Never Forget the Four Girls Who Died

Many tragedies have occurred in the month of September. The nation and the world have just observed September 11. Another tragedy needs our attention, needs to be remembered. On Sunday, September 15, 1963 a bomb exploded beneath the steps of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Four girls were killed, many others injured.

At this time Birmingham received the nickname “Bombingham” because of a series of racially motivated bombings in the city. 48 unsolved racially motivated bombings occurred in Birmingham from 1948 until 1957. Violence was used to keep people in line, to intimidate people.

The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing remains important and relevant today. We must never forget the callousness, the cruelty, the wickedness of that bombing. We must never forget the rhetoric of that era. Hatred and bigotry do not always die, they get face lift, find new names, lurk in the shadows waiting for a chance to surprise us, waiting for a chance to harm us.

We can never forget the four girls who died that Sunday in 1963. We can never forget the oppression and violence that was their world, that formed their reality.

Ignorance, bigotry, hatred, violence still exist within this country, within the world. Yesterday’s terrorists were the white sheeted Ku Klux Klan. Today’s terrorist is the Muslim extremists. Life is not that simple. Popular culture and our media like simplistic approaches to complex ideas. We are presented with only half of the story.

We can never forget the four girls who died that Sunday in 1963. As we go shopping, go to work our lives can suddenly be ended because an unknown stranger wants notoriety, because some group feels marginalized.

The United States is an affluent society. Affluence does not promise equity, liberty, equality, equality. Affluence promises nothing, promotes everything. Affluence and consumerism are next door neighbors who are also members of the same country club. The affluent members of society are asked to share with their neighbors, to help their neighbors, to have compassion for their neighbors. The true tragedy begins when we allow ourselves to be ignorant of the suffering and pain of others and do nothing.

We can never forget the four girls who died that Sunday in 1963. Our world is very vulnerable. Our bodies are fragile. Unknown foreign agents want to kill us.

The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing became crucial to the Civil Rights Movement. That bombing galvanized the movement. More and more images of cruelty and brutality were shown on newspaper and television news programs. Racial hatred was alive in America. Hatred was alive in America. Legally some things could be forced to change, legally some things were forced to change. Voting is the notable example from the era. Integration another.

Life in America always seems like a game of cops and robbers, good guys and bad guys.

Life in America always seems like a game of conformity insanity. Allow the mob to rule your thoughts, your actions. Be a puppet for the Mob like Governor George Wallace who stated that to stop integration Alabama required only a “few first-class funerals.” This hatred must always be remembered. This hatred must be encountered, not hidden behind a facade. This hatred still remains in this country. This hatred needs to constantly combatted.

We can never forget the four girls who died that Sunday in 1963. They were attending Sunday school, learning about God’s love. They were innocent victims. They were not making speeches, they were not rioting. They were going about their lives, doing the usual thing, the ordinary thing. They were in a church, a place of love and peace. Their death still haunts us, haunts this nation.

The Civil Rights Movement has lost steam, inequalities persist. Racial and religious mistrust and ignorance persist. Domestic violence is hidden behind brocade curtains, French glass doors, and brick exterior. Gang violence exists with poor neighborhood terrorized by drugs and government neglect.

We can never forget the four girls who died that Sunday in 1963:

        Denise McNair
        Addie Mae Collins
        Carole Robertson
        Cynthia Wesley

May we always remember them, always keep them and their families in our prayers.

We can never forget the four girls who died that September Sunday in 1963 in the 16th Street Baptist Church.