Original subtitles

"Come round by my side and I'll sing you a song

"I'll sing it so softly it'll do no one wrong

"On Birmingham Sunday the blood ran like wine

"And the choir kept singing of freedom

"That cold autumn morning no eyes saw the sun

"And Addie Mae Collins her number was one

"In an old Baptist church there was no need to run

"And the choir kept singing of freedom

"The clouds they were dark and the autumn wind blew

"And Denise McNair brought the number to two

"The falcon of death was a creature they knew

"And the choir kept singing of freedom

"The church it was crowded and no one could see

"That Cynthia Wesley's dark number was three

"Her prayers and her feelings would shame you and me

"And the choir kept singing of freedom

"Young Carole Robertson entered the door

"And the number her killers had given was four

"She asked for a blessing but asked for no more

"And the choir kept singing of freedom

"On Birmingham Sunday the noise shook the ground

"And people all over the earth turned around

"For no one recalled a more cowardly sound

"And the choir kept singing of freedom

"The men in the forest they once asked to me

"How many blackberries grow in the blue sea?

"I asked them right back with a tear in my eye

"How many dark ships in the forest?

"The Sunday has come the Sunday has gone

"And I can't do much more than to sing you a song

"I'll sing it so softly it'll do no one wrong

"And the choir keeps singing of freedom"

I come from Arkansas originally.

I went to school at Tuskegee and...

...met my wife there.

My first job after I left Tuskegee was in Mississippi.

It was his junior year also.

He'd been to the service.

I walked in with my so-called boyfriend...

...in the lounge where the girls sat...

...and he was with his girlfriend...

...and I thought I was looking good.

I'd just made this suit that I had on...

...and he said, "Looks good. Turn around and let me see it. "

And I didn't have any better sense than to do it.

But we didn't have anything else to do with each other...

...other than just friendship...

...until our senior year.

I always said in a joking manner...

...that I saw her at Tuskegee...

...and felt that I would be a missionary...

...and come to Alabama and help her out.

So, I've been helping her out for 46 years now.

What I wanted in life for myself...

...was a husband, a house, and some children.

When I met Chris...

...and we did have this child, I was excited.

But there was one little conflict.

I couldn't leave my mama alone. I had to come back to Birmingham...

...have the baby in Birmingham, with a doctor that I was familiar with...

...and he didn't like that too hot, but he did consent.

Denise was a very charming child...

...a very lovable child...

...and a very caring child.

I think she spent...

...most of her time trying to do for other children.

She had a good group of friends that lived in the community.

A lot of times she would come down to my house.

She loved to come over here, because at that time...

...she was an only child.

And there were four children in this house...

...two girls and two boys.

She couldn't wait to find out what everything was about...

...see what this is...

...and know what this person is, and talk to everybody.

She was very friendly...

...and seemingly very happy.

Very aggressive, very feisty.

Obviously, when somebody's not around you...

...you tend to praise sometimes even where praise may not be due.

Very inquisitive...

...and very much a leader.

She was a very lovable little girI. And I miss her.

When I came here in the '50s...

...to get a job was a real chore...

...especially if you came to this blue-collar town...

...and you had a college degree.

You were going to steel mills and places like that...

...making applications...

...and nobody was looking for college graduates.

Birmingham's a steel town.

Birmingham was built in the late 1800s...

...by the barons from the North, who came down...

...and realized that we had every combination.

We had people, we had natural resources, we had rubber transportation.

It grew by leaps and bounds.

It was known as the "Magic City" because it grew so fast.

But you had people coming in, a laboring class of people...

...a blue-collar town. And it was a violent town.

It was a town of union violence, condoned the violence against workers...

...condoned by the police and by United States Steel...

...and the other big industrial companies.

It had a long history of labor violence.

So you had a tradition of violence...

...flowing out of an industrial setting, with the overlay of rural racism...

...coming in from the countryside. Traditional old South racism.

With that background...

...the '50s were a time of quietness here.

A wonderful place to live and raise a family.

Birmingham was just Birmingham.

White, colored. Not white, black. White, colored.

You would have to have lived here to understand...

...some of the feelings that were going on at that time.

Black people were in their places and white folks in theirs...

...if there's such a thing.

