16th Street Baptist Church

Today is the 56th anniversary of the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church. I thought I would repost this article I wrote earlier.

With Sympathy For The Victims And Families Of The 16th Street Baptist Church Bombings. – Hill1News

Somehow the savagery of those racist before the mid sixties was on another level. Their hate and vitriol was as barbaric as their violent acts. Three years ago one of the perpetrators of one of the most heinous crimes against African American children came up for parole. Yes, some of these people are still alive. Too bad Addie Mae Collins (14), Cynthia Wesley (14), Carole Robertson (14), and Carol Denise McNair (11) did not have the same chance at life as that racist has. I know the white supremacist of today have done some very terrible things and I have tried to write about them and make sure in some small way their deeds will not be forgotten. But this one tears at my heart and I write about it every year. Lets remember #16thstreetbaptistchurch.

The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing was an act of white supremacist terrorism which occurred at the African American 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, on Sunday, September 15, 1963, when four members of the Ku Klux Klan planted at least 15 sticks of dynamite attached to a timing device beneath the steps located on the east side of the church. Described by Martin Luther King Jr. as “one of the most vicious and tragic crimes ever perpetrated against humanity” the explosion at the church killed four girls and injured 22 others.

Although the FBI had concluded in 1965 that the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing had been committed by four known Ku Klux Klansmen and segregationists—Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr., Herman Frank Cash, Robert Edward Chambliss, and Bobby Frank Cherry — no prosecutions ensued until 1977, when Robert Chambliss was tried and convicted of the first degree murder of one of the victims, 11-year-old Carol Denise McNair. Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr. and Bobby Cherry were each convicted of four counts of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment in 2001 and 2002 respectively, whereas Herman Cash, who died in 1994, was never charged with his alleged involvement in the bombing. The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing marked a turning point in the United States during the civil rights movement and contributed to support for passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Fiend and mass murderer Thomas Blanton Jr. has been denied parole again. Blanton is serving a life sentence for his role in the heinous bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in 1963. In the early morning of Sunday, September 15, 1963, four members of the United Klans of America, planted a minimum of 15 sticks of dynamite with a time delay under the steps of the church, close to the basement. Four innocent black children were killed in the bombing and the national and international outcry for justice was deafening. As violence escalated in Birmingham in the hours following the bombing, police urged parents of black and white youths to keep their children indoors. Governor George Wallace, an avid segregationist and racist, ordered an additional 300 state police to assist in quelling unrest. The Attorney General, Robert F Kennedy, dispatched 25 FBI agents, including explosives experts, to Birmingham to conduct a thorough forensic investigation.

Reports of the bombing and the loss of four children’s lives were glorified by white supremacists, who in many instances chose to celebrate the loss as “four less niggers.” Two more black youths, Johnny Robinson and Virgil Ware, were shot to death in Birmingham within seven hours of the Sunday morning bombing. Robinson, aged 16, was shot in the back by a policeman as he fled down an alley, after ignoring police orders to halt. Robinson died before reaching the hospital. Ware, aged 13, was shot in the cheek and chest with a revolver in a residential suburb 15 miles north of the city. The two white youth’s charged with his killing were arrested for second degree manslaughter, however Larry Sims and Michael Farley, after having been convicted of second-degree manslaughter, had their sentences suspended and the judge imposed two years’ probation upon each youth. In a state where the Klan grew on trees in 1963, in an unprecedented move “Grand Dragon” George Wallace offered a $5000 reward for the arrest of the culprit or culprits and the state of Alabama put up $52,000 for the good old boys responsible for the murder of the four black children who were at the church. In today’s money, that $52,000 would be a reward of over $420,000, while the Governor’s $5000 would be around $40,000 in today’s money. Within days of the bombing, investigators began to focus their attention upon a Ku Klux Klan group known as the “Cahaba Boys”. The Cahaba Boys had formed earlier in 1963 due to a mutual feeling the Ku Klux Klan was becoming restrained and impotent in response to concessions granted to blacks. They   had previously been linked to several bomb attacks at black-owned businesses and the homes of black community leaders throughout the spring and summer of 1963. The Cahaba white sheets only had 30 active members, and among those members were the barbarians, Thomas Blanton Jr., Herman Cash, Robert Chambliss, and Bobby Cherry.

