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Our History - 16th Street Baptist Church

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The church became known around the world when a bomb exploded, killing four little girls attending Sunday School in September of 1963.

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The crater and other damage caused by the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, which killed four African-American girls. AP Photo.

It was a quiet Sunday morning in Birmingham, Alabama-around 10:24 on September 15, 1963-when a dynamite bomb exploded in the back stairwell of the downtown Sixteenth Street Baptist Church.

The violent blast ripped through the wall, killing four African-American girls on the other side and injuring more than 20 inside the church.

It was a clear act of racial hatred: the church was a key civil rights meeting place and had been a frequent target of bomb threats.

Our Birmingham office launched an immediate investigation and wired the FBI Director about the crime. FBI bomb experts raced to the scene-via military jet-and an additional dozen personnel from other offices were sent to assist Birmingham.

At 10:00 p.m. that night, Assistant Director Al Rosen assured Assistant Attorney General Katzenbach that "the Bureau considered this a most heinous offense...[and]...we had entered the investigation with no holds barred."

And we backed that promise up. Dozens of FBI agents worked the case throughout September and October and into the new year-as many as 36 at one point. One internal memo noted that:

"...we have practically torn Birmingham apart and have interviewed thousands of persons. We have seriously disrupted Klan activities by our pressure and interviews so that these organizations have lost members and support. ...We have made extensive use of the polygraph, surveillances, microphone surveillances and technical surveillances..."

By 1965, we had serious suspects-namely, Robert E. Chambliss, Bobby Frank Cherry, Herman Frank Cash, and Thomas E. Blanton, Jr., all KKK members-but witnesses were reluctant to talk and physical evidence was lacking. Also, at that time, information from our surveillances was not admissible in court. As a result, no federal charges were filed in the '60s.

It has been claimed that Director Hoover held back evidence from prosecutors in the '60s or even tried to block prosecution. But it's simply not true. His concern was to prevent leaks, not to stifle justice. In one memo concerning a Justice Department prosecutor seeking information, he wrote, "Haven't these reports already been furnished to the Dept.?" In 1966, Hoover overruled his staff and made transcripts of wiretaps available to Justice. And he couldn't have blocked the prosecution and didn't-he simply didn't think the evidence was there to convict.

In the end, justice was served.

Chambliss received life in prison in 1977 following a case led by Alabama Attorney General Robert Baxley. And eventually the fear, prejudice, and reticence that kept witnesses from coming forward began to subside. We re-opened our case in the mid-1990s, and Blanton and Cherry were indicted in May 2000. Both were convicted at trial and sentenced to life in prison. The fourth man, Herman Frank Cash, had died in 1994.

If you are interested in learning more, please read our 3,400 pages on this case-what was called the "BAPBOMB" investigation- posted online. Also see more pictures on our Multimedia website.

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Baptist Street Church Bombing | Federal Bureau of Investigation

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The crater and other damage caused by the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, which killed four African-American girls. AP Photo. It was a quiet Sunday morning in Birmingham, Alabama-around 10:24 on September 15, 1963-when a dynamite bomb exploded in the back stairwell of the downtown Sixteenth Street Baptist Church.

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16th Street Baptist Church is still an active church in the Birmingham community today, in spite of its tragic past. During the Civil Rights Movement, the church served as a meeting place for the organization of marches and other civil rights activities. In 1963, the church was bombed, resulting in the deaths of four young black girls: Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Denise McNair and Carole Robertson. This event galvanized the federal government to take action on civil rights legislation.

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16th Street Baptist Church is still an active church in the Birmingham community today, in spite of its tragic past. During the Civil Rights Movement, the church served as a meeting place for the organization of marches and other civil rights activities.

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Sixteenth Street Baptist Church (U.S. National Park Service)

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On Sunday morning, September 15, 1963, the Ku Klux Klan bombed the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing four girls. This murderous act shocked the nation and galvanized the civil rights movement.

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On December 25, 1956, Ku Klux Klan members in Alabama bombed the home of civil rights activist Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth. Rev. Shuttlesworth was home at the time of the bombing with his family and two members of Bethel Baptist Church, where he served as pastor. The 16-stick dynamite blast destroyed the home and caused damage to Rev. Shuttlesworth's church next door, but no one inside the home suffered serious injury. White supremacists would attempt to murder Rev. Shuttlesworth four more times in the next seven years. In an attack in 1957, a white mob brutally beat Rev. Shuttlesworth with chains and bats and stabbed his wife after the couple attempted to enroll their daughters in an all-white high school.

Rev. Shuttlesworth became a popular target of white supremacists in the early 1950s after assuming leadership of the civil rights movement in Birmingham, Alabama. As founder and president of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights, Rev. Shuttlesworth organized and participated in numerous protests and boycotts challenging Jim Crow customs and policies in Birmingham and across the South. The day before the Christmas bombing, Rev. Shuttlesworth had called upon local African Americans to desegregate the city buses starting on December 26. Undeterred by the Klan's assassination attempt, Rev. Shuttlesworth proceeded as planned with the December 26 protest rides.

Rev. Shuttlesworth was involved in nearly every pivotal civil rights event of the 1960s, including the 1961 Freedom Rides and the Birmingham Children's Crusade in May 1963. His tireless activism in the face of violent opposition led Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to describe him as "the most courageous civil rights fighter in the South."

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Dec. 25, 1956 | KKK Bombs Home of Alabama Civil Rights Leader Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth

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On December 25, 1956, Ku Klux Klan members in Alabama bombed the home of civil rights activist Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth. Rev. Shuttlesworth was home at the time of the bombing with his family and two members of Bethel Baptist Church, where he served as pastor.

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Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke Delivers Remarks at the 60th Anniversary of the Bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church

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Good morning. The Ku Klux Klan members who bombed Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church on September 15, 1963, did not know Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley.

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BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - This city is remembering one of the nation's darkest chapters in civil rights history. On September 15, 1963 the Ku Klux Klan bombed a downtown church, killing four Black girls and rocking the conscience of the nation.

