By Sym Posey | The Birmingham Times
Community leaders, activists, and local residents gathered Monday at the historic 16th Street Baptist Church in downtown Birmingham to remember four girls killed in a bombing at the house of worship, a devastating act of racial violence that shook the nation and galvanized the Civil Rights movement.
“When we look at the four innocent lives that were lost, the four candles that were blown out by the cruel winds of racial hatred, we are here not just to mourn them, but to meditate,” said Arthur Price, Jr. pastor of the church, “we’re here to mark their memory, we are here to marvel how still God moves even in the ashes.”
Commemorative events were held across Birmingham on Monday to honor the victims — Addie Mae Collins 14, Cynthia Wesley 14, Carole Robertson 14, and Denise McNair, 11 — and to reflect on the enduring impact of the bombing.
The church was a prominent meeting place for Civil Rights leaders, and the attack underscored the dangers and urgency of their struggle.
“The tragedy is that four girls that were full with promise, possibility, potential lost their lives” said Price. “People were angry and their anger turned into activism. The activism turned into action. And that action made people agents of change. Because in 1964, we get the Civil Rights Act passed. In ’65, the Voting Rights Act passed.”
Former Alabama Attorney General Bill Baxley, who reopened the cold case in 1977 and prosecuted one of the Ku Klux Klan members involved in the bombing, also spoke during the services.
“Being asked here today is the most meaningful thing to me because to me this is sacred ground more than any other church anywhere,” he said.
The Carlton Reese Memorial Unity Choir performed several selections before closing out with “We Shall Overcome.” At 10:22 a.m., the time the bomb detonated on Sept. 15, 1963, church bells across downtown Birmingham rang out.
Later in the evening, The Black Lives Matter Birmingham Chapter held a wreath laying at Kelly Ingram Park in commemoration of the girls.
