Civil Rights Events

Birmingham 1963

16th Street Baptist Church Bombing

Remembering the Victims

 

The four girls killed were

 

Addie Mae Collins, 14,
Denise McNair, 11,
Carole Robertson, 14,
Cynthia Wesley, 14,

 

Janie, Sarah, and Addie Mae Collins

 

While Sarah’s parents comforted her at the hospital, her older sister Janie, 16, who had survived the bombing unscathed, was taken to the University Hospital morgue to help identify a body. "I looked at the face, and I couldn't tell who it was," she says of the crumpled form she viewed. "Then I saw this little brown shoe - you know, like a loafer - and I recognized it right away."

 

...

 

After the blast, Sarah's face was so drenched in blood, says Cross, that "when they asked me who she was, I had to say I had no idea." In the hospital, Sarah, whose eyes were bandaged, wondered why Addie didn't visit with the rest of the family. Her sister Janie told her that "Addie's back is hurting." Sarah learned of Addie's death when she overheard Janie talking to a nurse. "It hurt real bad," Sarah says. "I just didn't know what I would do without Addie." Sarah spent three months in the hospital, ultimately losing her right eye.

 

Addie's family was the poorest of the four. She was one of seven children born to Oscar Collins, a janitor, and Alice, a homemaker. "It was clear that she lacked things," recalls Rev. John Cross, the pastor of the church at the time of the bombing. "But she was a quiet, sweet girl." And, Sarah adds, a budding artist: "She could draw people real good" (Smith, Wescott, and Craig 1-2).

 

Addie Mae Collins and two of her sisters would go door to door every day after school, selling their mother's handmade cotton aprons and potholders.

 

The trio collected 35 cents for potholders and 50 cents for aprons. The bibbed aprons netted 75 cents.

 

"Addie liked to do it. She looked forward to it," said sister Sarah … "We sold a lot of them."

 

When she wasn't selling her mother's wares, Addie liked to play hopscotch, sing in the church choir, draw portraits, and wear bright colors.

 

The Hill Elementary School eighth-grader loved to pitch while playing ball, too.  "I remember that underhand," said older sister Janie,,,.

 

She also remembers Addie's spirit. "She wasn't a shy or timid person.  Addie was a courageous person."

 

Addie, born April 18, 1949, was the seventh of eight children born to Oscar and Alice Collins. When disagreements erupted among the siblings inside the home on Sixth Court West, Addie was the peacemaker.

 

"She just always wanted us to love one another and treat each other right," Mrs. Rudolph [Sarah] said. "She was a happy person also, and she loved life."

 

The routine was the same every Saturday night at the Collins household - starching Sunday dresses for church. Sept. 14, 1963, was no different when Addie pulled out a white dress. Older sister Flora pressed and curled Addie's short hair.

 

"We thought it looked pretty on her," said Mrs. Gaines [Janie].

 

… "I feel like I lost my best friend," said Mrs. Rudolph [Sarah]. "We were always going places together" (Temple 1-3).

 

Cynthia Wesley

 

Cynthia Wesley, whose parents were … teachers, left the house that day having been admonished by her mother to adjust her slip to be presentable in church (Smith, Wescott, and Craig 5).

 

There were times when Cynthia Wesley's father came home weary after a night of patrolling his Smithfield neighborhood for would-be mischief-makers. Or worse, bombers.

 

Claude A. Wesley was one of several men who volunteered to ensure another peaceful night on Dynamite Hill, nicknamed for the frequent and unsolved bombings in a former white neighborhood that was increasingly a home to blacks.

 

The Wesleys tried to protect their daughter from segregation's brutality.

 

"We were extremely naive," remembers friend and playmate Karen Floyd Savage. "We didn't really discuss things in depth like that."

 

The first adopted daughter of Claude and Gertrude Wesley, Cynthia was a petite girl with a narrow face and size 2 dress. Cynthia's mother made her clothes, which fit her thin frame perfectly.

