Following the bombing, the 16th Street Baptist Church remained closed for over eight months, as assessments and, later, repairs were conducted upon the property. In the film, Lee interviews witnesses to the bombing and family members of the victims while at the same time exploring the backdrop of segregation and white harassment that were central to the time period. T hursday marked the 59th anniversary of white supremacists' deadly bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. The sole stained-glass window largely undamaged in the explosion depicted Christ leading a group of young children. [13][15], 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. We all did it! (The plastic remnants were later lost by investigators. Many of the same audiotapes presented in Blanton's trial were also introduced into evidence in the trial of Bobby Cherry. On September 18, the funeral of the three other girls killed in the bombing was held at the Sixth Avenue Baptist Church. [39], 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. Petts then elaborated that the inspiration for the stained-glass image was a verse from the, 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). Officially, the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing remained unsolved until after William Baxley was elected Attorney General of Alabama in January 1971. Resulting in the injury of 14 people and the death of four girls, the attack garnered widespread national outrage. A day after the tragedy, President Kennedy spoke of his "outrage" and "grief" at the Birmingham church bombing. [57], Initially, investigators theorized that a bomb thrown from a passing car had caused the explosion at the 16th Street Baptist church. "[104], 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. In this speech, Morgan lamented: "Who did it [the bombing]? At left is Clara Pippen, mother of the two women. I don't know why I'm going to jail for nothing. Addie Mae Collins was one of the four little girls murdered in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing back in 1963. "[68], Bobby Frank Cherry died of cancer on November 18, 2004, at age 74, while incarcerated at the Kilby Correctional Facility. 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. By 1963, homemade bombs set off in Birmingham's Black homes and churches were such common occurrences that the city had earned the nickname "Bombingham.". [78][79], Chambliss pleaded 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 Jr.[80], 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. 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. 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. Enter a date in the format M/D (e.g., 1/1), Four Black schoolgirls killed in Birmingham church bombing, https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/four-black-schoolgirls-killed-in-birmingham, The Four Seasons earn their first #1 hit with Sherry, Tanks introduced into warfare at the Somme, Muhammad Ali wins world heavyweight championship, First trenches are dug on the Western Front, South Vietnamese forces retake Quang Tri City, The first transcontinental mail service to San Francisco begins, Famous Marilyn Monroe skirt scene filmed, A Bible school instructor abducts a teenage girl. A fourth suspect, Herman Frank Cash, died in 1994 before he could be tried. The Birmingham campaign, the March on Washington in August, the September bombing of the 16th Street Baptist church, and the November assassination of John F. Kennedyan ardent supporter of the civil rights cause who had proposed a Civil Rights Act of 1963 on national television[71]increased worldwide awareness of and sympathy toward the civil rights cause in the United States. You can navigate days by using left and right arrows. In the aftermath of the bombing, thousands of angry Black protesters gathered at the scene of the bombing. The last convicted bomber in the 1963 Birmingham church bombing that killed four young African American girls has died in prison, nearly 60 years after the terror attack targeted the US civil. The bomb detonated at 10:19 a.m., killing Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson and Addie Mae Collinsall 14 years oldand 11-year-old Denise McNair. The case was again reopened in 1980, 1988 and 1997, when two other former Klan members, Thomas Blanton and Bobby Frank Cherry, were finally brought to trial; Blanton was convicted in 2001 and Cherry in 2002. After Alabama Attorney General Bill Baxley reopened the case, Chambliss was convicted in 1977 and sentenced to life in prison. Two more violent deaths that day Later that day, 13-year-old Virgil Ware, riding on the. Four young girls, ranging in age from 11 to 14, were killed in the explosion, which also caused anywhere between 14 and 22 additional injuries. A policeman and a neighbor had each testified that Chambliss was at the home of a man named Clarence Dill on that day. [52] Reportedly, Carole's mother, Alpha, had expressly requested that her daughter be buried separately from the other victims. This case grew out of the September 15, 1963, bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in which four young black girls were killed and a number of other people injured as a result of the blast which left the church in shambles. HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate. 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. [132] Nonetheless, a 1979 investigation cleared Rowe of any involvement in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. Alvin and Alpha Robertson, parents of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing victim Carole Robertson at the funeral for their daughter; Sept. 17, 1963. Crucial testimony at Cherry's trial was delivered by his former wife, Willadean Brogdon, who had married Cherry in 1970. Wallace and Birmingham, meanwhile, faced growing criticism nationwide. Following these closing arguments, the jury retired to consider their verdicts. In the weeks following the September 4 integration of public schools, three additional bombs were detonated in Birmingham. 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. [126] Cherry remained stoic as the sentence was read aloud. [88] He was sentenced to life imprisonment for her murder. "If these cruel and tragic events can only awaken that city and state -- if they can only awaken this entire nation -- to a realization of the folly of racial injustice and hatred and violence, then it is not too late for all concerned to unite in steps toward peaceful progress before more lives are lost," Kennedy said. 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. [29] The explosion was so intense that one of the girls' bodies was decapitated and so badly mutilated that her body could be identified only through her clothing and a ring. 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. The Birmingham News. Thomas Blanton, left, and Bobby Frank Cherry appear in court on May 19, 2000, in Birmingham after being accused of the 1963 church bombing. Maxine McNair, the last living parent of the four girls killed in the 1963 bombing of a Birmingham church, passed away Sunday. Although a subsequent FBI investigation identified three other menBobby Frank Cherry, Herman Cash and Thomas E. Blanton, Jr.as having helped Chambliss commit the crime, it was later revealed that FBI chairman J. Edgar Hoover blocked their prosecution and shut down the investigation without filing charges in 1968. It's never too late for a man to be held accountable for his crimes." She died Sunday at 93. He said this past was not the evidence upon which they should return their verdicts. "[24] Another witness to testify was William Jackson, who testified as to his joining the KKK in 1963 and becoming acquainted with Chambliss shortly thereafter. [133], I remembered the bombing of that Sunday School at 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham in 1963. Noting that no timing device was found, he disputed the governments long-held theory the bomb was planted by KKK members hours before the explosion.Mr. BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) Jurors in the murder trial of a former Ku Klux Klansman were shown grisly morgue photos yesterday of the four black girls killed in a 1963 church bombing.It was calculated to produce death, Coroner Robert Brissie said of the bomb. [8] 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. Each received a $100 fine (the equivalent of $972 as of 2023[update]) and a suspended 180-day jail sentence. 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 complacency" of Black people in Alabama.
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