While the World Watched
Page 1
While the World Watched
A Birmingham Bombing Survivor Comes of Age during the Civil Rights Movement
by
Carolyn Maull McKinstry
with Denise George
Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
Carol Stream, Illinois
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While the World Watched: A Birmingham Bombing Survivor Comes of Age during the Civil Rights Movement
Copyright © 2011 by Carolyn McKinstry. All rights reserved.
Cover photograph of author and interior photograph of author in church by Stephen Vosloo copyright © Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.
Cover and interior photograph of Birmingham street used with the permission of the Birmingham, Alabama, Public Library Archives, Cat. #85.1.9.
Cover and interior photographs of four girls; caskets; mourners on street; grieving mother; civil rights leaders; Justice Department demonstration; policemen outside church; and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. copyright © AP Images. All rights reserved.
Photograph of demonstrators being hosed copyright © Charles Moore/Black Star. All rights reserved.
Photograph of police dogs attacking young man copyright © Bill Hudson/AP Images. All rights reserved.
All other photographs are from the personal collection of the author and used with permission.
Background texture pattern copyright © Morgan Lane Photography/Shutterstock. All rights reserved.
The following speech excerpts are reprinted by arrangement with The Heirs to the Estate of Martin Luther King Jr., c/o Writers House as agent for the proprietor New York, NY:
“Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” copyright 1963 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; copyright renewed 1991 Coretta Scott King
“Where Do We Go from Here?” copyright 1967 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; copyright renewed 1995 Coretta Scott King
“I Have a Dream,” copyright 1963 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; copyright renewed 1991 Coretta Scott King
“I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” copyright 1968 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; copyright renewed 1996 Coretta Scott King
“Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech,” copyright 1964 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; copyright renewed 1992 Coretta Scott King
Funeral speech for the slain girls, copyright 1963 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; copyright renewed 1991 Coretta Scott King
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Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version.® Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. NKJV is a trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
McKinstry, Carolyn Maull, date.
While the world watched : a Birmingham bombing survivor comes of age during the civil rights
movement / Carolyn Maull McKinstry with Denise George.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-1-4143-3636-7 (hc)
1. McKinstry, Carolyn Maull, date. 2. 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing, Birmingham, Ala., 1963.
3. Civil rights movements—Alabama—Birmingham—History—20th century. 4. African Americans—Alabama—Birmingham—Biography. 5. Birmingham (Ala.)—Social conditions. 6. Birmingham (Ala.)—Biography. I. George, Denise. II. Title.
F334.B653M356 2011
976.1'781063—dc22 2010047575
Build: 2013-05-09 16:25:26
This book is dedicated to my grandparents, Reverend Ernest Walter and Lessie V. Burt, whose prayers sustained us and whose wisdom and love still live within me and my family;
my parents, Samuel and Ernestine Burt Maull, who gave us their absolute best and prepared us in such a loving way for the rough road that lay ahead;
my husband, Jerome McKinstry, whom God sent in the midst of all my pain and confusion and who still stands today as a cornerstone for me; and
my children—Leigh, Joya, and Brandon—who are the fruit and the joys of my life and who have made this struggle worth every day.
Finally and especially, this book is dedicated to the memory of my friends Addie Mae Collins, Carol Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, and Cynthia Wesley, killed September 15, 1963, when Sixteenth Street Baptist Church was bombed, and to the memory of Johnny Robinson and Virgil Ware, also killed September 15, 1963, who now laugh and walk with Addie, Denise, Carole, and Cynthia.
May they all rest in peace and in the knowledge that their story and their witness live on in the hearts of people of goodwill all over the world.
—C. M. M.
Contents
Introduction
The Civil Rights Movement . . . Through the Eyes of Carolyn Maull McKinstry
Chapter 1: Too Great a Burden to Bear
Chapter 2: Halfway In and Halfway Out
Chapter 3: The Strong One
Chapter 4: The Bomb Heard ’Round the World
Chapter 5: Life Is But a Vapor
Chapter 6: Four Little Coffins
Chapter 7: The Aftermath
Chapter 8: The World Was Silent
Chapter 9: “It’s Time!”
Chapter 10: D-day
Chapter 11: Double D-day
Chapter 12: The Most Dangerous Racist in America
Chapter 13: The Battle Continues
Chapter 14: Servant, Heal Thyself
Chapter 15: Bombingham
Chapter 16: Will the Violence Ever End?