 

She attended the now-defunct Ullman High School, where she did well in math, reading and the band. She invited friends to parties in her back yard, playing soulful tunes and serving refreshments. She was born April 30, 1949.

 

"Cynthia was just full of fun all the time," Mrs. Savage said. "We were constantly laughing."

 

It was while the two girls attended Wilkerson Elementary School that Cynthia traded her gold-band ring topped with a clear, rectangular stone for a 1954 class ring that belonged to Mrs. Savage.

 

"We just sort of liked each others' rings and we just traded with no question of wanting it back," Mrs. Savage said.

 

Cynthia made friends easily, talking often to close pal Rickey Powell. On Sept. 14, 1963, she invited Rickey to church the next day for a Sunday youth program. Powell accepted, only to reluctantly decline when his mother wanted him to accompany her to a funeral.

 

"We were like peas in a pod," Powell said. "That was my best bud."

 

When Cynthia died in the church blast, she was still wearing the ring Mrs. Savage gave her when they were younger. Cynthia's father identified her by that ring when he went to the morgue.

 

The death of the four girls crushed Mrs. Savage.

 

"I was so young. I never realized someone would hate you so much that they would go to that extent. In a way, that was sort of the death of my own innocence" (Temple 3-4).

 

Denise McNair

 

Denise McNair, the daughter of photo shop owner Chris and schoolteacher Maxine, was an inquisitive girl who never understood why she couldn't get a sandwich at the same counter as white children  (Smith, Wescott, and Craig 5).

 

Denise McNair liked her dolls, left mudpies in the mailbox for childhood crushes and organized a neighborhood fund-raiser to fight muscular dystrophy.

 

Born Nov. 17, 1951, Carol Denise McNair was the first child of Chris and Maxine McNair. Her playmates called her Niecie.

 

A pupil at Center Street Elementary School, she had a knack of gathering neighborhood children to play on the block. She held tea parties, belonged to the Brownies and played baseball.

 

"Everybody liked her even if they didn't like each other," said childhood friend Rhonda Nunn Thomas. "She could play with anybody."

 

She and Rhonda would dream of husbands, children and careers. "At one point I would be delivering babies and she was going to be the pediatrician," Mrs. Thomas said.

 

At some point in her young life, Denise asked the neighborhood children to put on skits and dance routines and to read poetry in a big production to raise money for muscular dystrophy. It became an annual event. People gathered in the yard to watch the show in Denise's carport — the main stage. Children donated their pennies, dimes and nickels. Adults gave larger sums.

 

The muscular dystrophy fund-raiser was always Denise's project — one that nobody refused.

 

"It was the idea we were doing something special for some kids," Mrs. Thomas said. "How could you turn it down?"

 

A relative always thought the girl with the thick, shoulder-length hair and sparkling eyes would be a teacher because she was "a leader from the heart."

 

Friend and retired dentist Florita Jamison Askew remembers Denise as a child who smiled a lot, even for the camera when she lost her baby teeth.

 

"She was always a ham," Mrs. Askew said.

 

"I bet she would have been a real go-getter. She and Carole (Robertson) both. I just wonder sometimes."

 

Smithfield Recreation Center's auditorium became a dance school every Saturday afternoon when eager girls arrived for lessons in tap, ballet and modern jazz (Temple 5-7).

 

Carole Robertson

 

Carole Robertson, whose father was a band master at an elementary school and whose mother was a librarian, was an avid reader, dancer and clarinet player. (Smith, Wescott, and Craig 5).

 

Carole Robertson, wearing a leotard and toting black patent leather tap shoes and pink ballet slippers, was among the crowd [at the dance school every Saturday].

 

"We didn't have any problems getting our chores done so we could get to dancing class on Saturdays," said Florita Jamison Askew, who attended classes with Carole and Carole's big sister.  "Nobody ever wanted to miss them."

 

Students worked hard on their ballet and shuffle steps in preparation for the annual spring recital, where they got to wear makeup and dance with their hair down."  It was a lot of fun," Mrs. Askew said.

