The Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, September Fifteen

The Sixteenth Street Baptist Church had been the center of Black religious and civic life in Birmingham since its founding in eighteen seventy-three. It was the first Black church in the city. The congregation had heard W.E.B. Du Bois speak from its pulpit, and Mary McLeod Bethune, and Paul Robeson. When the nineteen sixty-three Birmingham campaign needed a gathering place for daily mass meetings, the church opened its doors. Between April and September of that year, the basement and the sanctuary had served as a staging ground for thousands of people preparing to march.

On the morning of Sunday, September fifteenth, nineteen sixty-three, four members of the Ku Klux Klan placed a box of dynamite beneath the church's exterior staircase. The explosion occurred at ten twenty-two in the morning, when the Sunday school session was in preparation. The bomb collapsed a section of the church's east wall.

Four girls died in the basement where they had gathered: Addie Mae Collins, age fourteen. Cynthia Wesley, age fourteen. Carole Robertson, age fourteen. And Carol Denise McNair, age eleven.

Twenty-two other people were injured. The day's violence did not end at the church. Two Black teenagers were killed in Birmingham that afternoon in separate incidents.

The FBI investigated, then closed the case. It was not reopened for fourteen years. Robert Chambliss was convicted in nineteen seventy-seven. Thomas Blanton and Bobby Frank Cherry were convicted in two thousand one and two thousand two respectively. A fourth suspect, Herman Frank Cash, died before he was charged.

The church was repaired and remains an active congregation. It is a National Historic Landmark. The four girls are remembered by name every September fifteenth.