Annotated Birmingham Murder Case

On September 15th, 1963, a few of the girls were changing into their church robes. Without warning, dynamite exploded and killed four of the girls. These girls were in the age range of 11-14 years old. The worst part, police knew who killed these girls and didn't say anything about it for almost 40 years.

Bombing in Birmingham
On September 15th, 1963, at exactly 10:22 A.M. 15 sticks of dynamite exploded at 16th Street Baptist Church and killed four girls that were changing into their white robes for a youth day celebration. This was supposed to be a happy day for the congregation. But the day didn’t live up to those expectations. Three of the girls that were killed were 14 years old. The other girl was only 11 years old. The girl’s names

One other suspect died before he could be charged. The men that were charged were named Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr.; Robert Edward Chambliss, and Bobby Frank Cherry. The man that was never charged, but was suspected to have been involved was named Herman Frank Cash.
The men that were charged didn’t get charged until the late 1970’s to the early 2000’s. Bobby Frank Cherry was charged for murder in 2002. Robert Edward Chambliss was charged for murder in 1977. Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr. was charged in 2001.
When this happened, Thomas Blanton was only 25 years old and was the youngest of the killers. He was the truck driver.
Robert Chambliss was charged around 40 years after the bombing. The day before the bombing Chambliss had told his niece “You just wait ‘till after Sunday morning. They will beg us to let them segregate.” His niece gave a testimony and told about what he had told her. This helped a great deal to put him in prison.
The worst part of this was that the police knew who had killed the girls. They didn’t say anything about it though. The bombers knew people that knew the police. Since they had this connection, the police kept quiet about what they

One of these people was 16 year old Dennis Robertson, who was hit in the head with a brick in a riot after the bombing. This was a very sad time for all of the families of the girl’s.
This day was especially hard for 12 year old Sarah Collins. She had lost an eye during the explosion. She had witnessed the entire thing. She had watched her sister Addie Collins being killed.

Time Is Not On Our Side
After the bombing occurred, a riot broke out. This lead to two more teenagers were killed. Their names were Johnny Robinson and Virgil Ware. Robertson was 16 years old and Ware was only 13. This day in history eventually leads to the March on Washington. The March on Washington killed even more people and put many people in jail. When people wouldn’t run away, people would spray them with water hoses from the fire department. One of the firemen had later said “We are supposed to fight fires not people.” This time of events was horrific to thousands of people of all races.

This was a very sad event in our history. We hope that we will never have to have an event occur like this ever again. This was just one example of what the African-Americans went through. There are many more stories like this