The water fountains, black and white...

...and all of those kinds of things existed, and existed in order.

You may see in some of the pictures...

...cabs which said; "Colored only," or; "White only. "

A bathroom at the bus station, "White only. "

I have an older brother.

There were two of us, nine or ten months apart...

...and my mother would have to make a choice.

She would always...

...let one of us use the white fountain, the other use the black.

She knew that was in violation of the law, but she did it anyway.

It was so hard to tell your child, your 6 or 7-year-old...

...when it's time for water, you know they wanted some water...

...and maybe the child attempted to go to a fountain...

...that was marked for white.

And you would have to tell him:

"No, let's take this fountain. " And he'd say:

"Why can't I go to that one? There's nobody there. "

And I'd say: "No, we'll just use this one. " It was an awfuI time.

It was an awfuI time for young people, I'd say...

...to grow up in this city.

When my daughter Denise was about 6 years old...

I've always despised going shopping with my wife...

...because my patience didn't hold to go shopping, you know...

But at any rate, this was Christmas and we were shopping.

We had come to a store. In fact, it was Kress's.

We were going in there to buy some ribbons.

And when we got in to Kress's...

...Denise said she had to go to the restroom.

So, we went downstairs where the restrooms were...

...black and white again...

...black and colored, I beg your pardon. White and colored.

So, when we got down there, the lunch counter was also there.

You could smell the onion, the hamburgers...

...and Denise said she wanted a sandwich.

And it was kind of painfuI to say: "No, you can't have it. "

She wanted to know why.

And we had to tell her the sage old story about:

"Whites can only eat here, but we can't.

"We will eat when we get home. " She didn't understand that so hot.

That was the night that I made up my mind that I guess I had to tell her...

...she couldn't have that sandwich because she was black.

I guess for men it's worse than it is for women...

...because they are more sensitive...

...or I guess that's what you might call it.

They hate to say: "My child can't do what everybody else's child can do...

"... and it makes me mad that I can't do anything about it.

"I can't change it right now. "

I want you to know that night couldn't have been any more painfuI...

...than seeing her laying up there with a rock smashed in her head...

...than to tell her I couldn't buy her that sandwich down there...

...because she was black.

I'm not sure if she ever understood that.

How did she react when you told her that?

Very strange, very confused and...

...as if a whole world of betrayal had fallen on her at that moment.

I remember Carole as a very vivacious...

...lovable 14-year-old.

The third child of Alfa and Alvin...

...and very well loved and taken care of in the family.

Quite active in her schoolwork, quite active in her church work.

I always remember when she was born, my father telling me...

...that I was standing outside in front of the house with my skates on...

...announcing to everybody that I had a brand new baby sister...

...and I was so happy to have a little sister.

Carole was a very giving, outgoing person.

She had a lot of friends.

She was a beautiful daughter.

She was an average kid, growing up.

She was smart, she played music, she was a Scout.

An avid reader, she worked with the library assistants' groups in the city and state.

She took dancing lessons. She didn't play the piano, though.

I used to have to take her to the Saturday movies with me.

They were segregated.

We'd have to go upstairs into the balcony.

We'd sit and we'd throw popcorn and ice.

We would throw them down on the white folks.

She always thought that was real funny...

...but she knew that we were not supposed to be doing that.

So it was like, "I'm gonna tell. "

She played clarinet in the band at elementary school and high school.

She was supposed to play her first game.

That Monday night, after they were...

After the bombing, the band was supposed to play.

Parker was playing somebody, I've forgotten who.

This is her last sash...

...with the badges.

She was a member, at that time...

...of Troop 264.

And those were the badges that she had earned...

...in the process.

She had been a Scout all along...

...from Brownie on up.

This Bible, she had in her pocketbook...

...the day of the bombing.

When we got it, it had dirt, grit...

...and part of this was torn out.

For a long time, I kept it in my pocketbook...

...but I've taken it out now and I've put it up...

...and look at it every now and then.

In 1949, my last year in college...

...I went through Birmingham with my boss...

...I worked in the food service in the school cafeteria...

...Ernest O'Roark. He was telling me on the way down...

...about this section of Birmingham called Dynamite Hill.

I said, "Why is it called Dynamite Hill?"