Carolyn McKinstry was the Sunday School secretary at 16th Street Baptist Church in 1963 and remembers the day of bombing in vivid detail.

"Our lesson for that Sunday morning was a love that forgives," she recalls. "It was youth Sunday. Everyone was excited about that."

McKinstry, 15 at the time, retraces her footsteps through the church that day, starting in the basement, where Sunday School classes were held. She left early to take the collection upstairs to the church office.

"When I reached the top of the stairs, the phone is ringing and there's a male caller on the other end who simply says 'three minutes.' And as quickly as he says that he hangs up."

Moments later the bomb went off, shattering stained glass windows and shaking the building.

"When the bomb exploded you heard screaming," McKinstry says. "And I heard someone say, 'hit the floor.'"

She scooted under the first pew in the sanctuary where she remained until she heard the rest of the congregation fleeing the building.

Klansmen had planted the bomb beneath a stairwell on the side of the church. She later learned four of her classmates were killed - 11-year-old Denise McNair, and Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, and Addie Mae Collins, all 14.

Now McKinstry and other survivors of the blast say there are lessons for the country today in a climate where politicians are seeking to whitewash racist history.

"60 years later, I see things that are frighteningly reminiscent of what happened in the 1960s," says McKinstry.

Sarah Collins Rudolph was 12 at the time.

"I am the 5th little girl that survived the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing," she says.

She was in the ladies' lounge freshening up with the four other girls, including her sister Addie Mae who was helping Denise McNair tie the sash on her purple plaid dress.

"And when she reached her hand out to tie it - boom!"

Collins Rudolph says she called out her sister's name but got no answer.

"I didn't know what had happened," she says.

A deacon dug her out of the rubble and she was taken by ambulance to the hospital with shrapnel in her eyes, face and body.

Her wounds remain, both physical and emotional. She lost an eye, and wears a prosthetic. There's still glass embedded in her other eye.

"I had a lot of fear during that time," she says. "Every time I would hear a loud sound, I would jump. Still doing that today."

Collins Rudolph has tried to get restitution from the state of Alabama, arguing political leaders of the day helped foment the violence that killed the girls and injured her. But no compensation has come.

She takes solace in how the bombing drew attention to the brutal tactics employed to maintain white supremacy in the American South.

A day later, on Sept. 16, 1963, President John F. Kennedy condemned the racial violence in Birmingham.

"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," he said in a statement.

The events in Birmingham galvanized Congress to pass the Civil Rights Act.

"Our history changed things," says Collins Rudolph. "Those girls did not die in vain. And I thank God for that."

But in Birmingham, change was slow to come. Racially-motivated bombings continued in the city nicknamed " Bombingham" for the sheer number of attacks on Black homes, churches, and businesses that went unpunished. The 16th Street Church had been targeted because it was used as a gathering place for protesters during the Birmingham movement.

Bombing survivor Carolyn McKinstry remembers her confusion when the church reopened after repairs.

"There was no memorial," she says. "I thought I would see their names on the doors or something. And there was nothing."

No one even talked about what happened.

"There were no sermons about the evil that had happened here or the people that perpetuated the evil."

McKinstry believes no one talked about it out of fear and futility, knowing that racial crimes were left unsolved. There was a bombing across from her home months after the church was hit, which only added to her trauma, something she struggled with for decades.

"I was 15 when the bomb exploded, but I would remain 15 years old for the next 20 years," she says. "I was really stuck in that place, primarily because I never saw anyone arrested or taken to justice for this."

The FBI determined that four members of a local KKK klavern known as the "Cahaba River Bridge Boys" were responsible for the bombing. But the first prosecution didn't come until 1977. Then two more in the early 2000s. The fourth killer died, never being brought to account.

"It was an unsolved murder in which there were four families that were destroyed, and those families never had had the full measure of justice," says former U.S. Senator Doug Jones, who was the U.S. Attorney in Alabama who re-opened and prosecuted the case nearly 40 years later.

"I don't think I recognized it as much at the time, but over time, it has become so important for people to reflect on where we were as a country," he says. "Where we were as a people, and how divided we were under Jim Crow laws and how horrific those were. And how political leaders can sometimes stoke violence."

The bombing came three months after Alabama's staunch segregationist Gov. George Wallace had tried to defy the federal courts and block Black students from enrolling in the University of Alabama. Now it was Fall and public schools were desegregating.

Jones says the overall climate gave the Klan cover to wreak terror. He's worried that the country is backtracking today.

"It's not just black and white now," he says. "It's against folks because of their sexual orientation. It's against folks based on their religion, their national origin. Hate crimes are on the rise. Anti-Semitism is on the rise. We are being divided more and more."

Events in Birmingham this week seek to lift up the lessons of history at a time when there's a growing conservative political movement to squash discussions of race and equity.

Lisa McNair walks along an open corridor on the second floor of City Hall, where she has helped curate an exhibit of her father's photographs during the civil rights era. She's the younger sister of Denise McNair, one of the four girls killed in the bombing.

Her father, Chris McNair, was a prominent photographer and later, local politician.

"Being a Black photographer that meant you got to see it from a different perspective as an African-American," she says.

There are intimate pictures of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., including the day he was released after writing his famous " letter from Birmingham jail." And, chillingly, one image of the bombed-out 16th Street Baptist Church that Chris McNair took shortly after identifying his daughter Denise with a piece of mortar lodged in her forehead.

"It was the only picture he shot that day of the bombing," she says.

Lisa McNair was born a year later, and says she still can't imagine what her parents went through.

"The heaviness in the waiting, not knowing whether she was alive or dead. And then finding out," she says. "There's just immense grief and sadness."

Sitting down to reflect after walking through the exhibit, Lisa McNair, who still lives in Birmingham, says 60 years later there remains a sense of urgency to preserve this history.

"It took us from slavery to 100 years toward desegregation," she says.

"We have to pay attention. We have to know our history. We got to keep talking and our stories have got to keep being shared so that everybody will know."

McNair says that's the best way to stand up for a better Alabama, and a better America.

