Chip Minemyer: Four little girls and the church that cradles their memory

Sep. 16—The 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, is a place of historic tragedy.

And relentless faith in response to that legacy of sorrow.

The site is a welcoming and vibrant house of worship, a key stop on the Civil Rights trail, and a source of inspiration and hope.

On Sept. 15, 1963, four young girls were killed in a Ku Klux Klan bombing as they changed into their choir robes for a Sunday morning service.

Murdered were Addie Mae Collins (age 14), Cynthia Wesley (14), Carole Robertson (14) and Carol Denise McNair (11) — names lovingly remembered through a monument outside the church wall where the bomb exploded, on a display in the park diagonally across 16th Street, and in the hearts of the many who worship in or visit that church.

A fifth child, Sarah Collins — sister of Addie Mae — survived the blast but lost an eye among numerous injuries.

On the website of the organization Learning for Justice: "It was Youth Sunday at Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. The preacher had prepared a sermon especially for the children. The youth choir would lead the congregation in music, and children would serve as ushers."

"It was a clear act of racial hatred: the church was a key civil rights meeting place and had been a frequent target of bomb threats," the FBI's history website says.

I toured the 16th Baptist Church earlier this year with a group of CNHI editors and company leaders.

We encountered volunteers who told the story of the bombing with historic clarity and deep passion — and who embodied the church's slogan of faith and positivity:

"Where Jesus Christ is the main attraction!"

On the church website, the Rev. Arthur Price Jr. reaffirms the call for love and unity over bitterness or resentment:

"It is this life-changing and world-changing message upon which we build our church and our lives."

That is a foundation of faith that stood strong after that 1963 morning — despite the devastation to the building and an unimaginable emotional blow to that Alabama community.

The summer of 1963 was a time of civil unrest — marches and demonstrations, police brutality and widespread attempts at ethnic intimidation.

The 16th Street church bombing was a flashpoint in the Civil Rights time line — following the March on Washington in August and two months before the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

The following year, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act — which prohibited discrimination based on race, color, religion, gender or national origin; to ensure full, equal rights of African Americans before the law — completing Kennedy's push for legislative action.

After the bombing, more than $300,000 was donated toward a restoration project, and the church reopened for services the following June. A stained-glass window depicting Jesus during the crucifixion was donated by the people of Wales, and still looks down upon the church sanctuary.

Through the years, prominent figures have spoken from the pulpit at 16th Street Baptist or visited the church — among them W.E.B. DuBois, Joe Biden, Mary McLeod Bethune, Paul Robeson and Barack Obama.

The church's website says: "Due to Sixteenth Street's prominence in the Black community, and its central location to downtown Birmingham, the church served as headquarters for the civil rights mass meetings and rallies in the early 1960s. During this time of trial, turmoil and confrontation, the church provided strength and safety for Black men, women and children dedicated to breaking the bonds of segregation in Birmingham, a city that Black citizens believed to be the most racist in America."

The 16th Street Baptist Church was added to the National Register of Historic Places in September 1980.

That was just three years after the conviction of one of the bombers, Robert Edward Chambliss, on a charge of first-degree murder — the first legal action in the case.

That's despite the fact that in 1965, the FBI concluded that the bombing was committed by four men — Chambliss, Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr., Herman Frank Cash and Bobby Frank Cherry — who were known Klansmen and segregationists.

Eventually, the FBI said, "the fear, prejudice and reticence that kept witnesses from coming forward began to subside" following Chambliss' conviction and life sentence.

"We re-opened our case in the mid-1990s, and Blanton and Cherry were indicted in May 2000," the FBI said. "Both were convicted at trial and sentenced to life in prison. The fourth man, Herman Frank Cash, had died in 1994."

The bombing inspired Spike Lee's 1997 documentary film "4 Little Girls," which was nominated for an Academy Award.

In 2017, along with other sites in the city, the church was included in the formation of the Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument.

Across the street from the church is the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, with archives and images dedicated to that important period.

The adjacent Kelly Ingram Park features numerous sculptures depicting troubling scenes of violence offset by uplifting testaments to key Civil Rights Movement figures and events.

And that park holds a display honoring the four girls who died in an act of violence and hatred on Sept. 15, 1963 ...

Addie Mae Collins.

Cynthia Wesley.

Carole Robertson.

Carol Denise McNair.

... whose memories serve as an inspiration for the congregation of 16th Street Baptist Church and all who enter there and hear their story.

Chip Minemyer is the editor and general manager of The Tribune-Democrat and TribDem.com, GM of The Times-News of Cumberland, Md., and CNHI regional editor for Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio, West Virginia and North Carolina. He can be reached at 814-532-5091. Follow him on Twitter @MinemyerChip.