Street Baptist Church bombing. The 1. 6th Street Baptist Church bombing was an act of white supremacistterrorism12 which occurred at the African American. Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama on Sunday, September 1. Ku Klux Klan planted at least 1. Described by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Although the FBI had concluded in 1. Street Baptist Church bombing had been committed by four known Ku Klux Klansmen and segregationistsThomas Edwin Blanton Jr., Herman Frank Cash, Robert Edward Chambliss, and Bobby Frank Cherry6no prosecutions ensued until 1. Robert Chambliss was tried and convicted of the first degree murder of one of the victims, 1. Carol Denise Mc. Nair. Thomas Blanton and Bobby Cherry were each convicted of four counts of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment in 2. Herman Cash, who died in 1. The 1. 6th Street Baptist Church bombing marked a turning point in the United States during the Civil Rights Movement and contributed to support for passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1. BackgroundeditIn the years leading to the 1. Street Baptist Church bombing, Birmingham had earned a national reputation as a tense, violent and racially segregated city, in which even tentative racial integration of any form was met with violent resistance. Dr. Martin Luther King described Birmingham as probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States. 8The city had no black police officers or firefighters, and few of the citys black residents were registered to vote. Bombings at black institutions were a regular occurrence 9 Birmingham had seen at least 2. These attacks had earned the city the nickname Bombingham. 1. Birmingham Campaign and the 1. Street Baptist ChurcheditThe three story 1. Street Baptist Church had become a rallying point for civil rights activities through the spring of 1. Get reliable, lowcost dialup Internet service, highspeed broadband Internet access, Web hosting more. Connect with us for savings, support satisfactionBirmingham campaigns Childrens Crusade had been organized and trained by Southern Christian Leadership Conference SCLC Director of Direct Action, James Bevel. The church was also used as a meeting place for other civil rights leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Ralph David Abernathy, and Fred Shuttlesworth. Tensions further escalated when the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Congress on Racial Equality became involved in a campaign to register African Americans to vote in Birmingham. On May 2, more than 1,0. Street Baptist Church. Demonstrators present were given instructions to march to downtown Birmingham and discuss with the mayor their concerns about racial segregation in Birmingham, then to integrate buildings and businesses currently segregated. Although this march was met with fierce resistance and criticism, and saw up to 6. Birmingham campaign and its Childrens Crusade continued until May 5. These demonstrations led to an agreement, on May 8, between the citys business leaders and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, to integrate public facilities, including schools, in the city within 9. The first three schools in Birmingham to become integrated would do so on September 4. 1. These demonstrations, and the concessions from city leaders to the majority of demonstrators demands, were met with fierce resistance in Birmingham. In the weeks following the September 4 integration of public schools, three further bombs had been detonated in Birmingham. 1. Other acts of violence followed the settlement, and several staunch Ku Klux Klansmen were known to have expressed frustration at what they saw as a lack of effective resistance to integration. 1. The 1. 6th Street Baptist Church was a known and popular rallying point for civil rights activists, and had become an obvious target. BombingeditIn the early morning of Sunday, September 1. United Klans of America Thomas Edwin Blanton, Jr. 1. Herman Frank Cash Robert Edward Chambliss and Bobby Frank Cherry, planted a minimum of 1. At approximately 1. Street Baptist Church. The call was answered by the acting Sunday School secretary a 1. Carolyn Maull. 1. To Maull, the anonymous caller simply said the words, Three minutes,1. Less than one minute later, the bomb exploded as five children were present within the basement assembly, changing into their choir robes1. A Love That Forgives. 2. According to one survivor, the explosion shook the entire building and propelled the girls bodies through the air like rag dolls. 2. The explosion blew a hole measuring seven feet in diameter in the churchs rear wall, and a crater five feet wide and two feet deep in the ladies basement lounge, destroying the rear steps to the church and blowing one passing motorist out of his car. 2. Several other cars parked near the site of the blast were destroyed, and windows of properties located more than two blocks from the church were also damaged. All but one of the churchs stained glass windows were destroyed in the explosion. The sole stained glass window largely undamaged in the explosion depicted Christ leading a group of young children. 2. Hundreds of individuals, some of them lightly wounded, converged on the church to search the debris for survivors as police erected barricades around the church and several outraged men scuffled with police. An estimated 2,0. Reverend John Cross, Jr., attempted to placate the crowd by loudly reciting the 2. Psalm through a bullhorn. 2. One individual who converged on the scene to help search for survivors, Charles Vann, later recollected that he had observed a solitary white man whom he recognized as Robert Edward Chambliss a known member of the Ku Klux Klan standing alone and motionless at a barricade. According to Vanns later testimony, Chambliss was standing looking down toward the church, like a firebug watching his fire. 1. Four girls, Addie Mae Collins age 1. Carol Denise Mc. Nair age 1. Carole Robertson age 1. Cynthia Wesley age 1. The explosion was so intense that one of the girls bodies was decapitated and so badly mutilated in the explosion that her body could only be identified through her clothing and a ring,2. All four girls were pronounced dead on arrival at the Hillman Emergency Clinic. 2. The then pastor of the church, the Reverend John Cross, would recollect in 2. More than 2. 0 additional people were injured in the explosion, one of whom was Addie Maes younger sister, 1. Sarah Collins,3. In her later recollections of the bombing, Collins would recall that in the moments immediately before the explosion, she had observed her sister, Addie, tying her dress sash. 3. Another sister of Addie Mae Collins, 1. Junie Collins, would later recall that shortly before the explosion, she had been sitting in the basement of the church reading the Bible and had observed Addie Mae Collins tying the dress sash of Carol Denise Mc. Nair before she had herself returned upstairs to the ground floor of the church. 3. Reactions and condemnationeditAs violence escalated in Birmingham in the hours following the bombing, police urged parents of black and white youths to keep their children indoors, as the Governor of Alabama, George Wallace, ordered an additional 3. Birmingham City Council convened an emergency meeting to propose safety measures for the city, although proposals for a curfew were rejected. Within 2. 4 hours of the bombing, a minimum of five businesses and properties had been firebombed and numerous carsmost of which were driven by whiteshad been stoned by rioting youths. 3. In response to the church bombing, described by the Mayor of Birmingham, Albert Boutwell, as just sickening, the Attorney General dispatched 2. FBI agents, including explosives experts, to Birmingham to conduct a thorough forensic investigation. Although reports of the bombing and the loss of four childrens lives were glorified by white supremacists, who in many instances chose to celebrate the loss as four less niggers,3. The day following the bombing, a young white lawyer named Charles Morgan Jr. Birmingham towards the oppression of blacks. In this speech, Morgan addressed his audience with a speech in which he lamented Who did it the bombing We all did it The who is every little individual who talks about the niggers and spreads the seeds of his hate to his neighbor and his son. Whats it like living in BirminghamNo one ever really has known and no one will until this city becomes part of the United States. 3. A Milwaukee Sentinel editorial opined, For the rest of the nation, the Birmingham church bombing should serve to goad the conscience.
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