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Lessons from Birmingham: 60 years after the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing

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This city is remembering a dark chapters in U.S. civil rights history. On September 15, 1963 the Ku Klux Klan bombed a church, killing four Black girls and rocking the conscience of the nation.

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The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing was a white supremacist terrorist bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, on Sunday, September 15, 1963. Four members of a local Ku Klux Klan chapter planted 19 sticks of dynamite attached to a timing device beneath the steps located on the east side of the church.

Although the FBI had concluded in 1965 that the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing had been committed by four known Klansmen and segregationists: Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr., Herman Frank Cash, Robert Edward Chambliss, and Bobby Frank Cherry, no prosecutions were conducted until 1977, when Robert Chambliss was tried by Alabama Attorney General Bill Baxley and convicted of the first-degree murder of one of the victims, 11-year-old Carol Denise McNair.

As part of a revival effort by states and the federal government to prosecute cold cases from the civil rights era, the state conducted trials in the early 21st century of Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr. and Bobby Cherry, who were each convicted of four counts of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment in 2001 and 2002, respectively. Future United States Senator Doug Jones successfully prosecuted Blanton and Cherry. Herman Cash had died in 1994, and was never charged with his alleged involvement in the bombing.

The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing marked a turning point in the United States during the civil rights movement and also contributed to support for the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by Congress.

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 in any form was met with violent resistance. Martin Luther King Jr. described Birmingham as "probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States." Birmingham's Commissioner of Public Safety, Theophilus Eugene "Bull" Connor, led the effort in enforcing racial segregation in the city through the use of violent tactics.

Black and white residents of Birmingham had access to different public amenities such as water fountains and places of public gathering such as movie theaters. The city had no Black police officers or firefighters and most Black residents could expect to find menial employment in professions such as cooks and cleaners. Black residents did not just experience segregation in the context of leisure and employment, but also in the context of their freedom and well-being. Given the state's disenfranchisement of most Black people since the turn of the century, by making voter registration essentially impossible, few of the city's Black residents were registered to vote. Bombings at Black homes and institutions were a regular occurrence, with at least 21 separate explosions recorded at Black properties and churches in the eight years before 1963. However, none of these explosions had resulted in fatalities. These attacks earned the city the nickname " Bombingham".

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. Their demands included that public amenities such as lunch counters and parks be desegregated, the criminal charges against demonstrators and protestors should be removed, and an end to overt discrimination with regards to employment opportunities. The intentional scope of these activities was to see the end of segregation across Birmingham and the South as a whole. The work these Civil Rights activists were engaged in within Birmingham was crucial to the movement as the Birmingham campaign was seen as guidance for other cities in the South with regards to rising against segregation and racism.

The three-story 16th Street Baptist Church was a rallying point for civil rights activities through the spring of 1963. 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. The church was used as a meeting-place for civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr., Ralph David Abernathy, and Fred Shuttlesworth, for organizing and educating marchers. It was the location where students were organized and trained by the SCLC Director of Direct Action, James Bevel, to participate in the 1963 Birmingham campaign's Children's Crusade after other marches had taken place.

As a known and popular rallying point for civil rights activists, the 16th Street Baptist Church was an obvious target.

In the early morning of Sunday, September 15, 1963, four members of the United Klans of America-Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr., Robert Edward Chambliss, Bobby Frank Cherry, and (allegedly) Herman Frank Cash-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. The anonymous caller simply said the words, "Three minutes" to Maull before terminating the call. Less than one minute later, the bomb exploded. Five children were in the basement at the time of the explosion, in a restroom close to the stairwell, changing into choir robes in preparation for a sermon entitled "A Rock That Will Not Roll". According to one survivor, the explosion shook the entire building and propelled the girls' bodies through the air "like rag dolls".

The explosion blew a hole measuring seven feet (2.1 m) in diameter in the church's rear wall, and a crater five feet (1.5 m) wide and two feet (0.61 m) deep in the ladies' basement lounge, destroying the rear steps to the church and blowing a passing motorist out of his car. Several other cars parked near the site of the blast were destroyed, and windows of properties located more 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 converged on the scene in the hours following the explosion. The church's pastor, the Reverend John Cross Jr., attempted to placate the crowd by loudly reciting the 23rd Psalm through a bullhorn.

Four girls-Addie Mae Collins (age 14, born April 18, 1949), Carol Denise McNair (age 11, born November 17, 1951), Carole Rosamond Robertson (age 14, born April 24, 1949), and Cynthia Dionne 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 that her body could be identified only through her clothing and a ring. Another victim was killed by a piece of mortar embedded in her skull. The pastor of the church, the Reverend John Cross, recollected in 2001 that the girls' bodies were found "stacked on top of each other, clung together". All four girls were pronounced dead on arrival at the Hillman Emergency Clinic.

Between 14 and 22 additional people were injured in the explosion, one of whom was Addie Mae's younger sister, 12-year-old Sarah Collins. She 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 watched 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 reading the Bible and had observed Addie Mae Collins tying the dress sash of Carol Denise McNair before she 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 and 500 Alabama National Guardsmen to assist in quelling unrest. The Birmingham City Council convened an emergency meeting to propose safety measures for 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 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 toward the oppression of Blacks. In this speech, Morgan lamented: "Who did it [the bombing]? We all did it! The 'who' is every 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 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 (24 km) 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 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, 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, in which he said he believed Alabama needed a "few first-class funerals" to stop racial integration.

The city of Birmingham initially offered a $52,000 reward for the arrest of the bombers. Governor Wallace offered an additional $5,000 on behalf of the state of Alabama. Although this donation was accepted, Martin Luther King Jr. is known to have sent Wallace a telegram saying, "the blood of four little children ... is on your hands. Your irresponsible and misguided actions have created in Birmingham and Alabama the atmosphere that has induced continued violence and now murder."

Carole Rosamond Robertson was laid to rest in a private family funeral held on September 17, 1963. Reportedly, Carole's mother, Alpha, had expressly requested that her daughter be buried separately from the other victims. 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.

