Existing comment:
The Bombing at Sixteenth Street Baptist Church
On Sunday, September 15, the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, was bombed by white supremacists -- a planned act of terrorism by men who were later identified as members of a Ku Klux Klan organization. The explosion killed four young African American girls -- Addie Mae Collins (age fourteen), Denise McNair (age eleven), Carole Robertson (age fourteen), and Cynthia Wesley (age fourteen). There was a great public outcry for immediate justice nationally and internationally and the event marked a major turning point in the movement. It created urgency to usher the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. |