He said, "It used to be a garbage dump.

"They cleared the land, fixed it up, and black people built homes there.

"They were nice homes...

"... and the honkies bomb them because...

"... they resent black folks having good homes. "

We arrived in Birmingham about 4:00 in the afternoon.

At 5:30 a bomb went off on Dynamite Hill.

Now that's 1949, and now you're going to fast forward...

...to 1962.

We're here at Bethel Baptist Church...

...the church which served as the headquarters for the movement...

...for change in Birmingham, Alabama, back in the '50s and the '60s.

I'm standing at the corner of the church where the house was at that time.

Would you care to tell us about the two bombings?

The first bombing was in...

...December, 1956. Christmas night...

...when somebody planted 12 sticks of dynamite.

The dynamite was placed right here at the corner of the church.

It would've been the corner of the house.

That's where the head of my bed was, and I was in the bed.

You can see the cracks in the wall, but the implosive effects went into the house.

It blew the wall that was between my head and the dynamite away.

The lights went out...

...and I felt the head of my bed being driven down.

And yet, I was not afraid. I knew I wouldn't get killed.

I knew there was a presence there.

At that time, there was a lot of bombing going on.

Even up where I lived.

They started up on the hill, up on Green Springs, at that time.

There was only about 11 houses and only about...

We were the first black family up there.

They would drive by.

In fact, they threw a fire bomb into our yard, between the houses.

When the problems came...

...we all had to just run in our closets...

...when we would hear the bombs and so forth.

But it was just a common thing that was happening.

You could be sitting comfortable and the dynamite would go off.

One of the interesting parts of that night...

...and that's a dramatic situation...

...the house was leaning and you couldn't get out.

A crowd instantaneously...

This street was filled within two or three minutes.

A big burly policeman came back.

This policeman decided to give me some advice.

Incidentally, he was a Klansman...

...because, we think at that time, about a third of Birmingham policemen...

...either were Klansman...

...or had Klan affiliation.

He said, "I really didn't believe that they would go this far. "

He said, "Reverend, I'll tell you what I'd do, if I were you.

"I'd get out of town as quick as I could. "

I said, "Officer, you're not me.

"You go back and tell your Klan brethren...

"... that if God could keep me through this...

"... that the war zone, the battle has just begun...

"... and I'll be around for the duration. "

We'll make like this is back in the '60s.

- How old were you back then? - At the time, I was 14.

You were the same age as Cynthia.

The same age.

This is the house she was brought up in, right here.

We would play all out here.

She would have little lawn parties.

She was well liked.

We had no idea of the tragedy that was going to happen, but...

...she lived a normal life.

Cynthia was...

This is 30-some years ago, but...

Images.

Cynthia could have humor.

I remember laughing with Cynthia. You could have jokes.

I remember that well.

She was caring. Some people aren't.

I was younger.

I was a fat little young boy.

Some people didn't want to be bothered with me. Cynthia would.

She would, she'd take time...

...and just be nice to me as a human being.

Cynthia Wesley...

...was the daughter of Claude...

...Mr. and Mrs. Claude Wesley.

He was principal...

...of Lewis School at that time.

Cynthia was a delightful young lady.

The Wesleys adopted Cynthia when she was quite young...

...and she grew up in 16th Street Church with them.

Cynthia was very involved in church.

She was in the choir, and in fact...

...the Sunday of the bombing, on September 15...

...Cynthia would have begun her first...

...opportunity as an usher, on that Sunday.

I was probably closest to Cynthia Wesley.

We were in a little club together.

In this club we had little outfits that matched, and hats.

We had just ordered some new stuff to wear.

In fact, after she was killed, we took what she had ordered...

...to her mom's house, and talked to her.

On the Sunday morning, the 15th...

...when Cynthia and the other girls came to Sunday school...

...I remember my mother telling me...

...how she had chided Cynthia...

...because, as she came out of the house...

...she noticed that her slip was hanging.

My mother told her to go back in the room.

What I'd like to do is read a statement about that...

...because the way my mother presented this to her...

...is something pretty typical that mothers would say to their daughters.

My mother stated that:

"Young lady, your slip is hanging below your dress.

"You just don't put your clothes on any way when you go to church...

"... because you never know how you're coming back.