This tragic day may cause the white side to come to terms with its conscience. In spite of the darkness of this hour, we must not become bitter ... We must not lose faith in our white brothers. Life is hard. At times as hard as crucible steel, but, today, you do not walk alone.

As the girls' coffins were taken to their graves, King directed that those present remain solemn and forbade any singing, shouting or demonstrations. These instructions were relayed to the crowd present by a single youth with a bullhorn.

Initially, investigators theorized that a bomb thrown from a passing car had caused the explosion at the 16th Street Baptist church. But by September 20, the FBI was able to confirm that the explosion had been caused by a device that was purposely planted beneath the steps to the church, close to the women's lounge. A section of wire and remnants of red plastic were discovered there, which could have been part of a timing device. (The plastic remnants were later lost by investigators.)

Within days of the bombing, investigators began to focus their attention upon a KKK splinter group known as the "Cahaba Boys". The Cahaba Boys had formed earlier in 1963, as they felt that the KKK was becoming restrained and impotent in response to concessions granted to Black people to end racial segregation. This group had previously been linked to several bomb attacks at Black-owned businesses and the homes of Black community leaders throughout the spring and summer of 1963. Although the Cahaba Boys had fewer than 30 active members, among them were Thomas Blanton Jr., Herman Cash, Robert Chambliss, and Bobby Cherry.

Investigators also gathered numerous witness statements attesting to 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 toward the steps of the church. (The physical description by witnesses of this person varied, and could have matched either Bobby Cherry or Robert Chambliss.)

Chambliss was questioned by the FBI on September 26. On September 29, he was indicted upon charges of illegally purchasing and transporting dynamite on September 4, 1963. 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. Each received a $100 fine (the equivalent of $972 as of 2023) 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.

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. There had been a history of mistrust between local and federal investigators. Later the same year, J. Edgar Hoover formally blocked any impending federal prosecutions 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 in August, the September bombing of the 16th Street Baptist church, and the November 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 toward the civil rights cause in the United States.

Following the assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, newly- inaugurated President Lyndon Johnson continued to press for passage of the civil rights bill sought by his predecessor.

Officially, the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing remained unsolved until after William Baxley was elected 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 the original police documents were "mostly worthless". Baxley formally reopened the case in 1971. He was able to build trust with key witnesses, some of whom had been reluctant to testify in the first investigation. Other witnesses obtained identified 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 KKK had purchased near Highway 101. This testimony of witnesses and evidence was used to formally construct a case against Robert Chambliss.

After Baxley requested access to the original FBI files on the case, he learned that evidence accumulated by the FBI against the named suspects between 1963 and 1965 had not been revealed to the local prosecutors in Birmingham. Although he met with initial resistance from the FBI, in 1976 Baxley was formally presented with some of the evidence which had been compiled by the FBI, after he publicly threatened to expose the Department of Justice for withholding evidence which could result in the prosecution of the perpetrators of the bombing.

On November 14, 1977, Robert Chambliss, then aged 73, stood trial in Birmingham's Jefferson County Courthouse. Chambliss had been indicted by a grand jury on September 24, 1977, charged with four counts of murder, for each dead child in the 1963 church bombing. But at a pre-trial hearing on 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.

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.

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 Tom Cook, a retired Birmingham police officer, who testified on November 15 as to 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 before the bombing. Following Cook's testimony, Baxley introduced police sergeant Ernie Cantrell. He testified that Chambliss had visited his headquarters in 1976 and that he had attempted to affix the blame for the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing upon an altogether different member of the KKK. Cantrell also stated that Chambliss had boasted of his knowledge of how to construct a "drip-method bomb" using a fishing float and a leaking bucket of water. (Upon cross-examination by defense attorney Art Hanes Jr., Cantrell conceded that Chambliss had emphatically denied bombing the church.)

One individual who went to 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".

One of the key witnesses to testify on behalf of the prosecution was the Reverend Elizabeth Cobbs, Chambliss's 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 had told her that 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 report relating to the four girls killed in the bombing. 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." Another witness to testify was William Jackson, who testified as to his joining the KKK in 1963 and becoming acquainted with Chambliss shortly thereafter. Jackson testified that Chambliss had expressed frustration that the Klan was "dragging its feet" on the issue of racial integration, and said he was eager to form a splinter group more dedicated to resistance.

In his closing argument before the jury on November 17, Baxley acknowledged that Chambliss was not the sole perpetrator of the bombing. He expressed regret that the state was unable to request the death penalty in this case, as the death penalty in effect in the state in 1963 had been repealed. The current state death penalty law applied only to crimes committed after its passage. Baxley noted that the day of the closing argument fell upon what would have been Carol Denise McNair's 26th birthday and that she would have likely been a mother by this date. He referred to testimony given by her father, Chris McNair, about the family's loss, and requested that the jury return a verdict of guilty.

In his rebuttal closing argument, defense attorney Art Hanes Jr. attacked the evidence presented by the prosecution as being purely circumstantial, adding that, despite the existence of similar circumstantial evidence, Chambliss had not been prosecuted in 1963 of the church bombing. Hanes noted conflicting testimony among several of the 12 witnesses called by the defense to testify as to Chambliss's whereabouts on the day of the bombing. A policeman and a neighbor had each testified that Chambliss was at the home of a man named Clarence Dill on that day.

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, they found Robert Chambliss guilty of the murder of Carol Denise McNair. He was 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."

On the same afternoon that Chambliss's guilty verdict was announced, prosecutor Baxley issued a subpoena to Thomas Blanton to appear in court about the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. Although Baxley knew he had insufficient evidence to charge Blanton at this stage, he intended the subpoena to frighten Blanton into confessing his involvement and negotiating a plea deal to turn state evidence against his co-conspirators. Blanton, however, hired a lawyer and refused to answer any questions.

Robert Chambliss died in 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, insisting Gary Thomas Rowe Jr. was the actual perpetrator.

