A recent photo of the restored 16th Street Baptist Church
September 15, 1963: A bomb goes off at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing what became known as the "Four Little Girls."
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who preached in Montgomery, the State capital of Alabama, from 1954 to 1960, had called Birmingham, the State's largest city, "probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States." Whether he was correct or not, the city did little to convince people otherwise: It had no black police officers, and no black firefighters.
On January 14, 1963, George Wallace was sworn in as Governor of Alabama. the State's Governors are sworn in on a star on the floor of the front of the State House, where Jefferson Davis had been sworn in as President of the Confederate States of America. And in his Inaugural Address, Wallace promised, "Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever!"
On April 3, Dr. King began the Birmingham Campaign, and on April 12, he was arrested. On April 16, he wrote what's become known as the Letter from Birmingham Jail, saying, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." He was soon bailed out by Walter Reuther, president of the United Auto Workers, who had been working for racial equality since Dr. King and his contemporaries were children, and could see how important the Birmingham Campaign was.
On May 2, people walked out of the 16th Street Baptist Church, intending to march to Birmingham's City Hall, to talk to the Mayor, Albert Boutwell. The Mayor didn't want that. Theophilus Eugene "Bull" Connor had been Commissioner of Public Safety from 1937 to 1952, and had been again since 1957. Boutwell called Connor, and by the end of the day, 959 children were arrested. Nearly one thousand children.
The next day, the march was even bigger, and Connor ordered the use of attack dogs, German shepherds. He ordered the use of fire hoses -- "water cannons," powerful enough to cause internal injuries. These actions were caught on film, and broadcast on the evening news.
Bombings at the homes of black people, and at black-run institutions, had occurred 21 times in Birmingham between 1955 and 1963, earning the city the nickname "Bombingham." Despite the destruction, there had not yet been any deaths.
On June 11, Wallace stood in the doorway of Foster Auditorium, then both the main indoor athletic facility and the registration building for the University of Alabama, in Tuscaloosa. The purpose was to deny the registration of the school's 1st black students. Two were making the attempt: James Hood and Vivian Malone. He said, as Governor, he had to "denounce and forbid this unwarranted and illegal action by the central government!"
It was not illegal: The Supreme Court had ruled segregation illegal in 1954, so Wallace was the one breaking the law. And it was not unwarranted.
President John F. Kennedy knew beforehand that Wallace was going to do this, and wanted his Attorney General and brother Robert F. Kennedy to do something about it. So RFK sent his Deputy, Nicholas Katzenbach, and federal marshals to Tuscaloosa. Katzenbach showed Wallace a federal warrant for his arrest, and essentially told him, "Get your sorry scrawny ass out of that door, or you will be handcuffed and arrested, and exposed as a federal criminal on national television."
Everybody remembers Wallace's Stand In the Schoolhouse Door. Most people forget that he backed down, because he didn't want to go to jail. Martin Luther King was willing to go to jail to challenge a law he believed was unjust. George Corley Wallace was not.
On August 28, the March On Washington for Jobs and Freedom was held. About 300,000 people attended an assembly at the Lincoln Memorial. Dr. King was not even considered the main speaker going in: A. Philip Randolph, a longtime union leader, who had first proposed such a march in 1941, and had gone through with it this time, was. But with his "I Have a Dream" speech, he made himself an American legend.
Finally, the white supremacists could take no more. On September 15, a bomb was placed under the front steps of the 16th Street Baptist Church -- a building specifically targeted, for its role in the Birmingham Campaign. At 10:22 AM, a phone call was placed to the church. Carolyn Maull, just 14 years old, and one of the children who had been hit by the water cannons, picked up the phone. A male voice said just 2 words before hanging up: "Three minutes."
It wasn't three minutes. It was less than one minute before the bomb went off. In a basement bathroom, five girls were changing into choir robes for the day's service. One, Sarah Collins, 12, barely survived, was badly cut, and lost the use of an eye. Four others were killed: Sarah's sister, Addie Mae Collins, 14; Carole Robertson, also 14; Cynthia Wesley, also 14; and Carol Denise McNair (usually listed as "Denise"), only 11.
Plaque at the church
No one else was killed, but the explosion was powerful enough that it knocked over a passing car, and the driver was thrown from it, sustaining some injuries. The total number of injuries may have been as high as 22.
If the bombers thought that this would intimidate the Civil Rights Movement, they guessed wrong: If anything, it was emboldened. On July 2, 1964, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law. On March 7, 1965, a march from Selma, Alabama to Montgomery began. While the police brutally broke it up, it was finished, and it inspired LBJ to demand a Voting Rights Act. He signed that into law on August 6, 1965.
Dr. King kept pressing for more advancements until his assassination on April 4, 1968. That turned out to be the turning point the white supremacists hoped for: The Movement began to lose steam, although it has never really gone away.
