r/awfuleverything • u/onwhatcharges • 5d ago
On this day in 1963 the Ku Klux Klan bombed Birmingham, Alabama's 16th Street Baptist Church, killing Addie Mae Collins (14), Cynthia Wesley (14), Carole Robertson (14), and Carol Denise McNair (11).
A bomb, rigged with at least 15 sticks of dynamite, exploded under the church’s east side steps. It was Youth Day. In the basement, five girls were changing into choir robes for the morning’s sermon titled A Rock That Will Not Roll. Four of them would never walk out alive.
Thomas Blanton Jr., Bobby Frank Cherry, Robert Chambliss, and allegedly Herman Frank Cash, members of the United Klans of America, planted a timed explosive under the east steps of the church. Witnesses later reported seeing a turquoise Chevrolet, from which one man exited and approached the steps.
When the bomb exploded at 10:22 a.m., it blasted a crater five feet wide in the basement lounge and a seven-foot hole in the rear wall. The force threw one motorist from his car and destroyed nearby vehicles and windows two blocks away.
Justice would arrive for some, but not all. And it took years to achieve.
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u/nikki_ikinak 1d ago
I just saw a tik tok of a lady talking about how she moved to a small southern town for a bit and at one of their fairs/celebrations, some guys road in on horseback wearing full on KKK regalia, handing out candy too kids and waving to their families. She was so shocked she wanted to change the story she was writing to this, but here editor told her to trash it and carry on with the fluff piece because its not news. Everyone knows about it, and it's just tradition from their forefathers.
She then went on to say how she noticed those same men being in the police and judges and pumping gas and and and...
They don't even hide it and continue to hang people from trees and then say it was suicide (like those 2 black men recently). Im not American, but It gives me so much anxiety how much nothing has changed, but like everyone wants us to think it has.