In 1995, ten years after Chambliss died, the FBI reopened their investigation into the church bombing. It was part of a coordinated effort between local, state and federal governments to review cold cases of the civil rights era in the hopes of prosecuting perpetrators. They unsealed 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 not been made available to DA 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 KKK splinter group known as the Cahaba Boys. The four individuals named in the FBI report were Blanton, Cash, Chambliss, and Cherry. By the time of the announcement, Herman Cash had also died; 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 on eight counts each 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 state 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. It 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. In January 2002, Judge Garrett ruled Cherry mentally competent to stand trial and set an initial trial date for April 29.

Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr. was brought to trial in Birmingham, Alabama, before Judge James Garrett on April 24, 2001. Blanton pleaded not guilty to the charges and chose not to testify on his behalf throughout the trial.

The prosecution called a total of seven witnesses to testify in their case against Blanton, including relatives of the victims, John Cross, the former pastor of the 16th Street Baptist Church; an FBI agent named William Fleming, and Mitchell Burns, a former Klansman who had become a paid FBI informant. 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.

The most crucial piece of evidence presented at Blanton's trial was an audio recording secretly 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 Waylen 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 saying that he was not with Miss Vaughn but, two nights before the bombing, was at a meeting with other Klansmen on a bridge above the Cahaba River. He said: "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 exposed inconsistencies in the memories of some prosecution witnesses who had testified. Blanton's attorneys criticized the validity and quality of the 16 tape recordings introduced as evidence, arguing that the prosecution had edited and spliced the sections of the audio recording that were secretly obtained within Blanton's kitchen, reducing the entirety of the tape by 26 minutes. He said that the sections introduced as evidence were of poor audio quality, resulting in the prosecution presenting text transcripts of questionable accuracy to the jury. About the recordings made as Blanton conversed with Burns, Robbins emphasized that Burns had earlier testified that Blanton had never expressly said that he had made or planted the bomb. The defense portrayed the audiotapes introduced into evidence as the statements of "two rednecks driving around, drinking" and making false, ego-inflating claims to one another.

The trial lasted for one week. Seven witnesses testified on behalf of the prosecution, and two for the defense. One of the defense witnesses was a retired chef named Eddie Mauldin, who was called to testify to discredit prosecution witnesses' statements that they had seen Blanton in the vicinity of the church before 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; neither Chambliss, Cash nor Cherry had owned such a vehicle.)

Defense attorney John Robbins reminded the jury in his closing argument that his client was an admitted segregationist and a "loudmouth", but that was all that could be proven. He said this past was not the evidence upon which they should return their verdicts. Stressing that Blanton should not be judged for his beliefs, Robbins again vehemently criticized the validity and poor quality of the audio recordings presented, and the selectivity of the sections which had been introduced into evidence. Robbins also discredited the testimony of FBI 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 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 said: "I guess the Lord will settle it on Judgment Day."

Blanton was sentenced to life imprisonment. He was incarcerated at the St. Clair Correctional Facility in Springville, Alabama. Blanton was confined in a one-man cell under tight security. He seldom spoke of his involvement in the bombing, shunned social activity and rarely received visitors.

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. Martin said: "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 denying parole to Blanton.

Blanton died in prison from unspecified causes on June 26, 2020.

Bobby Frank Cherry was tried in Birmingham, Alabama, before Judge James Garrett, on May 6, 2002. Cherry 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 presented his case: that the evidence would 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 personally planted 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. He also noted 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 warned the jurors they would have to distinguish between evidence and proof.

Following the opening statements, the prosecution began presenting witnesses. Crucial testimony at Cherry's trial was delivered by his former wife, Willadean Brogdon, who had married Cherry 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 to the dynamite. Brogdon also testified that Cherry had told her of his regret that children had died in the bombing, before adding his satisfaction that they would never reproduce. Although the credibility of Brogdon's testimony was called into dispute at the trial, forensic experts conceded 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 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 (6.1 m) from the explosion crater following the bombing. One of several vehicles severely damaged in the explosion was found to have carried fishing tackle.)

On May 21, 2002, both prosecution and defense attorneys delivered their closing arguments to the jury. In his closing argument for the prosecution, Don Cochran said the victims' "Youth Sunday [sermon] never happened ... because it was destroyed by this defendant's hate." Cochran outlined Cherry's extensive record of racial violence dating back to the 1950s, and noted that he had experience and training in constructing and installing bombs from his service 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 told his first wife, Jean, that he and other Klansmen had constructed the bomb within the premises of business the Friday before the bombing. He said that Cherry had signed an affidavit in the presence of the FBI on October 9, 1963, confirming that he, Chambliss, and 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 reiterated that there was no hard evidence linking Cherry to the bombing, but only evidence attesting to his racist beliefs dating from that era, adding that the family members who had testified against him were all estranged and therefore should be considered unreliable witnesses. Johnson urged the jury against convicting his client by association.

Following these closing arguments, the jury retired to consider their verdicts. These deliberations continued until the following day.

When asked by the judge whether he had anything to say before sentence was imposed, Cherry motioned to the prosecutors and stated: "This whole bunch lied 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!"

Following the convictions of Blanton and Cherry, Alabama's former Attorney General, William Baxley, expressed his frustration that he had never been informed of the existence of the FBI audio recordings before they were introduced in the 2001 and 2002 trials. Baxley acknowledged that typical juries in 1960s Alabama would have likely leaned in favor of both defendants, even if these recordings had been presented as evidence, but said that he could have prosecuted Thomas Blanton and Bobby Cherry in 1977 if he had been granted access to these tapes. (A 1980 Justice Department report concluded that J. Edgar Hoover had blocked the prosecution of the four bombing suspects in 1965, and he officially closed the FBI's investigation in 1968.)

Although both Blanton 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. He became a paid FBI informant in 1961. In this role, Rowe acted as an agent provocateur between 1961 and 1965. Although informative to the FBI, Rowe actively participated in violence against both Black and white civil rights activists. By Rowe's own later admission, while serving as an FBI informant, he had shot and killed an unidentified Black man and had been an accessory to the murder of Viola Liuzzo.

