By Sym Posey | The Birmingham Times
It was an evening of reflection as The Birmingham Bar Association hosted a forum honoring survivors of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, and marking the 62nd anniversary of the attack that killed four young girls.
Held at the Carver Theatre on Tuesday, the event featured Lisa McNair, the sister of bombing victim Denise McNair, and Bishop James Lowe, a survivor of the bombing, as the Birmingham community reflected on the pain of the past to draw lessons for today.
The program, moderated by Gaile Pugh Gratton Greene, a shareholder at Sirote & Permutt, P.C., heard Lowe and McNair shared stories detailing how the act of racial violence affected their lives.
Lowe was in the church the day it was bombed on Sept. 15, 1963. He was 11 years old.
“That event altered the direction of my life. It changed what I was going to become,” said Lowe, Bishop and Senior Pastor at Guiding Light Church in Birmingham. “I had visions even at the age of 11. I thought about being an attorney and I thought about being a policeman. I thought about different things I could do, a doctor because we had them in our community, and I thought well of them.”
Some things have changed over six decades, but a lot of challenges remain, Lowe said.
“There’s a group of people that wants to rule over others and go for power, not for truth, not for justice., but for what makes them be elitist and that they rule with that,” he said. “That’s not the way of God. That’s not the way of Christ. And someone needs to tell the truth, and we need to stop these divisive things that we go on about [like] what is your color, what is your background … Stop all this religious bigotry, stop all this racism that we have, and come together.”
McNair said it is important to continue to talk about what happened Sept. 15, 1963. Addie Mae Collins 14, Cynthia Wesley 14, Carole Robertson 14, and Denise McNair, 11 — died in the blast.
“I cannot tell you the number of people I meet sometimes throughout the years that [tell me] ’I’ve never heard of that bombing’ I didn’t know about that,’” McNair said. “People from here, that is the part that is a little scary too … People say, if you do not know your history, you are destined to repeat it.”
McNair said the church bombing is a perfect example of a conversation for two people who don’t get along with “because everybody can agree that killing children in church on a Sunday morning was evil,” McNair told the audience adding, “we have to remember that 62 years ago, four little girls were killed and it woke up people. But we need to stay awake and continue to love each other and share memories.”
Former U.S. Senator Doug Jones, who as U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, successfully prosecuted two of the Ku Klux Klan members responsible for the bombing, also served on a panel.
“I think unity is a quest for sure, but I think civility, engagement, and respect for your fellow man — I think that’s the bigger message, that’s the most important thing front and center right now,” he said.
