The Murder of Four Girls
On the early Sunday morning of September 15, 1963, Ku Klux Klan member, Robert Edward Chambliss stood a few blocks away from the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. On this morning, five girls were changing into their choir robes in the church basement. At 10:19 a.m., a bomb exploded, killing four of the girls and injuring twenty people. The four girls who died were eleven-year old Denise McNair, and fourteen year olds Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson, and Cynthia Wesley.
The Significance of the 16th Street Baptist Church
The Sixteenth Street Baptist Church had served as an important part of the African-American community and was used as a meeting place during the civil rights movement. The church was used for mass rallies and Martin Luther King Jr. was among the many leaders who spoke at these events. It had also been the headquarters for several desegregation protests. When the church was bombed, it was a sign of the hostility that segregationists had against the civil rights struggle.
The Aftermath of the Bombing
While the bomb came as a surprise, bomb threats had been made in the past. In those instances, the church had been able to take special precautions. This time, no threat had been made. The explosion blew a hole in the east side of the church. It shattered windows, walls, doors, and the air was filled with a thick cloud of dust and soot. As community members dug through the debris in search of survivors, they discovered the bodies of the four victims.Grief was not only felt in the African American community, but white strangers expressed their sympathy to the families of the four girls. At the funeral of three of the girls, Martin Luther King gave the eulogy, which was witnessed by 8,000 mourners, both white and black.
The Investigation into the Bombing
The FBI led the initial investigation into the bombing. According to a 1965 FBI memorandum to director J. Edgar Hoover, it was determined that Robert E. Chambliss, Bobby Frank Cherry, Herman Frank Cash, and Thomas E. Blanton Jr. had planted the bomb. Based on the investigation, the Birmingham FBI office recommended prosecuting the suspects. Hoover, however, blocked their prosecution by rejecting the recommendation that the federal prosecutor receive the testimony that identified the suspects. By 1968, charges had not been filed and the FBI closed the case.In 1971, Alabama Attorney General Bill Baxley, reopened the case. On November 18, 1977, Robert Chambliss was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. The case was again reopened in 1988 and in July 1997, after the FBI received a tip. Herman Frank Cash was still one of the prime suspects, but before a case could be established against him, he died in 1994.
On May 17, 2000, Thomas Blanton Jr. and Bobby Frank Cherry were charged with the murder of the four girls. Blanton was tried, convicted, and sentenced to life in prison on May 1, 2001. For the jurors who convicted him, the 1964 taped conversations that the FBI secretly recorded, weighed heavily on their decision. The tapes had remained secret until 1997, when the case was reopened. In one recorded conversation that took place between Blanton and his wife, Blanton told her that he was at the Klan meeting where both the bombing was planned and the bomb was made. In another recorded conversation, Blanton spoke about the bombing to an FBI informant while driving in a car. For the jurors, the taped conversations provided enough evidence to convict Blanton of murder.
Bobby Frank Cherry's trial was postponed after the judge ruled that he was mentally incompetent to assist his attorney. After Cherry was found competent to stand trail, on May 22, 2002 he was found guilty of four counts of murder. He was sentenced to life in prison. For the family and friends of the four murdered girls, the conviction of Blanton and Cherry was a long awaited victory.
