014, he was also a three time quarter-finalist at Screencraft Action/Thriller
Phillip E. Hardy
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E. B. Du Bois, Mary McLeod Bethune, Paul Robeson and Ralph Bunche all spoke at the church during the first part of the 20th century. During the civil rights movement of the 1960s, the 16th Street Baptist Church served as an organizational headquarters, site of mass meetings and rallying point for African Americans protesting widespread institutionalized racism in Birmingham, Alabama and the South. The reverends Fred Shuttlesworth, who was the chief local organizer, James Bevel, SCLC leader who initiated the Children's Crusade and taught the students nonviolence, and Martin Luther King, Jr. were frequent speakers at the church and led
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Church of Washington, D.C. (1866), Salem Baptist Church (1874) and Berean Baptist Church (1877). Nineteenth Street Baptist Church (Washington, D.C.) The Nineteenth Street Baptist Church, located on 16th Street, NW, is considered to be the first and oldest black Baptist congregation in Washington, D.C. Since its founding in 1839, the church has figured prominently within the historical and social fabric of Washington, D.C.'s African American community. Established as the First Colored Baptist Church of Washington, D.C. on August 29, 1839, the congregation finds its earliest beginnings within The First Baptist Church of the City of Washington, DC which was founded
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two acquaintances, John Hall and Charles Cagle, were each convicted upon a charge of illegally possessing and transporting dynamite on October 8—each receiving a $100 fine and a suspended 180-day jail sentence. At the time, no federal charges were filed against Chambliss or any of his fellow conspirators in relation to the bombing. The FBI did encounter difficulties in their initial investigation into the bombing. One 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 physical evidence was
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Carter), the Nineteenth Street Baptist Church which was originally named the First Colored Baptist Church of Washington, D.C. (visited twice by President Barack Obama), St. John's ("Church of the Presidents"), All Souls Unitarian, Universalist National Memorial Church, St. John the Baptist Russian Orthodox Cathedral, founded in 1949 and built in 1958, and Third Church of Christ, Scientist, which was designed by an associate of I.M. Pei in 1972. Shrine of the Sacred Heart is located just off of 16th Street. After most of the embassies moved to Embassy Row and other parts of the city, the churches became more prominent
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Martin Luther King's Letter from Birmingham Jail, the Children's Crusade with its images of students being attacked by water hoses and dogs, the bombing of the Gaston Motel – the movement's headquarters motel now designated as a National Monument – and the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. The site also resides within the larger Birmingham Civil Rights District, which was designated in 1992 by the City of Birmingham. Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument The Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument is a United States National Monument in Birmingham, Alabama established in 2017 to preserve and commemorate the work of the Civil
Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument
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The team was frequently referred to by fans and the media as simply the Bolts. Team merchandise almost always used the shortened Bolts moniker. Allegedly, the league had originally planned to name the team the Blast; the XFL had named all of its teams with references to insanity and criminal activity, and the name "Birmingham Blast" likewise invoked images of the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church and of Eric Rudolph's 1998 bombing of a local abortion clinic, two tragic events in Birmingham history. As the league soon realized that such a name would have been in extremely
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Nineteenth Street Baptist Church (Washington, D.C.) The Nineteenth Street Baptist Church, located on 16th Street, NW, is considered to be the first and oldest black Baptist congregation in Washington, D.C. Since its founding in 1839, the church has figured prominently within the historical and social fabric of Washington, D.C.'s African American community. Established as the First Colored Baptist Church of Washington, D.C. on August 29, 1839, the congregation finds its earliest beginnings within The First Baptist Church of the City of Washington, DC which was founded on March 7, 1802. Described initially as an interracial congregation, black members worshipped alongside
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help in their household. Morgan attended the University of Alabama, where he earned his law degree and met his wife, the former Camille Walpole. The day after the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing that killed four black girls in Birmingham in September 1963, Morgan spoke out publicly at a lunch time meeting he was having with the Birmingham Young Men's Business Club, right in the middle of the city's White Establishment, to blame community leaders for their role in failing to stand up to the climate of racial hatred, stating that "Every person in this community who has in any
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Chambliss was indicted for the September 15, 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham that had killed four young girls, with Hanes and his son serving as the defense counsel. In the trial two months later, one of the most damaging moments for Hanes' defense came when Chambliss' niece testified against the man who had been dubbed, "Dynamite Bob" by authorities. On November 18, 1977, Chambliss was convicted of the murder of Denise McNair and sentenced to life in prison. Ironically, the verdict came on what would have been McNair's 26th birthday. In 1979, Hanes indicated that
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major leagues: Birmingham, Memphis, Las Vegas, and Orlando. All of the XFL's markets except Las Vegas had hosted teams in the United States Football League in the 1980s; Las Vegas, along with Birmingham and Memphis, had hosted short-lived CFL teams in the 1990s. The XFL chose unusual names for its teams, most of which either referenced images of uncontrolled insanity (Maniax, Rage, Xtreme, Demons) or criminal activity (Enforcers, Hitmen, Outlaws, and the Birmingham Blast). After outrage from Birmingham residents who noted that Birmingham had a history of notorious "blasts", including the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in 1963 and Eric
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to 1987, he served a single term as the 24th Lieutenant Governor of Alabama before running another unsuccessful campaign for governor in 1986. During his time in public office, Baxley aggressively prosecuted industrial polluters, strip miners, and corrupt elected officials. He appointed the state's first African American assistant attorney general, Myron Thompson, who later became a U.S. District Judge. Baxley incurred the wrath of the Ku Klux Klan when he reopened the case of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. In a letter, the Klan threatened him, compared him to John F. Kennedy, and made him an "honorary nigger," but