 

Born April 24, 1949, Carole was the third child of Alpha and Alvin Robertson. Older siblings were Dianne and Alvin.

 

Carole was an avid reader and straight-A student who belonged to Jack and Jill of America, the Girl Scouts, the Parker High School marching band and science club. She also had attended Wilkerson Elementary School, where she sang in the choir.

 

Carole walked fast and with a smile.

 

"She moved through the halls rapidly, not running, but just full of life," said retired Birmingham teacher Lottie Palmer, who was a science club sponsor."  She was a girl that was anxious to succeed and do well.

 

Carole grew up in a Smithfield home that was full of love, friends and the aroma of good cooking, especially her mother's spaghetti.

 

"There was a lot of warmth in the house. The food was good and the people were kind," Mrs. Askew said.  "That was kind of my second home."

 

Inside the one-story home with the wrap-around porch, Mrs. Askew and the Robertson girls practiced dances such as the cha-cha and tried out different hairstyles — often on Carole, who didn't mind being the model.

 

Carole once told Mrs. Askew, now a retired dentist, about her desire to preserve the past.

 

"I remember a statement she made — she wanted to teach history or do something historical. I thought how ironic it was that she would remain a part of history forever."

 

In 1976, Chicago residents established the Carole Robertson Center for Learning, a social service agency that serves children and their families. Named after Carole, it is dedicated to the memory of all four girls.

 

Members of the Jack and Jill choir were scheduled to sing at Carole's funeral Sept. 17, 1963, at St. John AME Church.  "Of course, we didn't do much singing," said choir member Karen Floyd Savage.  "We cried through it" (Temple 7-9).

 

Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered a eulogy of the four slain girls September 18.  Here are excerpts.

 

… they died nobly. They are the martyred heroines of a holy crusade for freedom and human dignity. And so this afternoon in a real sense they have something to say to each of us in their death. They have something to say to every minister of the gospel who has remained silent behind the safe security of stained-glass windows. They have something to say to every politician [Audience:] (Yeah) who has fed his constituents with the stale bread of hatred and the spoiled meat of racism. They have something to say to a federal government that has compromised with the undemocratic practices of southern Dixiecrats (Yeah) and the blatant hypocrisy of right-wing northern Republicans. (Speak) They have something to say to every Negro (Yeah) who has passively accepted the evil system of segregation and who has stood on the sidelines in a mighty struggle for justice. They say to each of us, black and white alike, that we must substitute courage for caution. They say to us that we must be concerned not merely about who murdered them, but about the system, the way of life, the philosophy which produced the murderers. Their death says to us that we must work passionately and unrelentingly for the realization of the American dream.

 

I hope you can find some consolation from Christianity's affirmation that death is not the end. Death is not a period that ends the great sentence of life, but a comma that punctuates it to more lofty significance. Death is not a blind alley that leads the human race into a state of nothingness, but an open door which leads man into life eternal. Let this daring faith, this great invincible surmise, be your sustaining power during these trying days.

 

Today, as I stand over the remains of these beautiful, darling girls, I paraphrase the words of Shakespeare: (Yeah, Well): Good night, sweet princesses. Good night, those who symbolize a new day. (Yeah, Yes) And may the flight of angels (That’s right) take thee to thy eternal rest. God bless you (Martin 1-2).

 

 

Works cited:

 

“Martin Luther King's Eulogy for the Young Victims of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church Bombing, delivered at Sixth Avenue Baptist Church.”  Stanford: The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute.  September 18, 1963.  Web.  http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/m_r/randall/birmingham.htm

 

Smith, Kyle; Wescott, Gail Cameron; and Craig, David Cobb.  “The Day the Children Died.”  People Magazine.  Web.  http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/m_r/randall/birmingham.htm

 

Temple, Chandra.  “Profiles of the Victims.”  The Birmingham News.  Web.  http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/m_r/randall/birmingham.htm