This case grew out of the September 15, 1963, bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in which four young black girls were killed and a number of other people injured as a result of the blast which left the church in shambles. Long-delayed trial of former Ku Klux Klansman Thomas Blanton Jr in fatal 1963 bombing of black Birmingham, Ala, church opens; another of 4 original suspects, Robert Chambliss, was convicted in . The Rev. Resulting in the injury of 14 people and the death of four girls, the attack garnered widespread national outrage. A policeman and a neighbor had each testified that Chambliss was at the home of a man named Clarence Dill on that day. Jury sees girls' autopsy photos - Washington Times (Upon cross-examination by defense attorney Art Hanes Jr., Cantrell conceded that Chambliss had emphatically denied bombing the church. The police were reportedly responding to Black youths throwing rocks at cars driven by white people. Shortly thereafter, she had heard "the most horrible noise", before being struck on the head by debris. Despite repeated demands that the perpetrators be brought to justice, the first trial in the case was not held until 1977, when former clan member Robert E. Chambliss was convicted of murder (Chambliss, who continued to maintain his innocence, died in prison in 1985). I'm shot," he told his brother James with his dying breath. He and two acquaintances, John Hall and Charles Cagle, were each convicted in state court upon a charge of illegally possessing and transporting dynamite on October 8. here for reprint permission. Baxley acknowledged that typical juries in 1960s Alabama would have likely leaned in favor of both defendants, even if these recordings had been presented as evidence,[128] but said that he could have prosecuted Thomas Blanton and Bobby Cherry in 1977 if he had been granted access to these tapes. A fourth suspect died without being charged. In his closing argument for the prosecution, Don Cochran said the victims' "Youth Sunday [sermon] never happened because it was destroyed by this defendant's hate. Yet the men. This appeal was dismissed on May 22, 1979. The bombing occurred on Sept. 15, 1963, a Sunday, at the 16th Street Baptist Church, which had been a center of civil rights activity in Birmingham. [120] Cherry pleaded not guilty to the charges and did not testify on his own behalf during the trial. (Tom Self/ Birmingham News), A newspaper clipping shows police officers in the immediate aftermath of the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., Sunday, Sept. 15, 1963. The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing was the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama on September 15, 1963 by white supremacist terrorists. Fifty-seven years after the Klan bombed the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., murdering four Black girls and stunning the nation, a victim of the notorious hate crime sought a public . [99] In spite of a rebuttal argument by the defense, Judge Garrett ruled that some sections were too prejudicial, but also that portions of some audio recordings could be introduced as evidence. Both named individuals were charged with four counts of first-degree murder, and four counts of universal malice. Within days of the bombing, investigators began to focus their attention upon a KKK splinter group known as the "Cahaba Boys". Every last one of us is condemned for that crime and the bombing before it and a decade ago. The Birmingham News reported it was the 41st bombing in the city in the past 16 years. The bomb injured at least 20 people and killed four young girls: Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, and Carol Denise McNair. [46][48]), Some civil rights activists blamed George Wallace, Governor of Alabama and an outspoken segregationist, for creating the climate that had led to the killings. BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) Jurors in the murder trial of a former Ku Klux Klansman were shown grisly morgue photos yesterday of the four black girls killed in a 1963 church bombing.It was calculated to produce death, Coroner Robert Brissie said of the bomb. Violence broke out across the city in the aftermath of the bombing. [41] The Birmingham City Council convened an emergency meeting to propose safety measures for the city, although proposals for a curfew were rejected. (Tom Self/ Birmingham News), Original caption: The Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing kills four girls and also leaves a scene of devastation. Most parishioners were able to evacuate the building as it filled with smoke, but the bodies of four young girls (14-year-old Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley and Carole Robertson and 11-year-old Denise McNair) were found beneath the rubble in a basement restroom. [107], The trial lasted for one week. . We strive for accuracy and fairness. The force crumbled a stone-and-masonry wall 30 inches thick and left a crater more than 2 feet deep.Retired FBI bomb specialist Charles Killion testified that agents never determined what kind of explosive was used or how the bomb was triggered. [78][79], Chambliss pleaded not guilty to the charges, insisting that although he had purchased a case of dynamite less than two weeks before the bombing, he had given the dynamite to a Klansman and FBI agent provocateur named Gary Thomas Rowe Jr.[80], To discredit Chambliss's claims that Rowe had committed the bombing, prosecuting attorney William Baxley introduced two law enforcement officers to testify as to Chambliss's inconsistent claims of innocence. [132] These polygraph results had convinced some FBI agents of Rowe's culpability in the bombing. Fred Shuttlesworth. As late as the 1960s, however, it was also one of Americas most racially discriminatory and segregated cities. The case was again reopened in 1980, 1988 and 1997, when two other former Klan members, Thomas Blanton and Bobby Frank Cherry, were finally brought to trial; Blanton was convicted in 2001 and Cherry in 2002. Blanton's attorneys criticized the validity and quality of the 16 tape recordings introduced as evidence,[105] arguing that the prosecution had edited and spliced the sections of the audio recording that were secretly obtained within Blanton's kitchen, reducing the entirety of the tape by 26 minutes. The service honoring Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley and two young boys killed shortly after the bombing, Johnny Robinson Jr. and Virgil Ware, recognized Birmingham as the center of the Civil Rights movement and emphasized that the march to justice and equality of all people is not over. Although sections of the recordingpresented in evidence on April 27are unintelligible, Blanton can twice be heard mentioning the phrase "plan a bomb" or "plan the bomb". The Aftermath. He said the blast shredded the girls bodies.Some members of the jury looked down and grimaced as Mr. Brissie used a large screen to display black-and-white photographs of the bodies.Defendant Bobby Frank Cherry also turned his head away from the photos, which werent visible to a gallery that included several of the victims relatives sitting in the front row.Mr. Noting that no timing device was found, he disputed the governments long-held theory the bomb was planted by KKK members hours before the explosion.Mr.
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