Rep. Sewell honors 16th Street Baptist Church bombing victims

U.S. Representative Terri Sewell, D-Alabama, spoke before the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday to commemorate the 63rd anniversary of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing.

On the morning of September 15, 1963, 19 sticks of dynamite planted by members of the Ku Klux Klan beneath the stairs of 16th Street Baptist Church exploded, killing four girls—Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Morris Wesley—who were in the church basement preparing for Sunday services. Others in the church were injured in the attack.

The 16th Street Baptist Church was a key meeting place for members of the Civil Rights Movement before and after the bombing. The attack drew national attention to the civil rights struggle in Birmingham and became one of the pivotal events of the movement.

During her House floor remarks, Sewell urged remembrance of the four girls and the decadeslong fight to prosecute those responsible for the attack.

“For too long their families were denied the justice that they deserved. It took more than three decades before the perpetrators of this heinous attack were finally brought to justice,” Sewell said.

Bombing conspirator Robert Edward Chambliss was convicted in 1977 and sentenced to life in prison.

It wasn’t until 2001 and 2002 that conspirators Thomas Blanton Jr. and Bobby Frank Cherry were prosecuted by then-U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama Doug Jones. Blanton and Cherry were convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.

A fourth suspect, Herman Cash, died in 1994 without being prosecuted.

“Six decades later, we must remember that these were not simply events in a history book,” Sewell said. “These were children whose lives were stolen because of the color of their skin. While we can never undo the pain of that day, we can ensure that these precious lives are never, ever forgotten.”

Sewell also called for wider recognition of the killings of two other Black children in Birmingham during the unrest that followed the bombing on September 15—16-year-old Johnny Robinson and 13-year-old Virgil Ware.

“The tragedy did not end with the bomb exploding,” Sewell said. “As Black Alabamians took to the streets to demand justice, they were met with violence and brutality, resulting in the loss of two more children.”

Sewell closed her remarks by reflecting on the bombing’s impact on the Civil Rights Movement and urging lawmakers to continue working to protect the freedoms for which civil rights advocates fought.

“Remembering the Four Little Girls cannot simply be about looking backward,” Sewell said. “It must also be about what we do today. Because the freedoms they died for are not guaranteed. Every generation has a responsibility to protect them and to advance them.

“May we honor their memory not only with our words, but with our actions. And may we forever, forever remember that the freedoms we enjoy today come at a tremendous cost.”

Ahead of the 50th anniversary of the bombing, Sewell sponsored legislation to posthumously award Collins, McNair, Robertson and Wesley the Congressional Gold Medal. The legislation was Sewell’s first bill to pass Congress and was signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2013.

The 16th Street Baptist Church held its 63rd annual observance of the bombing Tuesday morning. During the event, the church’s bell was rung six times in honor of the six children who died that day. The observance featured remarks from the Reverend Arthur Price Jr., pastor of 16th Street Baptist Church; Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin; and keynote speaker Bryan Stevenson, founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative.

“Today we need to recognize the greatness of the people who occupied this church, who could have given in to hatred and violence after the tragedy of what happened here,” Stevenson said. “Instead, they stayed true to their faith, they stayed true to their beliefs, and they stayed true to this idea of America, and I think the people of 16th Street Baptist Church are some of the greatest people in American history.”

“It wasn’t just the Klan that killed these children 63 years ago. It was a whole network of elected officials preaching fear and anger and some people reacted to that fear and anger,” he added. “Today we have those same voices, and we have to stand against those voices, and we stand against them by being committed to truth and justice.”

Additional statements memorializing the four girls were shared on social media by Doug Jones; U.S. Representative Shomari Figures, D-Alabama; U.S. Senator Katie Britt, R-Alabama; and U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville, R-Alabama.