09.15.20 – 16TH STREET BAPTIST CHURCH, BIRMINGHAM
Today marked the anniversary of the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church. Described by Martin Luther King Jr. as "one of the most vicious and tragic crimes ever perpetrated against humanity," the early Sunday morning blast killed four young girls – Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, and Carol Denise McNair – and left many other church-goers injured. The church had served as a rallying point for civil rights activities through the Civil Rights Movement in Birmingham, making it a prime target for violent white supremacists resistant to racial integration. Although the FBI concluded in 1965 that the bombing had been committed by four known Klansmen and segregationists, prosecutions of the perpetrators were not conducted until 1977, 2001 and 2002 respectively. The 2001 conviction of Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr. was led by prosecutor and now US Senator Doug Jones (D-Ala.). Jones is likely to lose reelection in November against Tommy Tuberville, a popular former Auburn University football coach and Trumpist Republican. Tuberville’s politics is reminiscent of the delayed justice of the 16th Street bombing – he disregards the Black Lives Matter movement and dismisses recent “civil unrest” as “not a black issue…not a white issue. This is an American issue. We shipped our jobs to China, bottom line.”
Today marked the anniversary of the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church. Described by Martin Luther King Jr. as "one of the most vicious and tragic crimes ever perpetrated against humanity," the early Sunday morning blast killed four young girls – Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, and Carol Denise McNair – and left many other church-goers injured. The church had served as a rallying point for civil rights activities through the Civil Rights Movement in Birmingham, making it a prime target for violent white supremacists resistant to racial integration. Although the FBI concluded in 1965 that the bombing had been committed by four known Klansmen and segregationists, prosecutions of the perpetrators were not conducted until 1977, 2001 and 2002 respectively. The 2001 conviction of Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr. was led by prosecutor and now US Senator Doug Jones (D-Ala.). Jones is likely to lose reelection in November against Tommy Tuberville, a popular former Auburn University football coach and Trumpist Republican. Tuberville’s politics is reminiscent of the delayed justice of the 16th Street bombing – he disregards the Black Lives Matter movement and dismisses recent “civil unrest” as “not a black issue…not a white issue. This is an American issue. We shipped our jobs to China, bottom line.”+++++