By 1965, the FBI had four suspects, Thomas Blanton Jr., Herman Frank Cash, Robert Chambliss, and Bobby Frank Cherry, all Klan members, but witnesses were reluctant to talk and their was little physical evidence. Also during the Sixties, information from surveillance was not admissible in court, and  no federal charges were filed in that decade. On May 13, 1965, local investigators and the FBI formally named Blanton, Cash, Chambliss, and Cherry as the perpetrators of the bombing, with Robert Chambliss the likely ringleader of the four. This information was relayed to the Director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, but because of lack of evidence, witnesses, and Hoover’s known bigotry, in 1968, the FBI formally closed their investigation into the bombing without filing charges against any of their named suspects. The files were then sealed.  

Mass murderer, Robert Chambliss

Officially, the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing remained unsolved until William Baxley was elected Attorney General of Alabama in January 1971. William Baxley was a hero and you can find out more about him here. Baxley incurred the wrath of the Ku Klux Klan when he reopened the case of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. In a letter, the Klan threatened him, compared him to John F. Kennedy, and made him an “honorary nigger,” but Baxley responded, on official state letterhead: “My response to your letter of February 19, 1976, is—kiss my ass. Chambliss was the first to go in when on November 17, 1977, he was found guilty in the murder of Carol Denise McNair. Yep, they only charged him with one of the murders. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. Chambliss died in the Lloyd Noland Hospital and Health Center on October 29, 1985, at the age of 81. In the years since his incarceration, Chambliss had been confined to a solitary cell to protect him from attacks by fellow inmates.

Mass murderer, Bobby Cherry

Fiend and mass child murderer, Bobby Frank Cherry was next. His trial was delayed due to the findings of a court-ordered psychiatric evaluation, which had concluded that that he was crazy, however in January 2002, the court ruled Cherry mentally competent to stand trial.  On May 22, after deliberating for almost seven hours, the forewoman of the jury announced they had reached their verdicts: Bobby Frank Cherry was convicted of four counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. The lying ass Klansman claimed to have nothing to due with the murders, but Willadean Brogdon, whom Cherry had married in 1970, testified on May 16 that Cherry had boasted to her that he had been the individual who planted the bomb beneath the steps of the church, then returned hours later to light the fuse on the dynamite. She also testified that Cherry had informed her of his regret that children had died in the bombing, but added that they would never reproduce. Cherry died of cancer on November 18, 2004, at age 74, while incarcerated at the Kilby Correctional Facility

Mass murderer, Thomas Blanton

Fiend and mass child murderer, Thomas Blanton went to court on April 24, 2001. Blanton pleaded not guilty to the charges, and opted not to testify on his own behalf throughout the trial. Lying ass Blanton got caught up with his wife’s testimony too.  You see, the evidence presented at Blanton’s trial was an audio recording secretly taped by the FBI in June, 1964, in which Blanton was recorded discussing his involvement in the bombing with his wife, who can be heard accusing her husband of conducting an affair with a woman named Waylene Vaughn two nights before the bombing. The fiend told his wife he couldn’t have been out with another woman, because he was out planning to kill innocent black children in church. The trial lasted for one week.  Both counsels delivered their closing arguments before the jury on May 1. Prosecuting attorney Doug Jones first pointed to the fact that the trial was conducted 38 years after the bombing made the trial no less important, adding: “It’s never too late for the truth to be told … It’s never too late for a man to be held accountable for his crimes.” Jones then referred to the audio recording presented earlier in the trial, “That is a confession out of this man’s mouth.” The jury deliberated for just two and a half hours before returning with a verdict finding Thomas Edwin Blanton guilty of four counts of first-degree murder. Child murderer, Blanton was sentenced to serve a sentence of life imprisonment and remains the sole perpetrator of the 1963 Birmingham Church bombing still alive. His next parole hearing will be in 2021. He has never accepted responsibility or expressed remorse for the killings. Blanton is 86 year old.

“Wily,” Herman Cash, the fourth accused conspirator of mass child murder, was never charged and died in 1994. Thomas Blanton will be up for parole again in May 2021.

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