[14] These attacks earned the city the nickname "Bombingham". [22]:57 Although the Cahaba Boys had fewer than 30 active members,[60] among them were Thomas Blanton Jr., Herman Cash, Robert Chambliss, and Bobby Cherry. Many of the same audiotapes presented in Blanton's trial were also introduced into evidence in the trial of Bobby Cherry. On May 21, 2002, both prosecution and defense attorneys delivered their closing arguments to the jury. In a speech conducted before the burials of the girls, King addressed an estimated 3,300[56] mournersincluding numerous white peoplewith a speech saying: This tragic day may cause the white side to come to terms with its conscience. The girls' death and the long wait for justice raises important questions about civil rights, racism, and the nature of restorative justice. I did not see it happen, but I heard it happen and I felt it happen, just a few blocks away at my father's church. Don Cochran disputed this position, arguing that Alabama law provides for "conspiracies to conceal evidence" to be proven by both inference and circumstantial evidence. At the base of the sculpture is an inscription of the title of the sermon the four girls were to attend before the bombing"A Love That Forgives". [99]:162, The state prosecution had originally intended to try both defendants together; however, the trial of Bobby Cherry was delayed due to the findings of a court-ordered psychiatric evaluation. On July 2, 1964, President Lyndon Johnson signed into effect the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Immediately after the bombing, violence surged throughout the city as police clashed with enraged members of the Black community. Jones repeated the most damning statements Blanton had made in these recordings, before pointing at Blanton and stating: "That is a confession out of this man's mouth. [100] It concluded that vascular dementia had impaired his mind, therefore making Cherry mentally incompetent to stand trial or assist in his own defense.[101]. (Sims and Farley were later convicted of second-degree manslaughter,[47] although the judge suspended their sentences and imposed two years' probation upon each youth. Each received a $100 fine (the equivalent of $972 as of 2023[update]) and a suspended 180-day jail sentence. )[22]:63. A separate service was held for the fourth victim, Carole Robertson. Cross testified that each girl present had been taught to contemplate how Jesus would react to affliction or injustice, and they were asked to learn to consider, "What Would Jesus Do? In his opening statement for the prosecution, Don Cochran presented his case: that the evidence would show that Cherry had participated in a conspiracy to commit the bombing and conceal evidence linking him to the crime and that he had later gloated over the deaths of the victims. [82] Moreover, Cobbs testified on November 16 that, on the day before the bombing, Chambliss had told her that he had in his possession enough dynamite to "flatten half of Birmingham". Demonstrators present were given instructions to march to downtown Birmingham and discuss with the mayor their concerns about racial segregation in the city, and to integrate buildings and businesses currently segregated. The case remained dormant until 1971, when Attorney General William Baxley reopened it. In a later statement, the FBI stated that their investigation had been impeded by the lack of witness cooperation in Birmingham. Although informative to the FBI, Rowe actively participated in violence against both Black and white civil rights activists. He said that Cherry had signed an affidavit in the presence of the FBI on October 9, 1963, confirming that he, Chambliss, and Blanton were at these premises on this date.[125]. [11] Their demands included that public amenities such as lunch counters and parks be desegregated, the criminal charges against demonstrators and protestors should be removed, and an end to overt discrimination with regards to employment opportunities. Scams and Safety. Mr. Blanton, 62, is the second of four longtime suspects to stand trial for the bombing, which hangs over this city as thickly as the lingering dust that witnesses to the blast described today.. ), One individual who went to 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. . Marchers at a civil rights demonstration in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 22, 1963, hold posters reading "No More Birminghams," in response to the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. )[16], These demonstrations and the concessions from city leaders to the majority of demonstrators' demands were met with fierce resistance by other whites in Birmingham. It occurred in the context of social upheaval in the city of Birmingham, which earned the moniker "Bombingham" after a spate of terrorist activities. Addie Mae Collins was a 14-year-old murder victim whose 1963 death focused public attention on racial violence in the South. Large crater is the result of bomb that exploded near a basement room of the Sixth