Chapter 17: The Deaths of the Dreamers
Chapter 18: Je-Romeo
Chapter 19: Turning Points
Chapter 20: The First Arrest
Chapter 21: Back to Birmingham
Chapter 22: The Calling
Chapter 23: The Cherry Trial
Photo Insert
Epilogue
Sample Jim Crow Laws
Letter from Barack Obama
Notes
Introduction
Almost half a century has passed since the Klan bombed Sixteenth Street Baptist Church at 10:22 on Sunday morning, September 15, 1963, and my four young friends died agonizing deaths. And it’s been almost half a century since, as a young teen, I marched under the leadership of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and got a handful of hair torn from my scalp by Bull Connor’s powerful water hoses.
For twenty years after these experiences, I tried hard to forget the senseless deaths, the inhumane injustices, the vicious German shepherds, and children getting arrested right on the streets of downtown Birmingham. In fact, we were encouraged by our parents, other church members, and our black community to forget what had happened. For almost five decades, I had not been able to muster the courage, nor the composure, to publicly record the stories that have become such a dark part of our nation’s past. I had struggled to forget these stories, to rid them from my head and heart. They proved too horrible, too painful, to dredge up to memory. But now, as I see new generations coming and old generations passing, I feel compelled to remember, to write down in permanent ink my eyewitness account of just what happened while the world watched . . . lest I
forget. Lest we all forget.
I hope this story will challenge you to reexamine your life; your daily living; your values; and your relationship with God, our Creator. As you consider the events on these pages, may you choose to love, and may you commit yourself to live a life of reconciliation—first with God and then ultimately with those who share this world with you.
Carolyn Maull McKinstry
Spring 2011
The Civil Rights Movement . . . Through the Eyes of Carolyn Maull McKinstry
1948
January 13, 1948: Carolyn Maull is born in Clanton, Alabama.
1954
May 17, 1954: Supreme Court bans segregation in schools in the Brown v. Board of Education decision.
1955
August 28, 1955: Fourteen-year-old Emmett Till is kidnapped and murdered in Mississippi.
December 1, 1955: Rosa Parks is arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white in Montgomery, Alabama.
December 5, 1955: Montgomery bus boycott begins.
1956
November 13, 1956: Supreme Court affirms ban on segregated seating on Alabama buses.
December 25, 1956: Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth’s house in Birmingham is bombed.
1957
September 2, 1957: Klan members kidnap and castrate Edward Aaron in Birmingham.
September 24, 1957: The “Little Rock Nine” enter Central High under the protection of the United States Army’s 101st Airborne Division.
1961
1961: Freedom Rides begin from Washington, D.C., into Southern states.
January 20, 1961: John F. Kennedy is inaugurated as president of the United States.
1962
February 26, 1962: The Supreme Court rules that segregation is unconstitutional in all transportation facilities.
1963
January 14, 1963: Newly elected Alabama governor George C. Wallace takes the oath of office.
April 12, 1963: Dr. King is arrested and locked up in a Birmingham jail.
May 2–3, 1963: Children’s marches in downtown Birmingham are broken up by police with attack dogs and fire hoses.
June 11, 1963: Alabama governor George Wallace stands in the doorway of University of Alabama to try to keep Vivian Malone and James Hood from enrolling.
June 12, 1963: Klan member kills Mississippi Civil Rights leader Medgar Evers.
August 28, 1963: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. leads march on Washington, D.C., with more than 250,000 people in attendance.
September 15, 1963: A bomb planted at Sixteenth Street Baptist Church explodes and kills four girls.
September 15, 1963: Virgil Ware, 13, is killed in Birmingham by two white youth; Johnny Robinson, 16, is killed by police in Birmingham.
September 30, 1963: Police arrest Robert Chambliss, Charles Cagle, and John W. Hall in conjunction with the Sixteenth Street Church bombing; they are released after each paying a $100 fine.
November 22, 1963: President John F. Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas, Texas.
1964
July 2, 1964: President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
October 14, 1964: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for advocating a policy of nonviolence.
1965
February 21, 1965: Malcolm X is assassinated.
March 25, 1965: Martin Luther King Jr. leads thousands of nonviolent crusaders to the completion of a 54-mile pilgrimage from Selma to Montgomery.
August 6, 1965: President Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act outlawing literacy tests for voting eligibility in the South.
1967
October 2, 1967: Thurgood Marshall is sworn in as the first black Supreme Court justice.
1968
February 1968: FBI closes its investigation of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing without filing charges.
April 3, 1968: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech in Memphis, Tennessee.
April 4, 1968: Dr. King is assassinated in Memphis.
June 5, 1968: Robert F. Kennedy is shot in Los Angeles, California, and dies 26 hours later.
1971
1971: Alabama attorney general Bill Baxley reopens 1963 church-bombing investigation.
1977
November 18, 1977: Robert Chambliss is found guilty for the murder of Denise McNair and sentenced to life in prison.
