Deseret News archives: Church bombing in Birmingham in 1963 was catalyst for change

A look back at local, national and world events through Deseret News archives.

On Sept. 15, 1963, four Black girls were killed when a bomb went off during Sunday services at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Twenty more worshippers were injured.

Three men, Ku Klux Klansmen, were eventually convicted for their roles in the blast, but it took nearly 40 years to reach that conclusion.

On that day in 1963, Denise McNair, 11, Carole Robertson, 14, Addie Mae Collins, 14, and Cynthia Wesley, 14, were killed in an explosion at the 16th Street Baptist Church. Their deaths overtook the hopeful mood inspired by the March on Washington just weeks earlier, according to historical accounts.

It was a difficult time as Americans considered the ramifications of race relations, institutional racism and segregation. The bombing created so much outrage it proved a catalyst for change in the South and across the nation.

On Sept. 18, three weeks after delivering his “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington, Martin Luther King Jr. eulogized three of the four victims during a funeral in Birmingham. In front of the Lincoln Memorial, King had challenged America to “make real the promise of democracy”; in Alabama he spoke of the “amazing democracy about death.”

Nine weeks later, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.

By 1965, the bombing suspects — namely, Robert E. Chambliss, Bobby Frank Cherry, Herman Frank Cash and Thomas E. Blanton, Jr., all KKK members — were identified but witnesses were reluctant to talk and physical evidence was lacking.

But the FBI kept working on the case.

Chambliss received life in prison in 1977. And eventually the fear, prejudice, and reticence that kept witnesses from coming forward began to subside. We reopened our case in the mid-1990s, and Blanton and Cherry were indicted in May 2000. Both were convicted at trial and sentenced to life in prison. The fourth man, Herman Frank Cash, had died in 1994.

Here are some articles from Deseret News archives about that moment in time:

“ Alabama church marks 50th anniversary of bombing ”

“ Church in ‘63 bombing named landmark ”

“ Innocent of ‘63 church bombing, 2 say ”

“ Ex-Klansman convicted in 1963 blast ”