Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley and Addie Mae Collins. Those are the names of the young women killed fifty years ago this week on September 15, 1963, when the Ku Klux Klan bombed the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. The bombing came less than a month after the March on Washington. Denise was eleven years old, Carole, Cynthia and Addie Mae were all fourteen. Hundreds gathered in the nation’s capital last week to honor their memory, when lawmakers awarded the girls the Congressional Gold medal.
Sarah Collins Rudolph was twelve years old when the church was attacked. She was standing next to her sister Addie Mae Collins. Sarah Collins Rudolph was hit with shards of glass, lost an eye and was hospitalized for months. Today she continues to live in Birmingham, Alabama
Sarah Collins Rudolph talking:
I was in the ladies lounge when the bomb went off. I remember Cynthia, Denise, and Carole walking inside the lounge area and went in where the stalls were. So when they came out, Denise passed by Addie and asked my sister to tie the sash on her dress. I was across from them at the sink. When Denise had asked her to tie the sash, I was looking at her when she began to tie it. Then all of a sudden, boom! I never did see her finish her tying it. All I could do was cry out, “Jesus!” I didn’t know what the loud sound was. Then I called my sister, “Addie! Addie! Addie!” and she didn’t answer me. So, I thought the girls had ran on the other side of the church were the Sunday school area was.
All of a sudden I heard a voice outside saying, “Somebody bombed the 16th Street church!” It was so clear to me as though this person was right there, but they were outside where the cradle was. There was a bomb in the church where there was a hole there. All of the debris came rushing in. I was hit in my face with glass and also in both eyes. When the man came, his name was Samuel Rutledge, he came in and picked me up and carried me out of the cradle and the ambulance was out there waiting. They rushed me to Hillman Hospital. They changed the name, it’s now UAB Hospital.
While I was there, my sister came in, Janie, my sister came in and I asked her, “Where is Addie?” She said Addie hurt her back but she would be here tomorrow to see me. So, they rushed me on up to the operating room and they operated on both of my eyes and took the glass from out of my face. I had glass in my chest and stomach. They operated on me and when I went back to the room–and I stayed there in the hospital for about two and a half months. At the time, when they took the bandages off my eyes, the doctor asked me what I do I see out of my right eye. I told him I couldn’t see anything out of my right eye. When he took it off my left eye, all I could see was just a little light.
I haven’t received anything [compensation], yet. I don’t know why, but I have been seeking compensation for years but I never did get anything. It looked like the people just looked over me. They didn’t realize that being in a bomb at the age of twelve, I lost a lot of things, concerning my health, you know. And also I wanted to be a nurse but by having post-traumatic stress syndrome, that never did happen because that bomb really just changed my whole life. I had to work as being a maid simply because I wasn’t as smart as I were. Because at first, before the bomb, I was an A-student but after the bomb, I just couldn’t think like that anymore.
you would think that going to church is really a safe place, but it wasn’t. Somebody that would put a bomb in a church and kill four innocent girls, you know, that is just the work of the devil because that shouldn’t ever have happened. These girls were young. We were waiting that day for youth service but by the bomb going off, we didn’t get a chance to attend youth service.
We should always just love each other anyway because we’re all human beings. God made us all. By them getting killed, that was just something awful. I think about it all the time that we should have peace, we should love one another. We shouldn’t be prejudiced and violent like that to place a bomb in a church simply because of people’s race.
[Sarah Collins Rudolph, you almost refused the Congressional Gold Medal.]
I didn’t really even know they had offered me a gold medal until last week. Somebody was telling me about it was in the “USA.” I said, no, I never did see that article about that they were going to present me with a medal. I thought that just my sister and the other girl were going to get the medal.
Adam Goldman talking:
when I was reporter there at the Birmingham News, I covered the trial of Thomas Blanton Junior. He was one of three people who were convicted of carrying out this horrific bombing. Thomas Blanton is the only surviving bomber. The other two guys Bobby Cherin and another individual named Chambliss, they’re dead. Blanton was put away in prison. He got a life sentence. I’ve been corresponding with him, trading letters with Blanton. He’s unrepentant. Still to this day, he says he didn’t have anything to do with this bombing.
