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| Churchgoers file outside the church as a wreath is carried at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., Sunday, Sept. 15, 2013. The congregation gathered outside the church for the wreath laying ceremony at the spot where a bomb was detonated 50 years ago by the Ku Klux Klan, killing four young girls. |
BIRMINGHAM, Ala.
(AP) -- Hundreds of people black and white, many holding hands,
filled an Alabama church that was bombed by the Ku Klux Klan 50 years
ago Sunday to mark the anniversary of the blast that killed four little
girls and became a landmark moment in the civil rights struggle.
The
Rev. Arthur Price taught the same Sunday school lesson that members of
16th Street Baptist Church heard the morning of the bombing - "A Love
That Forgives." Then, the rusty old church bell was tolled four times as
the girls' names were read.
Bombing survivor
Sarah Collins Rudolph, who lost her right eye and sister Addie Mae
Collins in the blast, stood by as members laid a wreath at the spot
where the dynamite device was placed along an outside wall.
Rudolph
was 12 at the time, and her family left the church after the bombing.
She said it was important to return in memory of her sister, who was 14,
and the three other girls who died: Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley
Morris, both 14, and Denise McNair, 11.
"God
spared me to live and tell just what happened on that day," said
Rudolph, who testified against the Klansmen convicted years later in the
bombing.
Congregation members and visitors
sang the old hymn "Love Lifted Me" and joined hands in prayer. The
somber Sunday school lesson was followed by a raucous, packed worship
service with gospel music and believers waving their hands.
During
the sermon, the Rev. Julius Scruggs of Huntsville, president of the
National Baptist Convention USA, said, "God said you may murder four
little girls, but you won't murder the dream of justice and liberty for
all."
Later Sunday, attendees of an afternoon
commemoration included Attorney General Eric Holder, Alabama Gov. Robert
Bentley, former U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young, Jesse Jackson, Rev.
Joseph Lowery and director Spike Lee, who made a documentary about the
bombing.
The church was full, with the only surviving mother of one of the girls, Maxine McNair, sitting in the front row.
Holder
called the girls' deaths "a seminal and tragic moment" in U.S. history
and recalled gains that followed their killings like the Civil Rights
Act and the Voting Rights Act.
Alluding to the
Supreme Court decision this year that struck down a key part of the
voting law, Holder said the struggle continues decades later.
"This a fight that we will continue," Holder said.
The
dynamite bomb went off outside the church Sept. 15, 1963. Of the
Klansmen convicted years later, one remains imprisoned. Two others died
in prison.
Two young men, both black, were shot to death in Birmingham in the chaos that followed the bombing.
Birmingham
was strictly segregated at the time of the bombing, which occurred as
city schools were being racially integrated for the first time. The
all-black 16th Street Baptist was a gathering spot for civil rights
demonstrations for months before the blast.
The
bombing became a powerful symbol of the depth of racial hatred in the
South and helped build momentum for later laws, including the 1964 Civil
Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
During
the morning commemoration, an honor guard composed of black and whites
officers and firefighters watched over ceremonies with mixed-race crowd,
something that would have been unthinkable in Birmingham in 1963. That
same year, white police officers and firefighters used dogs and water
hoses on black demonstrators marching for equal rights.
President
Barack Obama issued a statement noting that earlier this year the four
girls were posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, one of the
country's highest civilian honors.
"That
horrific day in Birmingham, Alabama quickly became a defining moment for
the Civil Rights Movement. It galvanized Americans all across the
country to stand up for equality and broadened support for a movement
that would eventually lead to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of
1964," Obama said.
Rev. Bernice King, a daughter of the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., noted the changed city in a prayer.
"We
thank you father for the tremendous progress we have made in 50 years,
that we can sit in the safe confines of this sanctuary being protected
by the city of Birmingham when 50 years ago the city turned its eye and
its ears away from us," she said.
