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.[84]. 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 citys Black population and a routine meeting place for civil rights organizers like King. Your irresponsible and misguided actions have created in Birmingham and Alabama the atmosphere that has induced continued violence and now murder. The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama took place on Sept. 15, 1963 when four members of the Ku Klux Klan planted at least 15 sticks of dynamite with a timer under the front . (A 1980 Justice Department report concluded that J. Edgar Hoover had blocked the prosecution of the four bombing suspects in 1965,[7] and he officially closed the FBI's investigation in 1968. 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. However, none of these explosions had resulted in fatalities. The Birmingham City Council convened an emergency meeting to propose safety measures for the city, although proposals for a curfew were rejected. Your effort and contribution in providing this feedback is much The call was answered by the acting Sunday School secretary, a 14-year-old girl named Carolyn Maull. [30] Another victim was killed by a piece of mortar embedded in her skull. [59] Although he met with initial resistance from the FBI,[48]:278 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.[74]. In attendance were major leaders of the Civil Rights Movement, including Martin Luther King Jr.[69] This legislation prohibited discrimination based on race, color, religion, gender, or national origin; to ensure full, equal rights of African Americans before the law. Updated Martin Luther King Jr. holds a press conference in Birmingham the day after the attack. It was declared a national historic landmark in 2006. According to Vann's later testimony, Chambliss was standing "looking down toward the church, like a firebug watching his fire". 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. 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. 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. [66] Later the same year, J. Edgar Hoover formally blocked any impending federal prosecutions against the suspects,[67] and refused to disclose any evidence his agents had obtained with state or federal prosecutors.[68]. 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",[41] 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. I didn't bomb that church. "I will never stop crying thinking about it," said Cross, 68, who was 13 at the time. Their deaths made all of us focus upon the ugliness of those who would punish people because of the color of their skin. In attendance were 1,600 people. All but one of the church's stained-glass windows were destroyed in the explosion. Blanton's attorneys criticized the validity and quality of the 16 tape recordings introduced as evidence,[103] 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. Following the opening statements, the prosecution began presenting witnesses. Although tumultuous at times, the movement was mostly nonviolent and resulted in laws to read more, In a special election on December 12, 2017, Alabama chose Democrat Doug Jones over Republican and alleged sexual predator Roy Moore. He was 82 years old. Resulting in the injury of 14 people and the death of four girls, the attack garnered widespread national outrage. May 22, 2002 - Cherry is found guilty and given a sentence of four life terms. 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. [100] In January 2002, Judge Garrett ruled Cherry mentally competent to stand trial and set an initial trial date for April 29. 1963 Birmingham church bombing From left, 11-year-old Denise McNair and 14-year-olds Carole Robertson, Addie Mae Collins and Cynthia Wesley were killed while attending Sunday services.. 1965 - Suspects emerge: Bobby Frank Cherry, Thomas Blanton, Robert Chambliss and Herman Frank Cash, all Ku Klux Klan members. Many of the same audiotapes presented in Blanton's trial were also introduced into evidence in the trial of Bobby Cherry. She spoke with News4's Molette Green about . 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. 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. Discovery Company. Now 86, he had asked the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles to let him die as a free man. 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". In Birmingham, hundreds gathered at the church for a commemorative service and wreath-laying at the spot where the bomb went off. The files were sealed by order of J. Edgar Hoover. 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. He became a paid FBI informant in 1961. August 3, 2016 - Blanton, the last living convicted bomber, is denied parole. Today marks the 50th anniversary of the white supremacist bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama that killed four young girls. No one ever really has known and no one will until this city becomes part of the United States. [40] 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 to assist in quelling unrest. Also present was Martin Luther King Jr. The 16th Street Baptist Church served as a rallying point during the civil rights movement. 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. An estimated 8,000 people attended the service. June 26, 2020 - Blanton dies in prison of natural causes, according to a statement released by Alabama Gov. [105], The trial lasted for one week. [104] 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. 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. On the afternoon of 17 August 2017, 22-year-old Younes Abouyaaqoub drove a van into pedestrians on La Rambla in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain killing 13 people and injuring at least 130 others, one of whom died 10 days later on 27 August. )[22]:63. 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. Three former Ku Klux Klan members are eventually convicted of murder for the bombing. [48]), Chambliss was questioned by the FBI on September 26. Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr. was brought to trial in Birmingham, Alabama, before Judge James Garrett on April 24, 2001. Two more violent deaths that day Later that day, 13-year-old Virgil Ware, riding on the. If you're looking for a beautiful place to travel to this summer, look no further than Spain. (J. Edgar Hoover, then-head of the FBI, disapproved of the civil rights movement; he died in 1972.). Throughout the trial, Cherry's defense attorney, Mickey Johnson, repeatedly observed that many of the prosecution's witnesses were either circumstantial or "inherently unreliable". Although never formally named as one of the conspirators by the FBI, Rowe's record of deception on the polygraph tests leaves open the possibility that Chambliss's claims may have held a degree of truth. 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. 2023 Cable News Network. His testimony was restricted to the areas of the recordings permitted into evidence. READ MORE: Civil Rights Movement Timeline, https://www.history.com/topics/1960s/birmingham-church-bombing. His confidence that, as one historian put it, the government possessed big answers to big problems read more. )[16], These demonstrations and the concessions from city leaders to the majority of demonstrators' demands were met with fierce resistance by other whites in Birmingham. [59] These witness statements specifically indicated that a white man had exited the car and walked toward the steps of the church. Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. 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. Through these rulings, Mitchell Burns was called to testify on behalf of the prosecution. Jones will now head to the U.S. Senate, bringing to a close an election that drew national and international attentionunusual for a state read more, In August of 1619, a journal entry recorded that 20 and odd Angolans, kidnapped by the Portuguese, arrived in the British colony of Virginia and were then were bought by English colonists. Following the closing arguments, the jury retired to begin their deliberations, which lasted for over six hours and continued into the following day. Although sections of the recordingpresented in evidence on April 27are unintelligible, Blanton can twice be heard mentioning the phrase "plan a bomb" or "plan the bomb". [124] Cherry remained stoic as the sentence was read aloud. Described by Martin Luther King Jr. as "one of the most vicious and tragic crimes ever perpetrated against humanity,"[5] the explosion at the church killed four girls and injured between 14 and 22 other people. The 16th Street Baptist Church served as a rallying point during the civil rights movement. 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.[129]. [55][56], As the girls' coffins were taken to their graves, King directed that those present remain solemn and forbade any singing, shouting or demonstrations. Firefighters and ambulance attendants remove a body from the church. Sarah Collins Rudolph was the fifth girl and survived. 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. [11] 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. Blanton, however, hired a lawyer and refused to answer any questions. 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. [119] (A fishing float attached to a section of wire, which may have been part of a timing device, was found 20 feet (6.1m) from the explosion crater[85] following the bombing. On May 15,[121] Cross testified that prior to the explosion, she and the four girls killed had each attended a Youth Day Sunday School lesson in which the theme taught was how to react to a physical injustice. [80] 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". 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