We clearly understand what the sacrifice of those young women meant for African Americans. However, we can also see how their passing allowed many whites to be led less by the laws of Jim Crow and the societal pressures that went with them, and more by their hearts in their treatment of African Americans. The Civil Rights Movement did not simply free African Americans, it freed all Americans.
The attack on this church made people stand up from the streets of Birmingham to the halls of Congress. Today, we must continue to stand against injustice and inequality. One of the best ways to honor this tragic day is to participate in the electoral process by registering new voters, recruiting new volunteers, and encouraging people to turn out on Election Day. And when we do this, we will continue the work of creating equality of opportunity for all Americans and creating a more perfect union.
That’s what we can do to honor the memory of those four little girls, and to create the change we seek. On behalf of Michelle and our two little girls, God bless you all, and God bless this nation.
Sincerely,
Barack Obama
Notes
[1] Martin Luther King Jr., “Where Do We Go from Here?” August 16, 1967, Atlanta, Georgia, http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/documentsentry/where_do_we_go_from_here_delivered_at_the_11th_annual_sclc_convention.
[2] Martin Luther King Jr., “I Have a Dream,” August 28, 1963, speech delivered on the steps at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/mlk01.asp.
[3] Ibid.
[4] The National Center for Public Policy Research, Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), http://www.nationalcenter.org/brown.html.
[5] Connor made this statement to the Southern Conference for Human Welfare in 1938. Quoted from Diane McWhorter, Carry Me Home (New York: Touchstone, 2001), 158.
[6] Martin Luther King Jr., “I Have a Dream,” August 28, 1963, delivered on the steps at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/mlk01.asp.
[7] Martin Luther King Jr., “Where Do We Go from Here?” August 16, 1967, Atlanta, Georgia, http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/documentsentry/where_do_we_go_from_here_delivered_at_the_11th_annual_sclc_convention.
[8] United Press International, “Six Dead After Church Bombing,” Washington Post, September 16, 1963, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/churches/photo3.htm.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Roy Reed, “Charles Morgan Jr., 78, Dies: Leading Civil Rights Lawyer,” New York Times, January 9, 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/10/us/10morgan.html?_r=1.
[12] Dr. Martin Luther King’s funeral eulogy, Sixth Avenue Baptist Church, September 18, 1963, http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/documentsentry/doc_eulogy_for_the_martyred_children.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Ibid.
[15] George McMillan, “The Birmingham Church Bomber,” Saturday Evening Post, June 6, 1964, 14–17.
[16] Dr. Martin Luther King’s funeral eulogy, Sixth Avenue Baptist Church, September 18, 1963, http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/documentsentry/doc_eulogy_for_the_martyred_children.
[17] Ibid.
[18] George McMillan, “The Birmingham Church Bomber,” Saturday Evening Post, June 6, 1964, 14–17.
[19] “The ’63 Baptist Church Bombing,” Federal Bureau of Investigation, September 26, 2007, http://www.fbi.gov/page2/sept07/bapbomb092607.htm.
[20] Ibid.
[21] Quote taken from a photocopy of the original letter by Reverend C. Herbert Oliver, September 20, 1963.
[22] Martin Luther King Jr., “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” April 16, 1963, http://abacus.bates.edu/admin/offices/dos/mlk/letter.html.
[23] “Timeline: The Murder of Emmett Till,” American Experience, PBS, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/till/timeline/timeline2.html.
[24] Ibid.
[25] William Bradford Huie, “The Shocking Story of Approved Killing in Mississippi,” Look, January 24,1956, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/till/sfeature/sf_look_confession.html.
[26] Ibid.
[27] “Killers’ Confession: Letters to the Editor,” Look, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/till/sfeature/sf_look_letters.html.
[28] Harrison E. Salisbury, “Fear and Hatred Grip Birmingham,” New York Times, April 12, 1960, http://reportingcivilrights.loa.org/authors/selections.jsp?authorId=70.
[29] Harrison E. Salisbury, quoted in Terry Gross, “Get On the Bus: The Freedom Riders of 1961,” NPR, January 12, 2006, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5149667.
[30] Martin Luther King Jr., “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” April 16, 1963, http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/resources/article/annotated_letter_from_birmingham/#outsiders.
[31] Eric Pace, “Harrison E. Salisbury, 84, Author and Reporter, Dies,” New York Times, July 7, 1993, http://www.nytimes.com/1993/07/07/obituaries/harrison-e-salisbury-84-author-and-reporter-dies.html?pagewanted=1.