September 15, 1963. there are a group of Klansmen who plotted this bombing in Birmingham. At the time, in 1963, Birmingham was going through a wave of bombings. In fact, its nickname was “Bombingham.” And these individuals got together, and they built this bomb. And at about—authorities suspect that at about 2:00 a.m., they put the bomb at the side of the church. And Thomas Blanton, one of the bombers who was convicted, his car was seen at the church and—driving the car, and he drove away, and the bomb went off. There is some speculation that the bomb was supposed to go off while the church was empty, and it wasn’t, in fact, meant to go off while it was filled with people. But regardless, it did go off, and people were killed, and they were held responsible for that.
The case went unsolved for many, many years until this individual named Chambliss was eventually convicted in state court, and he was put away for life, and he died. And then, later, I believe in 1996, 1997, the FBI reopened this investigation. In fact, right at the time as Spike Lee was beginning this documentary, the FBI reopened this investigation. I know that because I got the FBI’s investigative files; I FOIAed them. And they worked to solve this—they worked to solve this horrific crime and eventually zeroed in on the two surviving bombers: this guy named Bobby Cherry and Thomas Blanton. And they initially were going to squeeze Cherry to rat out Blanton, but these two old Klansmen weren’t going to tell anybody. It had been so long, they weren’t going to spill the beans about what happened.
And eventually the FBI found recordings sitting on a shelf in the Birmingham’s field office, recordings of an informant they put in a car with Thomas Blanton talking about the bombing. And they managed to get the recordings digitally enhanced, and they used that, along with the testimony of the informant, to convict Blanton. And eventually Cherry was convicted, too. Cherry—they both were sentenced to life in prison, and then Cherry later died.
So, for years and years, I’ve been writing Blanton letters. He only recently responded to me. And I’ve been learning a little bit more about his life and who he was. He is in St. Clair County, Alabama, in a place called Springville, in a little town called Springville. And in these letters, he expresses some—some regret that four little girls had died, that there was a loss of life. But he is insistent that he didn’t carry this out and in fact he’s innocent. He is unrepentant.
Despite all the evidence, despite all the indications that he did this—and this was actually ferreted out in court, and he was convicted—that he refuses to acknowledge his role in this. And, you know, I thought about why—why would you—why wouldn’t you just come clean? Why wouldn’t you just tell the story? Because what’s fascinating about the 16th Street bombing is we still don’t know really what happened. We have an idea of what happened. You know, we think some guys, some Klansmen, built a bomb, they put it in a car, and they put it next to the church, right? And the bomb went off. But nobody who participated in that event has ever told the true story of what happened. And Blanton is the last individual alive who can tell us why they did it, how they did it, when they did it, and did, in fact, that they mean to kill—did, in fact—was their intention to blow up that church.
Sarah Collins Rudolph talking:
I had had injury in my left eye. I have had glaucoma for years, where I have to take pills—I mean, pills and also drops in my eyes every day. But last June, they operated on it and put an incision in my eye to drain the fluid, because my pressure had been up for a long time.
And also, yes, Birmingham was—it was a way of life back then. We would hear bombs going off, and we would see the police beating blacks with billy sticks and water hose. And it was just a terrorist place, really, to live in. But we stayed. We wanted to leave, but we just didn’t have the money to do it, to go. So, things are a little better now. So, we’re still here in Birmingham.
We went to the Birmingham City Council last year for help. My husband asked for help in covering your medical bills. At first they said, “Go to the county.” See, we stay in the county part of Birmingham. “Go to the county, because they don’t do things like that here in the city.” But anyway, the City Council people said, “Well, we can help her.” They do it all over in other cities. They get funds to help people that’s been in a terrorist attack. He said, “We can do it here.” But when they offered me something, it wasn’t what I had expected, because it was very little, because, you know, during these 50 years I’ve suffered a lot. And I just wanted to let them know that it was time for restitution, because the city was involved in all this—the fire department, the police department. They was involved in all the terrorist act that was going on in Birmingham, because during that time, we couldn’t—we couldn’t call the city police and ask for help, because we weren’t going to get any help, since they was involved.
Adam Goldman talking:
What the Ku Klux Klan was doing in Birmingham, this was terrorism. They had a political agenda. They didn’t want to see the Jim Crow laws essentially rolled back. They wanted to make sure that blacks remained segregated. And, you know, we forget this, but this was—for the people living in Birmingham, especially for the black community, this was a reign of terror, literally. I remember in one year, I think it was 1963, I mean, dozens of pipe bombs were set off across the city. I mean, it was a campaign of intimidation. And the blacks living in Birmingham, they couldn’t trust the police. They couldn’t trust the police. I mean, the police were infiltrating their organizations, the same way that they were doing now in some respects. Then, it was because they were black and because they wanted certain rights. But, you know, the level—there are certain level—there are certain similarities to what we see today in Birmingham then with the Birmingham Police Department and the NYPD today. There is a level of mistrust in the community today, just as there was among minority communities in Birmingham. They couldn’t trust the people who were sworn to protect them.
