Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
Friday is the 60th anniversary of the horrific bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, that killed four Black girls who were there for Sunday worship. Denise McNair was only 11. Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley were just 14.
Addie Mae’s 12-year-old sister Sarah lost an eye in the blast, and at least 13 other people were injured at the Black church on Sept. 15, 1963. All the killed and injured were victims of white supremacy and the belief that Black lives don’t matter.
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered a powerful eulogy at the funeral service for three of the murdered girls.
“These children — unoffending, innocent and beautiful — were the victims of one of the most vicious and tragic crimes ever perpetrated against humanity,” Dr. King said. “And yet they died nobly. They are the martyred heroines of a holy crusade for freedom and human dignity.”
If they had lived, the four girls would be in their 70s today. But they never had the chance to grow up, complete their educations, get jobs, pursue their dreams, get married or have children and grandchildren.
Three Ku Klux Klansmen were eventually convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment for the bombing, but the convictions didn’t come for many years — in 1977, 2001 and 2002. A fourth Klansman implicated in the bombing died before he could be charged. In the 1960s in the South, witnesses feared testifying against the Klan.
Months before the church bombing, Birmingham was a center…
Read the full article here