They forever changed the face of this state and the history of this state. Their deaths made all of us focus upon the ugliness of those who would punish people because of the color of their skin.

-State Senator Roger Bedford at the unveiling of a state historic marker to the victims. September 15, 1990

Following the bombing, the 16th Street Baptist Church remained closed for over eight months, as assessments and, later, repairs were conducted upon the property. Both the church and the bereaved families received an estimated $23,000 in cash donations from members of the public.[50] Gifts totalling over $186,000 were donated from around the world. The church reopened to members of the public on June 7, 1964, and continues to remain an active place of worship today, with an average weekly attendance of nearly 2,000 worshippers. The current pastor of the church is the Reverend Arthur Price Jr.[135]

The most seriously injured survivor of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, Sarah Jean Collins, remained hospitalized for more than two months[136] following the bombing. Collins' injuries were so extensive that medical personnel did initially fear she would lose the sight in both eyes, although, by October, they were able to inform Collins she would regain the sight in her left eye.[137] When asked her feelings towards the bombers on October 15, 1963, Collins first thanked those who had cared for her and sent messages of condolence, flowers and toys, then said: "As for the bomber, people are praying for him. We wonder what he would be thinking today if he had children ... He will face God. We turn this problem over to God because no one else can solve Birmingham's problems. We leave it up to God to solve them."[137]

Charles Morgan Jr., the young white lawyer who had delivered an impassioned speech on September 16, 1963, deploring the tolerance and complacency of much of the white population of Birmingham towards the suppression and intimidation of Blacks-thereby contributing to the climate of hatred in the city-himself received death threats directed against him and his family in the days following his speech. Within three months, Morgan and his family were forced to flee Birmingham.[138][44]

James Bevel, a prominent figure within the Civil Rights Movement and organizer of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, was galvanized to create what became known as the Alabama Project for Voting Rights as a direct result of the 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing. Following the bombing, Bevel and his then-wife, Diane, relocated to Alabama,[139] where they tirelessly worked upon the Alabama Project for Voting Rights, which aimed to extend full voting rights for all eligible citizens of Alabama regardless of race. This initiative subsequently contributed to the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches, which themselves resulted in the Voting Rights Act of 1965, thus prohibiting any form of racial discrimination within the process of voting.

Within the 16th Street Baptist Church, there still stands the Welsh Window. Sculpted by Carmarthenshire-based artist John Petts, who had initiated a campaign in Wales to raise money to fund a replacement stained-glass window which had been destroyed in the bombing. Petts had opted to construct a stained-glass image of a Black Christ to replace one of the windows destroyed in the bombing.[140]

Within two days of the church bombing, Petts had contacted then-pastor of the church, the Reverend John Cross, announcing he had launched a fundraising campaign to create this artwork via an appeal conducted through the Western Mail, requesting funds from the Welsh public to pay for the construction of the structure in Wales, and its delivery and installation at the 16th Street Baptist Church.[141]

John Petts died in 1991 at the age of 77. In a 1987 interview focusing upon his recollections of the bombing, Petts recollected: "Naturally, as a father, I was horrified by the deaths of those children." Petts then elaborated that the inspiration for the stained-glass image was a verse from the Gospel of Matthew: "Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me."[142] The Welsh Window bears the inscription, "Given by The People of Wales".[143]

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). Several dozen people were present at the unveiling, presided over by state Senator Roger Bedford. At the service, the four girls were described as martyrs who "died so freedom could live".[134]

Herman Frank Cash died of cancer in February 1994. He was never charged with his alleged involvement in the bombing and did maintain his innocence. Although Cash is known to have passed a polygraph test in which he was questioned as to his potential involvement in the bombing,[144] the FBI had concluded in May 1965 that Cash was one of the four conspirators.[61] Cash is interred at Northview Cemetery in Polk County, Georgia.

The Reverend John Cross, who had been the pastor of the 16th Street Baptist Church at the time of the 1963 bombing, died of natural causes on November 15, 2007. He was 82 years old. The Reverend Cross is interred at Hillandale Memorial Gardens in DeKalb County, Georgia.[145]

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was eight years old at the time of the bombing and both a classmate and friend of Carol Denise McNair. On the day of the bombing, Rice was at her father's church, located a few blocks from the 16th Street Baptist Church. In 2004, Rice recalled her memories of the bombing:

I remembered the bombing of that Sunday School at 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham in 1963. I did not see it happen, but I heard it happen and I felt it happen, just a few blocks away at my father's church. It is a sound that I will never forget, that will forever reverberate in my ears. That bomb took the lives of four young girls, including my friend and playmate [Carol] Denise McNair. The crime was calculated, not random. It was meant to suck the hope out of young lives, bury their aspirations, and ensure that old fears would be propelled forward into the next generation.[146]

On May 24, 2013, President Barack Obama awarded a posthumous Congressional Gold Medal to the four girls killed in the 1963 Birmingham Church Bombing. This medal was awarded through signing into effect Public Law 113-11;[147] a bill which awarded one Congressional Gold Medal to be created in recognition of the fact the girls' deaths served as a major catalyst for the Civil Rights Movement, and invigorated a momentum ensuring the signing into passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.[148] The gold medal was presented to the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute to display or temporarily loan to other museums.[148]

The song "Birmingham Sunday" is directly inspired by the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. Written in 1964 by Richard Fariña and recorded by Fariña's sister-in-law, Joan Baez, the song was included on Baez's 1964 album . The song would also be covered by Rhiannon Giddens, and is included on her 2017 album Freedom Highway.

Nina Simone's 1964 civil rights anthem "Mississippi Goddam" is partially inspired by the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. The lyric "Alabama's got me so upset" refers to this incident.

Jazz musician John Coltrane's 1964 album Live at Birdland includes the track "Alabama", recorded two months after the bombing. This song was written as a direct musical tribute to the victims of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing.

African-American composer Adolphus Hailstork's 1982 work for wind ensemble titled American Guernica was composed in memory of the victims of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing.