Avenue Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala. on Sept. 15, 1963, killing four innocent young black girls. [106] The defense portrayed the audiotapes introduced into evidence as the statements of "two rednecks driving around, drinking" and making false, ego-inflating claims to one another. "I will never stop crying thinking about it," said Cross, who was 13 at the . He became a paid FBI informant in 1961. This group had previously been linked to several bomb attacks at Black-owned businesses and the homes of Black community leaders throughout the spring and summer of 1963. [61] Although he met with initial resistance from the FBI,[50]:278 in 1976 Baxley was formally presented with some of the evidence which had been compiled by the FBI, after he publicly threatened to expose the Department of Justice for withholding evidence which could result in the prosecution of the perpetrators of the bombing.[76]. Following the opening statements, the prosecution began presenting witnesses. The call was answered by the acting Sunday School secretary, a 14-year-old girl named Carolyn Maull. Following the assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, newly-inaugurated President Lyndon Johnson continued to press for passage of the civil rights bill sought by his predecessor. Cochran also added that although the evidence to be presented would not conclusively show that Cherry had personally planted or ignited the bomb, the combined evidence would illustrate that he had aided and abetted in the commission of the act. Her body was not in the spot where it was presumed to be. Four . 1:10. Following the bombing, the 16th Street Baptist Church remained closed for over eight months, as assessments and, later, repairs were conducted upon the property. Blanton's attorneys criticized the validity and quality of the 16 tape recordings introduced as evidence,[105] arguing that the prosecution had edited and spliced the sections of the audio recording that were secretly obtained within Blanton's kitchen, reducing the entirety of the tape by 26 minutes. Cherry's defense attorney, Mickey Johnson, protested his client's innocence, citing that much of the evidence presented was circumstantial. Sarah Collins-Rudolph, survivor of the 1963 Birmingham church bombing. [99]:ch. The offensive came . Other witnesses obtained identified Chambliss as the individual who had placed the bomb beneath the church. [117][118], Blanton died in prison from unspecified causes on June 26, 2020.[119]. 4 girls were killed, and 14 were injured. [88] He was sentenced to life imprisonment for her murder. Sun 15 Sep 2013 10.04 EDT. Baxley acknowledged that typical juries in 1960s Alabama would have likely leaned in favor of both defendants, even if these recordings had been presented as evidence,[128] but said that he could have prosecuted Thomas Blanton and Bobby Cherry in 1977 if he had been granted access to these tapes. Click The attacks were authorized by Germany's chancellor, Adolf Hitler, after the British carried out a nighttime air raid on Berlin. Oval photographs and brief biographies of the four girls killed in the explosion, the most seriously injured survivor (Sarah Collins), and the two teenage boys who were shot to death later that day also adorn the base of the sculpture. Four black girls. The bombing that killed Collins and her friends was a racially motivated hate crime. On September 15, 1963, a bomb explodes during Sunday morning services in the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing four young girls: Addie Mae Collins (14), Cynthia Wesley. [96] They unsealed 9,000 pieces of evidence previously gathered by the FBI in the 1960s (many of these documents relating to the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing had not been made available to DA William Baxley in the 1970s). Collins and her fellow victims became symbols of racial violence, styled as martyrs in the struggle for civil rights. It is a sound that I will never forget, that will forever reverberate in my ears. She was 93. The bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church was a pivotal moment for the American civil rights movement. The racial attack on the 16th Street Baptist Church, in the former secretary of state's hometown of Birmingham, Alabama, rocked the nation and led to sweeping changes . The Birmingham Times. In his rebuttal closing argument, defense attorney Art Hanes Jr. attacked the evidence presented by the prosecution as being purely circumstantial,[87] adding that, despite the existence of similar circumstantial evidence, Chambliss had not been prosecuted in 1963 of the church bombing. [81] He testified that Chambliss had visited his headquarters in 1976 and that he had attempted to affix the blame for the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing upon an altogether different member of the KKK. Resulting in the injury of 14 people and the death of four girls, the attack garnered widespread national outrage. 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