In 1965, the FBI, then run by Director J. Edgar Hoover, who was no friend of the Movement, foolishly thinking it run by Communists, concluded that the bombing was committed by 4 known members of the Ku Klux Klan: Thomas Blanton, Herman Cash, Robert Chambliss and Bobby Frank Cherry. But the Bureau refused to prosecute any of them. They refused to do their job.
It took years, but State prosecutors finally took action. On November 18, 1977, Chambliss was convicted of the murder of Denise McNair. He was only charged with one murder, in case he was acquitted, so that the prosecution could then move on to one of the other three.
On February 7, 1994, Herman Cash died, having never been prosecuted. He was the only one who got away with it for the rest of his life. On May 1, 2001, Blanton was convicted of his role in all 4 murders. On May 22, 2002, Cherry was convicted of his role in all 4 murders. All 3 surviving defendants died in prison: Chambliss on October 29, 1985; Cherry on November 18, 2004; and Blanton on June 26, 2020.
In 2017, Doug Jones, the prosecutor of Blanton and Cherry, won a special election for U.S. Senator from Alabama, as a Democrat. It seemed to be an affirmation that the system works. In 2020, he was defeated in his bid for a full term, by Tommy Tuberville, a far-right idiot who had failed as head football coach at Auburn. So much for justice.
Carolyn Maull McKinstry, who took the phone call at the church warning about the bomb, survived a 2nd bomb, that destroyed a large portion of her home in 1964. She went on to graduate from Fisk University in Nashville, and received a Master of Divinity Degree from Samford University’s Beeson Divinity School. She has written several books about the civil rights experience, and is still alive as of September 15, 2022.
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September 15, 1963 was, as I said, a Sunday. It was the opening week of the NFL season.
* The New York Giants beat the Baltimore Colts, 37-28 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore.
* The Philadelphia Eagles and the Pittsburg Steelers played to a 15-15 tie, at Franklin Field in Philadelphia.
* The Cleveland Browns beat the Washington Redskins, 37-14 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.
* The Chicago Bears beat their arch-rivals, the Green Bay Packers, 10-3 at Green Bay City Stadium. This was the replacement for the previous City Stadium, renamed Lambeau Field in 1965, after team founder Earl "Curly" Lambeau died.
* The Minnesota Vikings beat the San Francisco 49ers, 24-20 at Kezar Stadium in San Francisco.
* The day before, the football version of the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Dallas Cowboys, 34-7 at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas.
* Also the day before, the Detroit Lions beat the Los Angeles Rams, 23-2 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
The AFL season started the week before. However, the New York Jets, in their 4th season, but their 1st after dropping the New York Titans name, had the week off. So did the Kansas City Chiefs, who had been the Dallas Texans in the AFL's 1st 3 seasons.
* The Oakland Raiders beat the Buffalo Bills, 35-17 at Frank Youell Field in Oakland.
* The day before, the San Diego Chargers beat the Boston Patriots, 17-13 at Balboa Stadium in San Diego. This was a preview of the AFL Championship Game, and the Chargers won that in a blowout.
* Also the day before, the Houston Oilers beat the Denver Broncos, 20-14 at Jeppesen Stadium in Houston.
And there were Major League Baseball games played on the day:
* The New York Yankees beat the Minnesota Twins, 2-1 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. Whitey Ford went the distance to advance to 23-7 on the season, and backed by a 2-RBI single by Clete Boyer in the 2nd inning.
The Yankees had clinched the American League Pennant by beating the Twins 2 days earlier, so there was no reason to risk Mickey Mantle, who'd missed 2 months in the middle of the season, for another injury.
* The New York Mets got swept in a doubleheader at the Polo Grounds, by their 1962 expansion brethren, the Houston Colt .45s. The Astros-to-be won the opener 5-4, and the nightcap 5-0. Chris Zachary pitched 6 innings, allowing 3 hits, and Hal Woodeshick went the last 3, hitless, completing the shutout.
* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 6-1 at Connie Mack Stadium, in Philadelphia.
* The San Francisco Giants beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 13-5 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. Willie Mays went 2-for-4 with a home run and 4 RBIs for the Giants. Roberto Clemente went 0-for-4 for the Pirates. This was the day all 3 Alou brothers played in the outfield at the same time, with Mays having been taken out late. I have a separate entry for that event.
* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Detroit Tigers, 2-1 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit.
* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Chicago Cubs, 3-1 at Wrigley Field in Chicago.
* The St. Louis Cardinals swept a doubleheader from the Milwaukee Braves at the 1st Busch Stadium in St. Louis, formerly named Sportsman's Park. The Cards won the 1st game 3-2, and the 2nd game 5-0. Ray Sadecki pitched a 5-hit shutout.
In his last month as an active player, Stan Musial went 0-for-4 in the doubleheader, appearing only as a pinch-hitter in the nightcap. Hank Aaron went 2-for-7 with a home run and 2 RBIs.
* The Boston Red Sox beat the Kansas City Athletics, 5-3 at Kansas City Municipal Stadium.
* And the Cleveland Indians beat the Los Angeles Angels, 6-3 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, where the Angels played before their stadium in suburban Anaheim opened.
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