"Cynthia hurriedly made the necessary adjustments...

"... then ran out of the door. "

My mother never saw her after that.

I'm sorry.

My mother said...

I didn't think I'd do this. I'm sorry.

In 1961...

...the Freedom Riders came to Birmingham.

One of their buses was burned in Aniston.

They had one bus left and they all came on that bus...

...to Birmingham.

They went to the Trailways bus station.

National television was waiting for them at the Greyhound bus station.

They didn't just beat Freedom Riders.

There were people who'd just come to beat the bus.

But one photographer...

...was at the station and took a picture of the beating.

They turned on him...

...and beat him, and took his camera away.

And being very scientific...

...they broke the lens and threw the camera in the trash can...

...but never opened it and exposed the film.

So that picture went out of here on the UPI wire.

It was front-page in newspapers all over the world.

A group of Birmingham businessmen were in Tokyo at the time...

...at a meeting...

...of the International Rotary Club.

When they saw that picture on the front page...

...of a newspaper in Tokyo, Japan...

...they said: "We can't take much more of this. "

Birmingham...

...at the time, was going through...

...a move where...

...some of the moderate forces in the white community...

...were trying to finally assert themselves.

And it was a long time overdue.

A state court is expected to rule next week...

...on whether mayor-elect, Albert Boutwell, can take office immediately.

Boutwell was asked if he's ready to meet with Negro leaders.

"I'm ready at any time...

"... when the immediate threat of violence...

"... has been removed...

"... to talk to any responsible local people...

"... regardless of the color of their skins. "

Birmingham is a symbol...

...of hardcore resistance to integration.

It is probably the most thoroughly segregated city...

...in the United States.

SCLC had been really just organized in 1957.

About a hundred preachers got together in Louisiana.

We hadn't had much luck. We didn't have much staff.

Fred Shuttlesworth came to see Martin Luther King and said;

"Martin, you've got to...

"... help us in Birmingham. We just got to move on Birmingham. "

The federal government has decided...

...that Negroes as citizens must be protected from lawlessness...

...and mobocracy.

And that's why we're here.

Fred Shuttlesworth had been fighting in Birmingham...

...for ten years, by this time.

The Alabama organization was almost his personal creation...

...in Birmingham...

...in the same sense that SCLC was a personal creation for Dr. King.

In the fall of 1962...

...almost six months before the breakthrough in May...

...and a year before the Birmingham church bombing...

...Shuttlesworth had had an agreement...

...after lots of boycotts in Birmingham with the merchants...

...for what we would now regard as...

...the most minimum token segregation...

...of allowing black shoppers, mostly women...

...to shop and use the restrooms and changing rooms in downtown stores.

He'd made these agreements...

...and then they re-segregated everything in the fall of 1962.

I think by then his patience ran out and he said:

"Bravery alone is not enough. We need to bring in a larger spotlight. "

To him, bringing a larger spotlight meant bringing in Dr. King.

We made a decision based on several things.

Fred Shuttlesworth was fearless and courageous...

...to the point of being almost insane.

He miraculously survived a bombing of his home...

...had taken his wife and two children trying to integrate a school...

...with a mob of 500 or 600 folks with chains and stuff.

Just an incredible human being in my view.

One day in 1957, in the afternoon, on the evening newscast...

...there was a piece of film of a gang of white men...

...beating Fred Shuttlesworth...

...in the street, outside Phillips High School where he'd taken his children.

With chains, they beat him to the ground.

The reason it was riveting for me, I was 14 years old...

...was that the police said they couldn't find the men who did it.

And I recognized one of the men. I knew who he was.

I'd seen him at Jack Cash's Barbecue...

...and I knew the police hung out at Jack Cash's Barbecue...

...and I knew they were Iying.

It was the last place, I think, I wanted to go...

...with Martin Luther King in 1963.

And yet, it was the place we had to go.

Addie Mae Collins was a little more withdrawn, I think.

Friendly, but not as aggressive...

...as Cynthia or Denise.

To know Addie is to love Addie.

She was just a funny girI...

...a sweet peacefuI girI.

She just liked to make peace with people...

...and people to be at peace around.

She wasn't a mean person, she was just sweet.

Remember with Denise...

