ONLINE HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT
DUE WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14, 2010
@ 12:00 NOON EDT
Google "Birmingham Bombing" and/or "16th Street Baptist Church Bombing." Find one fact about the bombing (that has not already been posted) and post it below.
Guidelines for "Post a Comment" assignments are at the following link:
After the bombing a witness identified Robert Chambliss (a KKK member) as the man who placed the bomb under the steps of the 16th Street Baptist Church. He was arrested and charged with murder and possessing a box of 122 sticks of dynamite without a permit. On 10/8/1963 Chambliss was found not guilty for murder but received a $100 fine and a 6 month jail sentence for having the dynamite. Later on the original FBI files on the case was reopened and there was accumulated evidence against Chambliss that had not been used in the original trial. In November, 1977 Chambliss was tried once again for the bombing. Chambliss was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment. Chambliss died in an Alabama prison on 10/29/1985.
ReplyDeleteAndrea H.
ReplyDeleteOn the morning of Sunday, September 15, 1963, a white male who was later identified as Robert Chambliss, a member of the KKK, was seen getting out of a white and turquoise Chevrolet car and placing a box under the steps of the 16th St Baptist Church. Shortly after an explosion went off killing 4 little girls. Robert was then arrested and charged with murder and possession of dynamite without a permit, but was found not guilty and recieved only a hundred-dollar fine with 6 month jail time for possession of illegal dynamite.
The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing was a racially motivated terrorist attack on September 15, 1963, by members of a Ku Klux Klan in Birmingham, Alabama. The bombing of the African-American Baptist church resulted in the deaths of four girls. The four girls names were: Addie Mae Collins (aged 14), Denise McNair (aged 11), Carole Robertson (aged 14), and Cynthia Wesley (aged 14), were killed in the blast, and 22 additional people were injured. The Sixteenth Street Baptist Church was used as a meeting-place for civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King, Ralph David Abernathy and Fred Shutterworth.
ReplyDeleteChristie K.
cristina gandolfo
ReplyDeleteThe explosion blew a hole in the church's rear wall, destroyed the back steps, and left intact only the frames of all but one stained-glass window. The lone window that survived the concussion was one in which Jesus Christ was depicted knocking on a door, although Christ's face was destroyed. In addition, five cars behind the church were damaged, two of which were destroyed, while windows in the laundromat across the street were blown out
Along with Robert Chambliss, 3 other men were involved in the bombing. They were Bobby Frank Cherry, Thomas Blanton and Herman Cash. Bobby Frank Cherry and Thomas Blanton were indicted in 2000, two decades after Chambliss's conviction, when FBI files were released which had been blocked by the FBI director at the time, J Edgar Hoover! Herman Cash died in 1994 and was never tried. Blanton was convicted of murder in 2001 and sentenced to life imprisonment. Cherry's relatives testified against him telling of how he bragged about his crime. In 2002,he was found guilty of four counts of murder and sentenced to life in prison. However, his time there was short as he died in 2004.
ReplyDeleteThe case against Robert Chambliss (the person who was accused of the bombing)was unsolved until Bill Baxley was elected attorney General of Alabama.He found out that the organisation Federal Bureau of Investigation accumulated a lot of evidence against Robert Chambliss that had not been used in the original trial. In November 1977 he was tried once again for the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing and at age 73 he was found guilty and sentenced for life imprisonment.Chambliss died in an Alabama prison on the 29th of October 1985.
ReplyDeleteThe 16th Street Baptist Church was a target chosen by the KKK because of repeated presence of Martin Luther King Jr. who used the church as point of gathering for his marches against segregation. Strangely before the Sunday morning attack, Birmingham was already known as "Bombingham" in relation to the violent actions that were committed by KKK members based at Easteveiw Klavern 13, Birmingham. Curiously, people had to wait 14 years before one of these terrorists was convicted. His name was "Dynamite Bob" Chambliss.
ReplyDeleteOf the four children that died, the youngest was 11, Carol Denise McNair. She and the other 3 girls were walking into the building to go to sunday school when the bomb exploded.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the members of the Ku Klux Klan's splinter group, the cahabana boys committed the crime, Robert Chambliss, Thomas Blanton and Bobby Cherry, Herman Cash, who was dead by the time of the trial.
Between 1947 and 1965, there have been over 50 bombings already in Birmingham, adopting the name, "Bombingham" due to racial ocurrences. The bombing came as a result of heightened tensions in the city after a federal court ordered its schools to be integrated instead of segregated. During this time, the attorney that was trying to set everything up, has had his house bombed 2 times already but still passed the issue where schools were desegregated which fueled the bombers to do something drastic in return.
ReplyDeleteA large majority of civil rights activists blamed the bombing on George Wallace who was the governor at that time. A week before the bombing he told the New York Times that a "few first-class funerals", was the only way to stop integration.The deaths of the children followed by the loss of President Kennedy two months later gave birth to a tide of grief and anger throughout the civil rights movement.
ReplyDeleteFollowing the tragic event, white strangers visited the grieving families to express their sorrow. At the funeral for three of the girls (one family preferred a separate, private funeral), Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke about life being "as hard as crucible steel." More than 8,000 mourners, including 800 clergymen of all races, attended the service. No city officials attended.
ReplyDeleteOn September 15, 1963, four African American girls were killed while preparing for annual Youth Day celebrations by a bomb planted by Klu Klux Klan member, Robert Chambliss. During the aftermath, two young African American boys were killed. Robert Chambliss was tried and was acquitted of murder charges. Fourteen years later, the case was reopened and he was found guilty. In recent years, Thomas Blanton and Robert have also been tried and convicted in the church bombing.
ReplyDelete16th Street Baptist Church Bombing
ReplyDeleteThirty-eight years after the bombing, Thomas Blanton Jr. was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. One year later in May 2002, Bobby Frank Cherry was also found guilty for the deaths of the four girls and was given a mandatory sentence of life in prison. "HA HA good for him"
The devestation of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing lead to a march. On September 22, 1963, the Congress of Racial Equality or CORE, marched in Washington DC in memory of the children killed in the bombing. As a result of the many demonstrations that occured after the bombing, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was made. On July 2, 1964 President Lyndon Johnson signed the Act which ensured equal rights of African Americans before law.
ReplyDeleteKeisha_Ann Cross...
ReplyDeleteThree days after the tragedy, former Birmingham police commissioner, Bull Connor inflamed tensions by saying to a crowd of 2550 people at a Citizen's Council meeting, " If you're going to blame anyone for getting those children killed in Birmingham, it's your Supreme Court". Connor also suggested that African American may have set the bombs deliberately to provoke an emotional response, saying "I wouldn't say its above (Dr. Martin Luther) Kings crowd"
"The delay in successful prosecution has generated some controversy, in part because of disagreements with former Alabama Attorney General William Baxley over who should have access to case information and how this should be handled." When will we as people learn how to share. Haven't we seen the destruction that this can lead to time and time again, Sept. 11 anyone? If only we can stop trying to be heroes and simply strive for the truth and justice, that is true heroism. I understand the system of checks and balances, that no one government agency can have more power than the other, but where's the agency to monitor this, where's the exchange of information, or shall we all continue to wait until the absolute worse happens and look back with hindsight at our blunder. This truly saddens me and i fear for the future.
ReplyDelete