16th+Street+Baptist+Church+Bombing

A terrorist attack by the Ku-Klux-Klan (KKK) on September 15, 1963 resulted in the death of four African American girls. The names of the girls were Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Cynthia Wesley, and Carol Robertson. The Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama is the place where the KKK staged their attack. The terrorist group blew up the church during Sunday prayer to protest desegregation in churches. After the attack the FBI became involved and identified four suspects, all of them were known members of the KKK. Their names were Thomas Blanton Jr., Herman Frank Cash, Robert E. "Dynamite Bob" Chambliss, and Frank Cherry. FBI involvement was extremely short lived for J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI director called the agents off the case and closes the recordings because "...an Alabama jury- most likely composed of all white males- would never convict the Klansmen." [|1] Image [|2] After the case had been put away for nearly 8 years it was reopened in 1971 and '77. Chambliss was tried for the murder of Denise McNair and was put in prison for life after his conviction. Chamblis died in 1985. Again the case was reopened in 1990, Blanton and Cherry were convicted of murder in 2001 and 2002, both facing life in prison. Cash died in 1994 without ever standing trial. 1

The attack of African Americans during this time period had become increasingly more common, the attack however had taken place on religious ground shocking people because religious sites have always been thought of as safe zones for people to breathe and reflect on their lives without racial descrimination. The Ku-Klux-Klan took away the safety that African- Americans felt at their churches.

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