Image: The four girls killed in the bombing (clockwise from top left) Addie Mae Collins (14), Cynthia Wesley (14), Carole Robertson (14), and Carol Denise McNair (11). (Wikimedia Commons.)

On this day in history, September 15, 1963, the Birmingham Church bombing occurred when an explosive device detonated prior to Sunday morning services at the 16^th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama – a church with a primarily Black congregation that also provided a meeting place for civil rights leaders. Four young girls died that day, while many other people were injured. Anger over the incident and the brutal fight between demonstrators and law enforcement helped attract nationwide awareness to the hard-fought, often perilous battle for civil rights for African Americans.

With its sizable African American flock, the 16^th Street Baptist Church was a gathering place for civil rights organizers like Martin Luther King, Jr., who once referred to Birmingham as a “symbol of hardcore resistance to integration.” Alabama’s governor, George Wallace, made maintaining racial segregation one of the primary goals of his government, and Birmingham was home to one of the most brutal and vicious chapters of the Ku Klux Klan.

The explosion at the church was the third in Birmingham in 11 days after the state of Alabama was ordered by the federal government to integrate Alabama’s school system. Somebody placed fifteen sticks of dynamite in the church basement underneath the girls’ washroom. At 10:22 a.m. on September 15, 1962, close to 200 church members were in the building – many attending Sunday school classes before the start of 11 a.m. service – when the bomb exploded on the east side of the church, causing bricks and mortar from the façade of the church to fly everywhere and collapsing its interior walls.

Most worshippers could leave the structure as it was filled with smoke. Still, the bodies of four young girls ( 14-year-old Carole Robertson, Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, and 11-year-old Denise McNair) were discovered underneath the debris in a basement washroom. Ten-year-old Sarah Collins, who was also in the bathroom when the blast occurred, lost her right eye.

Directly after the explosion, church members roamed dazed and bloodied, coated in white powder and broken stained glass, before digging in the wreckage to hunt for casualties. More than 20 other congregants were wounded in the attack.

When thousands of Black demonstrators gathered at the crime scene, Wallace sent hundreds of riot police to the area to control and intimidate the gathered crowd. Two young Black men were murdered that night, one by riot police and another by bigoted thugs. In the meantime, public anger over the violence grew, moving international awareness toward Birmingham. King delivered a sermon to more than 8,000 funeral-goers at three girls’ funeral services.

On September 16, the day after the bombing, President Kennedy was quoted as saying, “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.”

The FBI swiftly named four members of the Ku Klux Klan, Bobby Frank Cherry, Thomas Blanton, Robert Chambliss, and Herman Frank Cash, as people of interest in the 16^th Street Baptist Church bombing. However, the FBI stated that there was a lack of physical evidence, and because witnesses were reticent to cooperate with the investigation, they declined to press charges at that time. It was felt that FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, a detractor of the civil rights movement who had previously brought investigations of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the SCLC to the forefront, had abandoned the inquiry. Incredibly, it would be nearly 40 years before justice was finally achieved in this case.

In 1967, Alabama Attorney General Bill Baxley requested that the case be reopened. On November 18, 1977, Klan leader Robert Chambliss was found guilty of first-degree murder in the bombing and given a life sentence. During the court case, Chambliss’ niece testified against him, telling the court that before the explosion, Chambliss had boasted to her that he had “enough stuff (dynamite) put away to flatten half of Birmingham.” Despite this, he continued to maintain his innocence. Chambliss would die in prison in 1985.

In July 1997, 20 years after the Chambliss guilty verdict, the FBI revived the court case based on new evidence. In May 2001, former Klansmen Bobby Frank Cherry and Thomas Blanton were found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to four life terms. Cherry died in prison in 2004. Blanton died in jail in 2020, six days after his 82^nd birthday. The final defendant, Herman Frank Cash, died in 1994 without being charged in the bombing.

While the criminal justice system moved at a snail’s pace, the impact of the 16^th Street Baptist Church bombing on social justice was quick and substantial. The bombing pushed James Bevel, a renowned civil rights leader, and SCLC coordinator, to set up the Alabama Project for Voting Rights. Committed to expanding full voting rights and protections to all eligible Alabama citizens irrespective of race, Bevel’s work led to the “Bloody Sunday” Selma to Montgomery voter registration marches of 1965 and, consequently, to the enactment of the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965, which banned all types of racial discrimination in the election process.

Even more importantly, public anger over the bombing enhanced support in Congress for the final passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, forbidding racial segregation in schools, employment, and public spaces. Because of this, the bombing achieved precisely the opposite outcomes its wrongdoers had expected.

With the support of contributions of over $300,000 worldwide, the wholly refurbished 16^th Street Baptist Church reopened for regular services on Sunday, June 7, 1964. Today, the church remains committed to serving as the religious and social center for Birmingham’s African American community, accommodating nearly 2,000 parishioners weekly.

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