The 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing: Four Girls Who Changed America Forever

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September 15th 1963, Birmingham, Alabama.

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Five girls are huddled in a church basement bathroom,

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putting the finishing touches on their Sunday best.

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Today isn't an ordinary Sunday service.

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It's youth day, and for the first time ever,

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they get to sit with the adults during service.

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Eleven-year-old Denise is practically bouncing with excitement.

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Fourteen-year-old Addy May is making sure her little sister Sarah looks perfect, too.

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They have no idea that in less than 30 minutes,

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only one of them will walk out of that basement alive.

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And the four who don't will change America forever.

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[Music]

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You know how some September mornings feel different?

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Like there's something electric in the air

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that makes everything feel more important.

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September 15th 1963 started exactly like that in Birmingham, Alabama.

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Families were getting ready for church.

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Kids were complaining about having to wear their good shoes.

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And parents were doing that thing where they licked their thumbs

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and smoothed down stubborn cowlicks.

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At the 16th Street Baptist Church,

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excitement was buzzing through the congregation,

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like when your favorite song comes on the radio.

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Today wasn't an ordinary Sunday.

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It was youth day.

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And more importantly, it was the first Sunday after school started

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where the kids would get to sit with the adults during the actual service.

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No more children's church in the basement.

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This was the big leagues.

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Four girls were particularly thrilled about this milestone.

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Denise McNair, who was 11, was practically vibrating with excitement.

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She loved performing in plays and poetry readings,

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and today felt like her moment to shine.

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With her were three 14 year olds, Addy May Collins,

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who had this amazing artistic streak

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and wasn't afraid to knock on doors in the white neighborhoods

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to sell her mother's handmade aprons,

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Carol Robertson, and also Cynthia Wesley.

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But wait, there was actually a fifth girl in their little group, Sarah Collins,

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who was 12,

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a tagged along with her big sister, Addy May.

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Sarah looked up to Addy May, something fierce.

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The way younger siblings do when they think they're older sibling hung the moon.

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The girls had gathered in the ladies room in the basement,

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doing what girls do before important moments.

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I assume, checking their hair, smoothing their dresses,

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making sure that they looked absolutely perfect.

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Addy May and Denise were in church choir,

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while Carol and Cynthia had been chosen as ushers.

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You can picture it, right?

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That nervous energy mixed with pure joy,

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whispering and giggling as they primped.

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In these kids, they weren't random kids

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who happened to be at church that day.

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They were the heart of this community.

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The future that everyone was working so hard to protect and nurture.

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It was approaching 11 o'clock, almost time for the service to begin.

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Now, here's something that you need to understand

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about the 16th Street Baptist Church.

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This wasn't some small neighborhood chapel.

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This was the church in downtown Birmingham's African-American community.

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Big, beautiful, and impossible to ignore.

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The church had become something that probably made the congregation

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both proud and nervous at the same time.

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See, by 1963, the church had evolved into the unofficial headquarters

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for Birmingham's civil rights movement.

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It was a key civil rights meeting place

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and had been a frequent target of bomb threats.

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When you needed to organize a march or hold a meeting about voter registration,

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this is where you went.

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When students, as young as eight, wanted to participate in protests,

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this is where they first gathered.

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Birmingham had earned itself a nickname during this era,

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and it wasn't a good one.

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People called it "bombing ham" because explosions had become as common as Sunday dinner.

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The city was run by Eugene Bull Connor,

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who held the title of Commissioner of Public Safety,

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but seemed more interested in maintaining the status quo

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than actually keeping anyone safe.

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Earlier that spring, something remarkable had happened.

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Students from 16th Street Baptist Church had organized

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what became known as the Children's Crusade.

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Picture this.

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Kids between eights and 18 years old,

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dressed in their school clothes,

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walking peacefully towards City Hall to ask the mayor about civil rights.

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Bull Connor's response about this was as mature as you'd expect

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from someone whose nickname was Bull.

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He ordered the police to round up these peaceful student protesters.

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Throw them in jail.

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When the community rallied to protest the treatment of their children,

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Connor escalated things further.

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He brought out fire hoses and attack dogs against people

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who were asking for basic human dignity.

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The images from those protests traveled around the world

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and the pressure became impossible to ignore.

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Birmingham finally agreed to desegregate.

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Black people could now eat in the same cafeterias,

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use the same bathrooms and water fountains,

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and work as salespeople in stores.

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Changes that seem absolutely basic now were revolutionary back then.

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As you can imagine, not everyone celebrated these changes.

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The Clue Clux clan had various factions,

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kind of like how different friend groups had different vibes.

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The Eastview clav'rn, number 13,

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was the group that had broken away from the main clan leadership

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because they thought the organization wasn't being violent enough.

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Let that sink in for a moment.

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They thought the KKK needed to be more extreme.

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Members of the clan had previously bombed Birmingham churches

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as a strategy to intimidate the black community

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and the Eastview clav'rn had been behind hundreds of the attacks

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and months following the children's crusade.

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They were trying to terrorize people

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into giving up the fight for equality.

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At 10.22 a.m., instead of rising to begin prayers,

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the congregation was knocked to the ground.

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A bomb exploded under the steps of the church.

