![]() The church was used as a meeting-place for civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr., Ralph David Abernathy, and Fred Shuttlesworth, for organizing and educating marchers. When the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the Congress on Racial Equality became involved in a campaign to register African Americans to vote in Birmingham, tensions in the city increased. The three-story 16th Street Baptist Church was a rallying point for civil rights activities through the spring of 1963. The work these Civil Rights activists were engaged in within Birmingham was crucial to the movement as the Birmingham campaign was seen as guidance for other cities in the South with regards to rising against segregation and racism. ![]() The intentional scope of these activities was to see the end of segregation across Birmingham and the South as a whole. Their demands included that public amenities such as lunch counters and parks be desegregated, the criminal charges against demonstrators and protestors should be removed, and an end to overt discrimination with regards to employment opportunities. The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing marked a turning point in the United States during the civil rights movement and also contributed to support for the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by Congress.Ĭivil Rights activists and leaders in Birmingham fought against the city's deeply-ingrained and institutionalized racism with tactics that included the targeting of Birmingham's economic and social disparities. Herman Cash had died in 1994, and was never charged with his alleged involvement in the bombing. Future United States Senator Doug Jones successfully prosecuted Blanton and Cherry. and Bobby Cherry, who were each sentenced to life imprisonment in 20, respectively. as "one of the most vicious and tragic crimes ever perpetrated against humanity," the explosion at the church killed four girls and injured between 14 and 22 other people.Īlthough the FBI had concluded in 1965 that the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing had been committed by four known Klansmen and segregationists: Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr., Herman Frank Cash, Robert Edward Chambliss, and Bobby Frank Cherry, no prosecutions were conducted until 1977.Īs part of a revival effort by states and the federal government to prosecute cold cases from the civil rights era, the state conducted trials in the early 21st century of Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr. Four members of a local Ku Klux Klan chapter planted 19 sticks of dynamite attached to a timing device beneath the steps located on the east side of the church.ĭescribed by Martin Luther King Jr. ![]() The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing was a terrorist bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, on Sunday, September 15, 1963. Racism and support for racial segregation ![]()
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