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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. 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, many of them hysterical, converged on the scene in the hours following the explosion as the church's pastor, the Reverend John Cross Jr., attempted
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Chambliss had expressed frustration as to his (Chambliss's) belief that the Klan was "dragging its feet" on the issue of racial integration, and of his eagerness to form a more virulent splinter group. In his closing argument before the jury on November 17, Baxley acknowledged that Chambliss was not the sole perpetrator in the bombing, before informing the jury of his regret that the state was unable to request the death penalty in this case, owing to the fact the death penalty in Alabama which had been in effect in 1963 had been repealed, and that the current death penalty
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the 2001 and 2002 trials. Baxley acknowledged that the social circumstances in 1960s Alabama would likely have leaned in favor of both defendants even with the FBI recordings presented in evidence, but added that he could have prosecuted Thomas Blanton—and likely Bobby Cherry—in 1977, had he been granted access to the secretly recorded tapes of Blanton conversing with his wife and with FBI informant Mitchell Burns. (A 1980 Justice Department report had concluded that J. Edgar Hoover had blocked prosecution of the four suspects of the bombing in 1965, and had officially closed the investigation in 1968.) Although both Blanton
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Carry Me Home (book) Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama, the Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution, written by Diane McWhorter and published by Simon & Schuster in 2001, won the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize and the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction. McWhorter grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, and recounts being about the same age as the girls killed in the September 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church, though she "was growing up on the wrong side of the revolution". While four black girls were murdered in that day's bombing, McWhorter recalls that the only repercussion
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of one Congressional Gold Medal, to be sent to the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute in Birmingham, AL for display. The Treasury Department is also authorized to create bronze copies for sale. More information about these four girls and the bombing they were killed in can be found in the article on the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. "This summary is based largely on the summary provided by the Congressional Research Service, a public domain source." The law directs the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President pro tempore of the Senate to arrange for the presentation of a
Public Law 113–11
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arguments before the jury on May 1. In his closing argument, prosecuting attorney Doug Jones first pointed to the fact that the trial was conducted 38 years after the bombing made the trial 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 then recited Blanton's extensive history with the Ku Klux Klan, before referring to the audio recordings presented earlier in the trial. Jones then recited the most damning statements Blanton had made in these recordings, before pointing at
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in Birmingham, Alabama, before Judge James Garrett, on May 6, 2002. Cherry also 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 outlined that he expected the evidence to be presented to 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 actually planted
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Cochran then outlined Cherry's extensive record of racial violence dating back to the 1950s, also noting his knowledge of constructing and installing bombs obtained in his days 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 informed his first wife, Jean, that he and other Klansmen had constructed the bomb within the premises of a business the Friday before the bombing, and that Cherry had signed an affidavit in the presence of the FBI on October 9, 1963, confirming that he, Chambliss and
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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." 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. This information was relayed to the Director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover; however, no prosecutions of the four suspects ensued, reportedly on the basis of mistrust between local and federal investigators. Later the same year, J. Edgar Hoover formally blocked any impending prosecutions
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Birmingham Sunday "Birmingham Sunday" is a song written by Richard Fariña and most famously performed by both Fariña and his sister-in-law Joan Baez. The subject matter is the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in 1963 by members of the Ku Klux Klan that killed four girls and injured 22 others. The melody of the song comes from a traditional English ballad named "I loved a lass". Baez's version was released on her 1964 album "Joan Baez/5", and was used as the theme song of the 1997 Spike Lee documentary about the bombing, "4 Little Girls". The song was
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but only one survived: young Sarah Collins, Addie Mae's younger sister. The bombing was racially motivated and carried out by members of the Ku Klux Klan. The film was first aired on January 6, 2002 at FX. Tom Cherry (Tom Sizemore), a middle-aged man, has difficult decisions to make when the police reopens the investigation about events involving the 1963 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama in which his father, Bobby Frank Cherry (Richard Jenkins), was involved. Now, Tom has to decide whether he protects his father or turn him and let the justice finally be made. The
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works. A turning point for Melody was when a fellow student expressed her intention of moving to another school out of fear for being discriminated, and when news about the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing was aired on television, making her question the Pledge of Allegiance and consider moving to a school at her neighborhood. Fearing that a similar bombing would happen at the chapel where Melody's family attend mass in, Melody tries to convince her mother not to perform at a fundraising concert for the Birmingham victims; Frances reassures her, and sees hope in her daughter. Melody puts her
An American Girl Story – Melody 1963: Love Has to Win
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campaign. It was here that Pat Buchanan dubbed Miller as "the Pat Buchanan of New Hampshire." He was featured in the first issue of "George" magazine, founded by John F. Kennedy Jr. Miller's success in New Hampshire captured the interest of management at Huntsville, Alabama's WVNN, who hired Miller to fill their afternoon slot. From there, Miller went on to WERC in Birmingham, Alabama where he hosted a show and served as program director. In Birmingham, Miller received national media attention for his coverage of the Shirley Henson road rage incident and the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing trials. From
Kevin Miller (radio host)