The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing took place on Septmeber 15, 1963 in Birmingham, Alabama. It was an act of discrimination and hate by the Klu Klux Klan. Birmingham had the worst case of the Klu Klux Klan. Despite Martin Luther King Jr's speeches and inspiring words violence, in the south especially, continued. Things got worse when the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Congress on Racial Equality tried to get African Americans registered to vote.
On September 15 all havick raised loos. A white male was seen leaving his car with a box in his hands. He was seen placing the box under the Burmingham Baptist Church. At 10:22 when children were entering the basement of the church for sunday school class when the bomb went off. Four young girls were killed, Denise McNair (11), Addie Mae Collins (14), Carole Robertson (14) and Cynthia Wesley (14). Twenty-three other people were injured. The bombing was the third in eleven days.
George Wallace, the Governor of Alabama, was blamed by many for the killings and bombings that had been taking place. Wallace told the New York times weeks before the Birmingham bombing that to stop integration first Alabama need a "few first-class funerals." Somone identified the man with the mysterious box as, Robert Chambliss, a member of the Klu Klux Klan. He was charged with murder and possesion of 122 sticks of dynamite without a permit. He was found not guilty of the murders, but he was guilty with the possesion of the dynamite. He recieved a hundred dollar fine and had to spend 6 months in jail.
The case hadn't been solved untill Bill Baxley was elected attorney general of Alabama. He dug up the evidence against Chambliss that hadn't been used against him in the first trial. In November, 1977 Baxley tried Chambliss again on the murders. Chambliss now 73 years old was found guilty and setenced to life in prison. In May, 2000 the FBI found three other men who were apart of the bombing. They were the Cahaba boys, a smaller group off of the Klu Klux Klan. Two of the men were still alive and convicted of murder. I can't believe somebody would do that knowing that little children were in there. Those men were very sick.
SOURCES:
http://www.english.illinois.edu/Maps/poets/m_r/randall/birmingham.htm
http://www.history.com/genericContent.do?id=61698&milestoneid=22
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