1985
October 29, 1985: “Dynamite Bob” Chambliss dies in prison.
1988
1988: Alabama attorney general Don Siegelman reopens the church-bombing case again.
1989
1989: Army general Colin Powell becomes the first black to serve as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
1989: L. Douglas Wilder (Virginia) becomes the first black elected governor.
1993:
1993: Birmingham-area black leaders meet with FBI about the church bombing, and agents secretly begin new review of the case.
1994:
February 7, 1994: Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing suspect Herman Frank Cash dies.
1998:
October 27, 1998: Federal grand jury in Alabama begins hearing evidence regarding church-bombing case.
2001:
April 15, 2001: Thomas Blanton Jr. goes on trial for the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing.
May 1, 2001: The court finds Blanton, 62, guilty on four counts of first-degree murder.
2002:
May 6, 2002: Carolyn testifies in court during Bobby Cherry’s trial.
May 22, 2002: The court finds Cherry, 71, guilty on four counts of murder and sentences him to life in prison.
2004:
November 18, 2004: Bobby Frank Cherry, 74, dies in prison from cancer.
2007:
Spring 2007: Carolyn and Dr. Neal Berte raise $4 million for the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church restoration.
2008:
November 2008: Barack Obama is elected first African-American president of the United States.
2013:
September 15, 2013: The Sixteenth Street Baptist Church will commemorate the 50th anniversary of the bombing.
Chapter 1
Too Great a Burden to Bear
* * *
Hate is too great a burden to bear. . . . I have decided to love. . . . If you are seeking the highest good, I think you can find it through love. And the beautiful thing is that we aren’t moving wrong when we do it, because John was right, God is love.
Martin Luther King Jr., “Where Do We Go from Here?”[1]
In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
Martin Luther King Jr.
I woke up on Sunday morning, September 15, 1963, and looked out my bedroom window. The sky was slightly overcast, but the sun was trying hard to shine through the clouds. It was a warm, beautiful September day in Birmingham, Alabama—an ordinary busy Sunday morning at the Maull home.
I laid out my white Sunday dress. I had starched and ironed it before I went to bed the night before. At age fourteen, I didn’t own a lot of clothes because there were six children to clothe in our household. But I had several special church dresses and one pair of black patent leather shoes I saved just for Sunday church.
Today was Youth Sunday at Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. On the fourth Sunday of each month, Reverend John H. Cross asked the church’s youth to lead the service, teach the Sunday school classes, and take over jobs the adult members usually did. It proved an exciting day for us each month. The boys wore dark pants and white shirts on those Sundays, and the girls wore their prettiest white dresses.
I had been an active member of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, for as far back as I could remember. In 1950, when I was two years old, my parents registered me in the cradle-roll Sunday school class. My church served as the center of my life. I worshiped there. I socialized there. I even worked there part-time as a church secretary. Sixteenth Stre
et Baptist Church was the first black church built in Birmingham. Since its construction in 1911, the church had become a worship home and meeting place for most of the city’s black community. A host of Civil Rights leaders, including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., had recently met there and, along with other community pastors and leaders, had planned nonviolent protests and marches. Dr. King called the Birmingham campaign Project C, with the C standing for “confrontation.” Dr. King—and the entire black community—yearned for equal rights for blacks. Birmingham was considered the most segregated city in the South. If we could break the back of segregation in our city, it would send a strong message to the rest of the nation. But it would prove to be an extremely difficult fight.
Several responsibilities awaited me at home before I could leave for church. One of them included combing my younger sister’s hair. Little Agnes had a lot of it, always uncooperative to the comb, and she had a sensitive, tender scalp. Mama herself was never good at fixing hair. At ten years of age, I started washing and pressing my own hair. I’d heat up the metal comb and run it again and again through my tangles. After Agnes came along, Mama gave me the assignment of combing her hair too. I loved taking care of Agnes and her hair, and I loved making her look pretty. It was like having my own live baby doll.
In the mornings before I left for school, Agnes usually held still and allowed me to comb and braid her hair. Even though I tried to be gentle, it usually hurt her to get the kinks out. Sometimes she’d cry. That Sunday she refused to hold still. Restless and not wanting to be bothered, she kept pushing me away.
“Please, Agnes,” I begged. “Be still. I’ve got to be on time for Sunday school. It’s Youth Sunday. I have my reports to do, and I’ve got to get there and count the money. I need to be on time this morning.”
But my sister refused to cooperate.
“Mama,” I called in desperation. “Agnes won’t let me comb her hair, and I’m going to be late for Sunday school. I need to go.”
“Well, just leave her here this morning,” Mama told me. “You go on to church. Agnes can stay home with me.”