The Birmingham Church Bombing
The 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama not only served as a house of worship for its predominately black congregation, it also was a frequent meeting place for organizers of the Civil Rights movement, including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Many of the 1960s Civil Rights marches in Birmingham began at the 16th Street Baptist Church.
Members of the Ku Klux Klan, those nice Christian fellows who hate everyone who isn’t white, had a habit of calling in bomb threats to the church during civil rights meetings and church services. On September 15, 1963 at 10: 22 a.m., they made good on their threat.
Most of the 200 parishioners were able to escape when a bomb detonated on the building’s east side, except for four young girls. Cynthia Wesley, Addie Mae Collins, and Carole Robertson, all 14 years old, and 11-year-old Denise McNair were found buried in the rubble of the church’s basement. More than twenty other church-goers were also injured during the explosion.
This bombing was the third one in 11 days in response to a federal court order to integrate Alabama’s schools. When black protesters arrived at the scene after the incident, the state’s governor George Wallace…