[32] Interview with attorney Colonel William S. Pritchard from Who Speaks for Birmingham, “CBS Reports,” May 18, 1961.
[33] Diane McWhorter, Carry Me Home (New York: Touchstone, 2001), 21.
[34] Martin Luther King Jr., “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” April 16, 1963, http://abacus.bates.edu/admin/offices/dos/mlk/letter.html.
[35] “The 1963 Inaugural Address of Governor George C. Wallace,” January 14, 1963, Alabama Department of Archives and History, http://www.archives.alabama.gov/govs_list/inauguralspeech.html.
[36] Ibid.
[37] Martin Luther King Jr., “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” April 16, 1963, http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/resources/article/annotated_letter_from_birmingham/#outsiders.
[38] See Romans 12:1.
[39] Robert Shelton, “Songs a Weapon in Rights Battle: Vital New Ballads Buoy Negro Spirits across the South,” New York Times, August 15, 1962.
[40] Lisa Cozzens, “Birmingham,” African American History, http://www.watson.org/~lisa/blackhistory/civilrights-55-65/birming.html.
[41] “Project ‘C’ in Birmingham,” American Experience: The Presidents, PBS, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/eyesontheprize/story/07_c.html.
[42] “Statement and Proclamation of Governor George C. Wallace,” June 11, 1963, Alabama Department of Archives and History, http://www.archives.alabama.gov/govs_list/schooldoor.html.
[43] Douglas Martin, “Vivian Malone Jones, 63, Dies; First Black Graduate of University of Alabama,” New York Times, October 14, 2005, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/14/national/14jones.html?_r=1.
[44] Ibid.
[45] John F. Kennedy, “Speech on Civil Rights,” American Rhetoric, http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/jfkcivilrights.htm.
[46] John F. Kennedy, “Radio and Television Report to the American People on Civil Rights,” June 11, 1963, http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Archives/Reference+Desk/Speeches/JFK/003POF03CivilRights06111963.htm.
[47] James Hood left the university after only two months, wanting to avoid a breakdown. He did return in 1995, however, to earn his doctorate degree. On May 30, 1965, Vivian Malone became the first black student to graduate from the University of Alabama in its 134 years of existence. But her path there was not easy. One night someone knocked on her dormitory door and warned her of a bomb threat. No bomb materialized, but that November, three bombs exploded at the university, one of them just blocks from her dormitory.
[48] George Wallace, “Executive Order Number Ten of the Governor of Alabama,” September 9, 1963.
[49] “Report on Desegregation in the Schools of Alabama,” American Experience: The Presidents, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/presidents/35_kennedy/psources/ps_deseg.html.
[50] John F. Kennedy, “Report on Desegregation in the Schools of Alabama,” September 9, 1963, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/presidents/35_kennedy/psources/ps_deseg.html.
[51] New York Times, September 6, 1963.
[52] In Oct
ober 1996 former governor Wallace, in poor health, met with Vivian Malone and James Hood and apologized for his actions at the University of Alabama. Wallace admitted that his actions were wrong and that the state of Alabama was better as a result of the integration of the schools. When Wallace presented Vivian with the Lurleen B. Wallace Award for Courage (named for Wallace’s wife), the two of them reconciled and spoke of forgiveness.
[53] In 1994 assistant district attorney Bobby DeLaughter reopened the Evers case. In the retrial, the jury convicted and imprisoned De La Beckwith for the murder of Medgar Evers.
[54] Martin Luther King Jr., “Where Do We Go from Here?” August 16, 1967, Atlanta, Georgia, http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/documentsentry/where_do_we_go_from_here_delivered_at_the_11th_annual_sclc_convention.
[55] “Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth,” Guide to the Twentieth Century African American Resources at the Cincinnati Historical Society Library, http://library.cincymuseum.org/aag/bio/shuttlesworth.html.
[56] Dr. Martin Luther King’s funeral eulogy, Sixth Avenue Baptist Church, September 18, 1963, http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/documentsentry/doc_eulogy_for_the_martyred_children.
[57] George McMillan, “The Birmingham Church Bomber,” Saturday Evening Post, June 6, 1964, 14–17.
[58] Martin Luther King Jr., “Where Do We Go from Here?” August 16, 1967, Atlanta, Georgia, http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/documentsentry/where_do_we_go_from_here_delivered_at_the_11th_annual_sclc_convention.
[59] James W. Douglass, JFK and the Unspeakable (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2008), 369.
[60] Ibid., 368.
