Klan Bombing of Birmingham Church 1963
History/Social Studies
The Klan Bombing of Birmingham Church during 1963
By far, the bloodiest battleground of the civil rights era was Birmingham. In the early 1960s, the town was a racial powder keg waiting to explode. Birmingham was then the most segregated city in America and it had the longest history of aggressive racial violence. Birmingham was called bombingham by people in the civil rights movement because this long chain of unsolved bombings of black homes. Much of the violence was perpetrated by the Ku Klux Klan. As evidence in the beating of the freedom riders, the city's law enforcement was known for its working relationship with the Klan. The Klan had more influence perhaps in Birmingham than they did in a lot of the other southern cities, and I think that contributed to the Klan sense of bravado where they felt like they could get away with anything that nobody had told them accountable. In this charged atmosphere, one of the cruelest of all acts of clan terror occurred.
The 16th street baptist church was a symbol of the civil rights movement in Birmingham. The sacred chamber served as a staging point for demonstrations against segregated downtown public facilities. From the steps of the church, hundreds of black marchers most of them kids encountered the extreme force of police commissioner bull Connor's attack dogs and high pressure fire hoses. For radical segregationists like the Klan, the 16th street baptist church, became a special target. On a hazy Sunday morning in September of 1963, four young black girls attended Sunday school at the 16th street church. The days Bible lesson was a love that forgives. The four girls moved to the basement to Don choir robes when suddenly annoyed shot through the church like a cannon. A bomb planted near the basement ripped through the House of worshiped. Under an avalanche of shattered glass, toppled brick and tangled metal, a gruesome discovery. Cynthia Wesley, age 14, Carol Robertson age 14 had he may Collins age 14 and Denise mcnair, age 11, all were found dead.
Their bodies buried atop one another. Of all the bad things that happened in the south during the civil rights era to me that was the worst. Because you had four innocent little girls that hadn't done anything to anybody. Going to worship on Sunday morning and church. And they're killed for absolutely no reason except that they are black. Within days, police were almost certain the bombers were members of the united clans of America, the key suspect was dynamite, bob, chambliss, a klansman suspected in many Birmingham bombings. After a perfunctory investigation, chambliss and two other clansmen were convicted only of the minor charge of dynamite possession. That finding was overturned on appeal. In FBI investigation resulted in no arrest, no charges.