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They sought safety under the pews

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and shielded each other from falling debris.

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Someone had planted dynamite under the church stairs

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and a detonated with devastating force.

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A violent blast ripped through the wall,

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killing four African-American girls on the other side

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and injuring more than 20 inside the church.

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In the basement where the girls had been getting ready

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for their big day, the destruction was complete.

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Sarah Collins later described calling her sister's name three times,

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but Adi May didn't answer.

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Sarah was the only one of the five girls to survive,

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though she was temporarily blinded and lost her right eye.

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Adi May Collins, Cynthia Wesley and Carol Robertson, all 14,

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and 11-year-old Denise McNair were killed instantly.

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Martin Luther King, Jr. described it as one of the most vicious

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and tragic crimes ever perpetrated against humanity.

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The bombing didn't terrorize the community into submission.

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Instead, it had the opposite effect.

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Over 8,000 people of all races attended the girls' funerals.

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The nation was horrified that children had been murdered

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for the crime of wanting to worship

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and participate in their community.

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The FBI threw everything they had at the case.

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By 1965, they had narrowed it down to four suspects,

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Robert Chamblis, Bobby Frank Cherry, Herman Frank Cash,

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and Bobby Blanton, Jr.

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All were members of the East View Clavorn,

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and investigators knew they were guilty.

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The problem was proving it in court.

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Again, this was 1965, and evidence gathered

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through surveillance wasn't admissible in court yet.

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The used-view Clavorn's reputation for violence

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meant witnesses were terrified to come forward.

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The four men walked free, which had to feel

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like a second tragedy for the families.

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Justice moved slowly, but it did move.

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Robert Chamblis was finally convicted in 1977

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and sentenced to life in prison.

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As fear of the clans influence began to fade

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and times changed, more witnesses found the courage to speak up.

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During the 1990s, the FBI reopened the case.

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Thomas Blanton, Jr. and Bobby Frank Cherry

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were both found guilty and received life sentences.

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Cherry actually helped seal his own fate

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by bragging over the years that he had planted the bomb himself.

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Herman Frank Cash died in 1994 before he could face trial.

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The bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church

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became a watershed moment in the Civil Rights Movement.

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It showed the nation and the world

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the deadly consequences of racial hatred

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and galvanized support for civil rights legislation.

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The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed less than a year later.

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Sarah Collins Rudolph, now in her 70s,

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continues to share her story.

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More than 60 years after that terrible Sunday morning,

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she reminds people that her sister and friends

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didn't die in vain.

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Quote, the death of those young girls really changed the world.

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Four little girls got dressed in their Sunday best

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on September 15, 1963,

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expecting to experience their first grown-up church service.

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Instead, they became martyrs for a movement

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that would transform America.

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Their names, Denise McNair, Addy May Collins, Carol Robertson,

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and Cynthia Wesley are now synonymous with courage, sacrifice,

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and the ongoing fight for justice.

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The 16th Street Baptist Church still stands today.

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Now, a national historic landmark.

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Visitors come from around the world

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to remember four girls who wanted nothing more

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than to look their best for youth day

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and ended up changing history forever.

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(gentle piano music)

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(gentle piano music)

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- Thanks for listening to 10 Minute Murder,

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Bingeable True Crime Stories.

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I'm Joe, I'm the host,

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and if you are a brand new listener to the podcast,

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welcome in, make sure before you do anything else

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in your whole life, I don't care what it is,

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or you can breathe.

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You can keep breathing, stop, don't stop breathing.

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But quickly hit subscribe wherever you're listening right now.

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Unless you think the show sucks, then otherwise log off.

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You don't have to keep listening if you don't like it.

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But if you do, subscribe,

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and you can also go to 10minutemerder.com,

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get all the information about the podcast

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that you could ever wanna know right there

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at 10minutemerder.com.

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And if there's a question, you're like,

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I don't, I wanna know this,

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but it's not here in this website.

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Send me an email, I'll answer it for you.

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Like this one, subject, weird curiosity.

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Hey, Joe, if you could somehow know the answer

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to one unsolved mystery, any era, any country,

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which one would you pick?

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And would you tell the world, or keep it to yourself,

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that comes from Amelia and Raleigh?

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And I tell you what, that's a no brainer for me,

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but there are two.

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I'm gonna cheat and do two of them,

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'cause I can't just decide on one.

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First one I think is obvious.

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You're probably thinking it in your mind.

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John Bene Ramsey, we all wanna know what happened.

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So that one's easy.

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The next one I think holds more weight

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and would be devastating if what I think happened happened.

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And that is the assassination of John Kennedy.

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Like if we found out our own government killed the president,

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or if the mob killed the president, or, you know,

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fill in the blank, and we knew that without a doubt, for sure,

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it would change some things in this country, I think,

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even all these decades later.

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So those are the two, John Bene Ramsey and John Kennedy.

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All right, that's gonna do it.

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That is your episode for today.

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I appreciate you listening.

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And have a good night.

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- Wait a minute, sorry, I didn't answer the second part of that.

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Yes, I would tell everyone.

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I wouldn't keep that to myself.

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If I knew the answers to those mysteries,

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I would tell every single human being alive if I could.

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Okay, now you can have a good night.