Compensation, that’s extraordinary itself, because after the Boston bombing, right, after the Boston bombing that we just went through, the community rallied. I mean, people came together, and they gave these bombing victims—you could go online, and you could pledge. And I was watching it. It was just extraordinary. One couple‚ you know, within days, they had raised a million dollars. A million dollars, you know? And that’s—that’s a stain on the legacy of Birmingham, and they know this, that the community didn’t come together, everybody didn’t come together after this bombing and make sure that, you know, the people who were injured or that were—were taken care of.
Sarah Collins Rudolph talking:
I feel like they have forgotten, and they wasn’t really concerned about what happened to me, because I’m still suffering. I have a piece of glass still in my good eye, and also I have cataracts. And I have a piece of glass still in my stomach, and I suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, and I’ve been going through a lot. And just getting up in the morning, I had to go and clean houses just to make money. Like yesterday, I should have been resting, getting some rest from what I went through on the weekend, but I had to go get up at 6:00 and still go to work, when if there was money that was—that had been given to me, I wouldn’t have to do this. So, I feel like I have been forgotten, because all of—I know the four girls should get all the praise, because they died, they was killed. But I’m still here suffering. I’m still suffering from that bomb. And post-traumatic stress disorder is something that I’ve suffered with, and I look like I just can’t get over it. And right now, my husband, he would pay for my medical bill because he had insurance at the place that he worked, but he’s retired, and I don’t have any insurance now. So, I just don’t know when my—when my next check-up is going to be in November, I don’t know how we’re going to pay for it. But I just thank God, though, that I’m alive, because if it had not been for God, I would have, you know, been killed, myself. So I just want to let the people know that I give him all the praise. And I believe one day, one day, it going to come, and God going to do it. The money will come.
My message to the people is that we can all love one another. We don’t have to hate one another because of race. We can just get together and have peace in this world, because God [inaudible]—you know, he gave us peace, and we should have peace with one another. It don’t hurt, you know. Violence, it hurts, and it leaves you like the bomb left me. I’m not the same anymore. So they just got to realize we can love each other, we can love people all over the world, because we all the human race.
I haven’t had anyone to talk to me about any compensation yet, but I’m just hoping, soon, that they will, because it’s really overdue. You know, it’s 50 years now, and I’ve suffered. And yet, like I say, people are not concerned. They’re not concerned like they ought to, because when they offered me the little money that they did offer, they wanted me to speak four times for it. But I—like I said, I was in a bombing, and why should they set up something to speak four times, when they have known all along that I was injured? And I was badly injured. This wasn’t something that—a scratch. I had to have my eyes removed—my right eye removed because of this attack. And it don’t—it really don’t feel good at all, you being looked over, like they’re saying, “Well, you didn’t die, so don’t expect anything.”
They wanted me to speak four times about the bombing, four times, and I was going to get what you call—have somebody to coach me, and I didn’t need to be coached. When you go through something like that, it rings in my ears and in my mind all the time. You know, what’s next? What’s next? ‘Cause it was a scary thing, and I still jump when I hear loud sounds. So I’m suffering every day. I had the scars on my face. And also, I try to live, but, you know, living like I live, where I shouldn’t have to really just suffer for anything. And people—like the man was saying, people around the world, over there in the marathon bomb, they get—they get moneys for their injury, but I haven’t yet had anything, and I suffer every day.
And also, my sister, we can’t even find her remains. I don’t know where her remains—we wanted to move my sister to a new—another cemetery. But when they exhumed her body, it wasn’t there—her there inside the casket. It was somebody with false teeth. And we don’t know where Addie’s remains today. It seem like people wasn’t even concerned about that. So I’m just wondering—I look at Birmingham, and they say they changed, but Birmingham, they got a long way to go.
– source democracynow.org
Sarah Collins Rudolph, survived the bombing of the Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, on September 15, 1963, which killed four young girls. She was 12 years old. She was hit with shards of glass, lost an eye and was hospitalized for months. Her older sister Addie Mae Collins, 14, died in the blast.
Adam Goldman, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist at the Associated Press. He covered the trial of Thomas Blanton, the last surviving Klansman convicted in the church bombing.