16th Street Baptist Church - Birmingham, Alabama
N 33° 31.002 W 086° 48.872
16S E 517223 N 3708586
On Sunday morning, September 15, 1963, a dynamite bomb exploded in the basement of Birmingham's 16th Street Baptist Church, killing 4 young African America girls and galvanizing the civil rights movement.
Waymark Code: WM1Z6M
Location: Alabama, United States
Date Posted: 08/07/2007
Views: 186
The three-story 16th Street Baptist Church was a rallying point for civil-rights activities. In the early morning of Sunday, September 15, 1963, the church's Youth Day, Ku Klux Klan members Bobby Frank Cherry and Robert "Dynamite Bob" Chambliss planted 19 sticks of dynamite in the basement of the church. Chambliss was also convicted of having 122 sticks of dynamite without a permit.
At about 10:25 A.M., when 26 children were walking into the basement assembly room for closing prayers after a sermon entitled "The Love That Forgives," the bombs exploded. Four girls—Addie Mae Collins (aged 14), Denise McNair (11), Carole Robertson (14), and Cynthia Wesley (14)—were killed in the blast, while 22 more were injured.
The explosion blew a hole in the church's rear wall, destroyed the back steps, and left intact only the frames of all but one stained-glass window. The lone window that survived the concussion was one in which Jesus Christ was depicted leading young children, although Christ's face was destroyed. In addition, five cars behind the church were damaged, two of them completely destroyed, while windows in the laundry across the street were blown out.
Outrage at the bombing and the grief that followed resulted in violence across Birmingham, with two more African-American youths dead by the end of the day. Sixteen year-old Johnnie Robinson was shot and killed by police after throwing stones at cars with white people inside, while 13-year-old Virgil Ware was killed by two whites riding on a motor scooter.
Three days after the tragedy, former Birmingham police commissioner Bull Connor further inflamed matters by saying to a crowd of 2,500 people at a Citizen's Council meeting, "If you're going to blame anyone for getting those children killed in Birmingham, it's your Supreme Court." Connor recalled that in 1954, after the Brown v. Board of Education decision had been reached, he said, "You're going to have bloodshed, and it's on them (the Court), not us." He also proposed that African-Americans may have set the bomb deliberately to provoke an emotional response, saying, "I wouldn't say it's above (Dr. Martin Luther) King's crowd."
Chambliss was initially charged for the murders but there was no conviction, at first. Years later it was found that the FBI had accumulated evidence against the bombers that had not been revealed to the prosecutors, by order of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. In 1977, Chambliss was prosecuted by Alabama Attorney-General Bill Baxley and was convicted for the four murders and sentenced to several terms of life imprisonment. He died in prison in 1985.
After reopening the case several times, the FBI in 2000 assisted the state authorities in bringing charges against Cherry and Thomas Blanton. Blanton and Cherry were convicted by state court juries of all four murders and sentenced to life in prison. Cherry, who always denied his involvement, died on November 18, 2004.
Civil Right Type: Not listed
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