The 1993 documentary, Angels of Change, focuses on the events leading up to the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing as well as the aftermath of the bombing. This documentary was produced by the Birmingham-based TV station WVTM-TV and subsequently received a Peabody Award.

The History Channel has broadcast a documentary entitled Remembering the Birmingham Church Bombing. Broadcast to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the bombing, this documentary includes interviews with the head of education at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.

Books (non-fiction)

Books (fiction)

Christopher Paul Curtis's 1995 novel The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963 conveys the events of the bombing. This fictional account of the bombing was later converted into a movie.

The 2001 novel Bombingham, written by Anthony Grooms, is set in Birmingham in 1963. This novel portrays a fictional account of the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church and the shootings of Virgil Ware and Johnny Robinson.

The American Girl book No Ordinary Sound, set in 1963 and featuring the character of Melody Ellison, has the bombing as a major plot point.

Welsh craftsman and artist John Petts was inspired to construct and deliver the iconic stained-glass Welsh Window to the 16th Street Baptist Church in 1965. The Welsh Window is a large stained-glass edifice depicting a Black Jesus, with arms outstretched, reminiscent of the Crucifixion of Jesus. Erected at the church in 1965, the Welsh Window stands over the front door of the sanctuary.

The American sculptor John Henry Waddell has created a memorial symbolizing those killed in the bombing. Entitled That Which Might Have Been: Birmingham 1963, the sculpture-depicting four adult women in differing postures-was created over a period of 15 months. The four women in the sculpture are each depicted in symbolic terms; representing the four victims of the bombing, had they been allowed to mature to womanhood. The sculpture was originally displayed at the First Unitarian Universalist Church in Phoenix in 1969. A second casting of the sculpture was intended for display in Birmingham; however, due to controversy over the nudity of the women depicted in the sculpture, this second casting is now on display at the George Washington Carver Museum.

The names of the four girls killed in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing are engraved upon the Civil Rights Memorial. Erected in Montgomery, Alabama in 1989. The Civil Rights Memorial is an inverted, conical granite fountain and is dedicated to 41 people who died in the struggle for the equal rights and integrated treatment of all people between the years 1954 and 1968. The names of the 41 individuals themselves are chronologically engrained upon the surface of this fountain. Creator Maya Lin has described this sculpture as a "contemplative area; a place to remember the Civil Rights Movement, to honour those killed during the struggle, to appreciate how far the country has come in its quest for equality".

The Four Spirits sculpture was unveiled at Birmingham's Kelly Ingram Park in September 2013 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the bombing. Crafted in Berkeley, California by Birmingham-born sculptor Elizabeth MacQueen and designed as a memorial to the four children killed on September 15, 1963, the bronze and steel life-size sculpture depicts the four girls in preparation for the church sermon at the 16th Street Baptist Church in the moments immediately before the explosion. The youngest girl killed in the explosion (Carol Denise McNair) is depicted releasing six doves into the air as she stands tiptoed and barefooted upon a bench as another barefooted girl (Addie Mae Collins) is depicted kneeling upon the bench, affixing a dress sash to McNair; a third girl (Cynthia Wesley) is sat upon the bench alongside McNair and Collins with a Bible in her lap. The fourth girl (Carole Robertson) is depicted standing and smiling as she motions the other three girls to attend their church sermon.

At the base of the sculpture is an inscription of the title of the sermon the four girls were to attend before the bombing-"A Love That Forgives". Oval photographs and brief biographies of the four girls killed in the explosion, the most seriously injured survivor (Sarah Collins), and the two teenage boys who were shot to death later that day also adorn the base of the sculpture. More than 1,000 people were present at the unveiling of the memorial, including survivors of the bombing, friends of the victims and the parents of Denise McNair, Johnny Robinson and Virgil Ware. Among those to speak at the unveiling was the Reverend Joseph Lowery, who informed those present: "Don't let anybody tell you these children died in vain. We wouldn't be here right now, had they not gone home before our eyes."

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16th Street Baptist Church bombing - Wikipedia

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The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing was a white supremacist terrorist bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, on Sunday, September 15, 1963. Four members of a local Ku Klux Klan chapter planted 19 sticks of dynamite attached to a timing device beneath the steps located on the east side of the church.

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Birmingham Bombing (Sixteenth Street Baptist Church) - Civil Rights Digital Library

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Table of Contents

1. Birmingham in the 1960s

2. Letter from a Birmingham Jail

3. th Street Baptist Church

4. Aftermath of the Birmingham Church Bombing

5. Lasting Impact of the Birmingham Church Bombing

The Birmingham church bombing occurred on September 15, 1963, when a bomb exploded before Sunday morning services at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama-a church with a predominantly Black congregation that also served as a meeting place for civil rights leaders. Four young girls were killed and many other people injured. Outrage over the incident and the violent clash between protesters and police that followed helped draw national attention to the hard-fought, often-dangerous struggle for civil rights for African Americans.

Birmingham in the 1960s

The city of Birmingham, Alabama, was founded in 1871 and rapidly became the state's most important industrial and commercial center. As late as the 1960s, however, it was also one of America's most racially discriminatory and segregated cities.

Alabama Governor George Wallace was a leading foe of desegregation, and Birmingham had one of the strongest and most violent chapters of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). The city's police commissioner, Eugene "Bull" Connor, was notorious for his willingness to use brutality in combating radical demonstrators, union members and any Black citizens.

Did you know? 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."

Precisely because of its reputation as a stronghold for white supremacy, civil rights activists made Birmingham a major focus of their efforts to desegregate the Deep South.

Letter from a Birmingham Jail

In the spring of 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. had been arrested there while leading supporters of his Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in a nonviolent campaign of demonstrations against segregation. While in jail, King wrote a letter to local white ministers justifying his decision not to call off the demonstrations in the face of continued bloodshed at the hands of local law enforcement officials.

His famous "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" was published in the national press, along with shocking images of police brutality against protesters in Birmingham that helped build widespread support for the civil rights cause.

