- #TodayInProtestHistory: The Birmingham Church Bombing On September 15, 1963, white supremacists bombed the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing four Black girls: Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, and Cynthia Wesley. They were preparing for Sunday service.
- This act of terror came just months after Birmingham’s spring protests against segregation, where Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested and wrote his famous “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” and only weeks after the March on Washington.
- The bombing was white supremacist backlash against the growing success of the Civil Rights Movement. kinginstitute.stanford.edu/birmingham-c...
- Birmingham had been called “Bombingham” for the number of racially motivated attacks, but this one shook the nation. For years, no one was held accountable. It wasn’t until decades later that members of the Ku Klux Klan were finally convicted. www.theguardian.com/world/2001/m...
- The attack revealed the deep resistance to racial justice in America, even as civil rights victories like the Civil Rights Act of 1964 moved forward. As Dr. King said at the girls’ funeral, “They say to each of us, Black and white alike, that we must substitute courage for caution.”Sep 15, 2025 21:56
- Today, as voter suppression, racist violence, and attacks on protest rights continue, we honor their memory by resisting the same forces of hate and authoritarianism. Support institutions that preserve this history – because remembering is part of resisting. kinginstitute.stanford.edu