[61] Martin Luther King Jr., “What Killed JFK?” New York Amsterdam News, December 21, 1963, http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/enc_new_york_amsterdam_news.
[62] “Sixteenth Street Baptist Church,” We Shall Overcome: Historic Places of the Civil Rights Movement, http://www.nps.gov/history/nr/travel/civilrights/al11.htm.
[63] “John F. Kennedy: The American Promise to African Americans,” Encyclopaedia Britannica Profiles: The American Presidency, http://www.britannica.com/presidents/article-9116924.
[64] Ben Chaney, “Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman: The Struggle for Justice,” American Bar Association, http://www.abanet.org/irr/hr/spring00humanrights/chaney.html.
[65] “Major Features of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” The Dirksen Congressional Center, http://www.congresslink.org/print_basics_histmats_civilrights64text.htm.
[66] “Richard B. Russell Jr.,” The New Georgia Encyclopedia, http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-1391.
[67] William Brink and Louis Harris, “The Negro Revolution in America,” Newsweek, September 30, 1963, 26.
[68] Juan Williams, Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years, 1954–1965 (New York: Penguin Books, 1987), 179.
[69] Martin Luther King Jr., “Nobel Lecture: The Quest for Peace and Justice,” http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1964/king-lecture.html.
[70] Martin Luther King Jr., “The Nobel Prize in Peace 1964: Acceptance Speech,” http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1964/king-acceptance.html.
[71] “Voting Rights Act (1965),” Our Documents, http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=old&doc=100.
[72] Geraldine Watts Bell, “Death in the Morning,” Down Home, vol. 3, no. 1 (Fall 1982), 18–19.
[73] Earl Caldwell, “Martin Luther King Is Slain in Memphis; A White Is Suspected; Johnson Urges Calm,” New York Times, April 5, 1968, http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0404.html.
[74] Martin Luther King Jr., “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” American Rhetoric, April 3, 1968, http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkivebeentothemountaintop.htm.
[75] “1968: Martin Luther King Shot Dead,” BBC: On This Day, http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/april/4/newsid_2453000/2453987.stm.
[76] “James Earl Ray, Convicted King Assassin, Dies,” CNN, April 23, 1998, http://www.cnn.com/US/9804/23/ray.obit.
[77] Robert F. Kennedy, “The Ripple of Hope,” http://bobby-kennedy.com.
[78] “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” United Nations, http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml.
[79] Diane McWhorter, Carry Me Home (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001), 259.
[80] Yvonne Shinhoster Lamb, “Birmingham Bomber Bobby Frank Cherry Dies in Prison at 74,” Washington Post, November 19, 2004, B05.
[81] Yvonne Shinhoster Lamb, “Birmingham Bomber Bobby Frank Cherry Dies in Prison at 74,” Washington Post, November 19, 2004, B05, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61428-2004Nov18.html.
[82] Since its opening in 1992, the Civil Rights Institute has had more than 1,700,000 people from all over the world pass through its doors. It is estimated that 95 percent of them come to Birmingham specifically to tour the Institute.
[83] “BCRI History,” Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, http://www.bcri.org/information/history_of_bcri/history.html.
[84] Tiffany Ray, “Sixteenth Street Baptist Celebrates Renovation on Somber Anniversary,” The Birmingham News, September 15, 2008, http://www.al.com/news/birminghamnews/index.ssf?/base/news/122146652675230.xml&coll=2.
[85] Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, http://www.bcri.org/information/index.html.
[86] Martin Gansberg, “Thirty-Eight Who Saw Murder Didn’t Call the Police,” New York Times, March 27, 1964.
[87] “The Birmingham Pledge,” The Birmingham Pledge Foundation, http://www.birminghampledge.org.
[88] Martin Luther King Jr., “Where Do We Go from Here?” August 16, 1967, Atlanta, Georgia, http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/documentsentry/where_do_we_go_from_here_delivered_at_the_11th_annual_sclc_convention.
[89] “What Was Jim Crow?” Ferris State University, Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia, http://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/what.htm.
[90] “Jim Crow Laws,” American RadioWorks, http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/remembering/laws.html.
[91] “What Was Jim Crow?” Ferris State University, Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia, http://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/what.htm.
[92] “Jim Crow Laws,” American RadioWorks, http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/remembering/laws.html.
[93] Ibid.
[94] Ibid.
[95] Ibid.
[96] “What Was Jim Crow?” Ferris State University, Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia, http://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/what.htm.
[97] Ibid.
[98] “Jim Crow Laws,” American RadioWorks, http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/remembering/laws.html.
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