16th Street Baptist Church

Many of the civil rights protest marches that took place in Birmingham during the 1960s began at the steps of the 16th Street Baptist Church, which had long been a significant religious center for the city's Black population and a routine meeting place for civil rights organizers like King.

KKK members had routinely called in bomb threats intended to disrupt civil rights meetings as well as services at the church.

At 10:22 a.m. on the morning of September 15, 1963, some 200 church members were in the building-many attending Sunday school classes before the start of the 11 am service-when the bomb detonated on the church's east side, spraying mortar and bricks from the front of the church and caving in its interior walls.

Most parishioners were able to evacuate the building as it filled with smoke, but the bodies of four young girls (14-year-old Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley and Carole Robertson and 11-year-old Denise McNair) were found beneath the rubble in a basement restroom.

Ten-year-old Sarah Collins, who was also in the restroom at the time of the explosion, lost her right eye, and more than 20 other people were injured in the blast.

The bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church on September 15 was the third bombing in 11 days, after a federal court order had come down mandating the integration of Alabama's school system.

Aftermath of the Birmingham Church Bombing

In the aftermath of the bombing, thousands of angry Black protesters gathered at the scene of the bombing. When Governor Wallace sent police and state troopers to break the protests up, violence broke out across the city; a number of protesters were arrested, and two young African American men were killed (one by police) before the National Guard was called in to restore order.

King later spoke before 8,000 people at the funeral for three of the girls (the family of the fourth girl held a smaller private service), fueling the public outrage now mounting across the country.

Though Birmingham's white supremacists (and even certain individuals) were immediately suspected in the bombing, repeated calls for the perpetrators to be brought to justice went unanswered for more than a decade. It was later revealed that the FBI had information concerning the identity of the bombers by 1965 and did nothing. ( J. Edgar Hoover, then-head of the FBI, disapproved of the civil rights movement; he died in 1972.)

In 1977, Alabama Attorney General Bob Baxley reopened the investigation and Klan leader Robert E. Chambliss was brought to trial for the bombings and convicted of murder. Continuing to maintain his innocence, Chambliss died in prison in 1985.

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. A fourth suspect, Herman Frank Cash, died in 1994 before he could be brought to trial.

Lasting Impact of the Birmingham Church Bombing

Even though the legal system was slow to provide justice, the effect of the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church was immediate and significant.

Outrage over the death of the four young girls helped build increased support behind the continuing struggle to end segregation-support that would help lead to the passage of both the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In that important sense, the bombing's impact was exactly the opposite of what its perpetrators had intended.

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The Birmingham church bombing occurred on September 15, 1963, when a bomb exploded before Sunday morning services at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama-a church with a predominantly Black congregation that also served as a meeting place for civil rights leaders. Four young girls were killed and many other people injured.

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September 15th marks 60 years since the bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. Four girls died in the blast which marked a turning point in the Civil Rights Movement.

Their names are woven into the fabric of Birmingham's history: Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, Denise McNair, and Addie Mae Collins.

A "5th Little Girl" - Sarah Collins Rudolph - sustained severe injuries in the bombing.

"I really miss my sister," Collins Rudolph said. "We were very close. She never did anyone any harm."

Addie's sister, Sarah, was right there with them on that September Sunday morning. They were in the ladies room - waiting for the next Sunday School class to let out.

She took us through a wall of memories inside her home.

"This one - this is the man who went inside to bring me out," Collins Rudolph said. "His name is Samuel Rutledge. I call him my hero."

A church deacon, Samuel Rutledge ran inside the church to rescue her.
SEE ALSO:Week of events set to remember 60th anniversary of bombing at 16th Street Baptist Church SEE ALSO: Community civil rights conversation at Ballard house leading to 16th street church 60th anniversary
"He heard the noise and took the steps to see what was happening - when he took the steps he noticed they were blown away," Collins Rudolph said. "He jumped down, picked me up and brought me out of the church."

60 years later - the pain lingers. Sarah battles a severe loss of vision, a prosthetic, and glass still inside her eye.

For years, she's been asking the state for help covering the major medical bills for extensive surgeries. Bills she still accumulates to care for her injuries that day - preventing her from achieving her dream of becoming a nurse.

"Those girls - they didn't live their lives because of the color of our skin," Collins Rudolph said. "I was really mad for awhile because when I went to school - I wanted to be a nurse but what happened to me at the time - I couldn't do it any more. I really didn't want to be in school any more because of the way I look. I was just a child. It took a lot out of me."

The lesson that morning -- called "A love that forgives." It took a few years, but despite her injuries and grief - she too learned the power of forgiveness.

"I had to forgive because I've learned in church we have to forgive people who trespass against us," Collins Rudolph said. "I just couldn't keep it in because the love of God that he showed us - He forgave us for our sin and I know I had to do the same."

She hopes the power of that lesson will permeate the hearts of young people today.

"Young people really need to know it's not time for them to continue to kill each other, shoot each other," she said. " It's time for us to all love one another."

Collins Rudolph wrote a book about her life called "The Fifth Little Girl." There is also a version available for children.

https://www.sarahcollinsrudolph.com/

Addie Mae Collins was thought to be buried at Greenwood Cemetery in Birmingham, but for years her body was missing.

ABC 33/40 assisted in several searches and in 2017 a volunteer group used underground radar to scan the cemetery and finally found her remains.

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"5th Little Girl" shares story 60 years after 16th Street Baptist Church bombing

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September 15th marks 60 years since the bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham.

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60 years later, 16th Street Baptist Church bombing survivor seeks restitution

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Dynamite planted by KKK members not only killed four girls and wounded dozens of others but also left a crater in the church’s basement.

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Baptist Church · Fountain Heights, Birmingham

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Folks remember those lost 61 years ago at 16th Street Baptist Church

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The church in Birmingham held a commemoration service Sunday.

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16th Street Baptist Church Bombing Survivors Recall a Day That Changed the Fight for Civil Rights

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Four girls died in the Sept. 15, 1963, attack