...when the bird died, it was the weirdest thing?

I have to tell you the bird story. We saw a dead bird.

We thought, "It's just a dead bird, kick it out of the way. "

Denise said, "Oh no, the bird must have a funeral."

We were like, "Just put it somewhere so we can play. "

She said, "No, we've got to have a funeral for the poor bird. "

She got her mother, and Mrs. McNair has a beautifuI voice...

She got her mother, she got the shoebox. The boys had to dig a hole.

And we buried the bird.

Mrs. McNair sang the Lord's Prayer, and it was beautifuI.

Then we all bowed and we prayed, and said something...

Then, "Let's play ball. "

The first Sunday that we marched, Palm Sunday, I think it was...

No, it wasn't Palm Sunday, it was a Sunday...

And the church services of the pastor's, the afternoon service, ran a little late.

We were supposed to march at 4;00. It was about 6;30.

By the time we got ready to march, there was about 1,200 people out there...

...milling around Ingram Park, waiting to see something happen.

And Bull's folks out there with the dogs.

Before you knew it, something was going on between the police with the dogs.

The next day, the UPI said:

"Eleven hundred march in Birmingham, 15 arrested. "

I called Doctor. I said, "Dr. King, I got it. "

He said, "What is it?"

I said, "We're just going to slow down the time of the march...

"... until the people get home from work every day.

"We'll get a crowd.

"We can count on Bull to do something silly. "

If there's anybody in this nation...

...who understands what's going on here, it is me.

I know that we have sufficient manpower...

...enough trained officers to keep the peace in Birmingham...

...without any outside help from the federal government.

Eugene "Bull" O'Connor...

...was the police commissioner.

Commissioner of fire and safety.

It's ironic that safety would be...

...in the hands of a man who was so unsafe.

He kept people so insecure.

He was about as hardcore as they come.

He was one of those people that drew the line and never retreated.

I don't think he felt that blacks had any rights.

I don't think he felt they should be citizens even.

I used to wonder if he was a Christian.

They say he was, but I don't believe he was.

I don't think anybody could do any race of people...

...the many things that they did to black people.

Bull O'Connor liked to keep black folk in their place.

All of the arrests and all the demonstrations in Birmingham...

...occurred within...

...four blocks of 16th Street Baptist Church.

We'd meet in the church, we'd march a few blocks...

...then he'd lock everybody up.

When there were too many people to lock up...

...he'd call on the dogs and the fire hoses...

...and try to clear the street by force.

When he saw any strength...

...or self-respect in a black person, he just went crazy.

He couldn't stand it.

It's like, "When you see me, you gotta squat. "

So, if you don't become ingratiating...

...he'd just go crazy.

He had a white tank that he would ride through the black neighborhoods...

...and terrorize people in the neighborhood in his white tank.

There was almost no way to talk to him or reason with him.

It was his town.

It was almost like the old West, where he was one-man rule.

Bull Connor indeed did spit on me. Yes, he did.

Whether he was just upset in talking and it came...

...or on purpose, I don't know, but he was hating me.

What happened was, we went through the training session.

They took us by the Baptist Church and we left from that area.

We were able to march. We marched right up to City Hall.

There was this white man, red-faced man, looking mean.

His name was indeed Bull Connor.

Whether he said "nigger" or "nigra" I'm not even sure...

...but he looked down at me and said, "What do you want, little nigger?"

I said, "We want our freedom, we want to pray. "

As soon as I said that, intentionally or not, he spat on me. I remember that well.

Bull was the manifestation...

...of the perversity...

...upon which segregation depended for its life.

He was...

Bull was like the walking id of Birmingham...

...the dark spirit of Birmingham...

...the hellish side of Birmingham made embodied.

It sounds dramatic, but it was a dramatic time.

He didn't have but one eye.

He was a Sunday school teacher.

Had a kind of wiry, raspy voice...

...which was kind of coarse.

He was not a large man but he had a lot of power.

Most of the white people were afraid of him, most all Negroes.

I guess I didn't have sense enough to be afraid.

I used to be afraid of Bull until I discovered he was crazy.

When I discovered he was crazy, my whole attitude changed.

Al Hibler was at the Trailways bus depot, on the corner.

All of them put us in jail and put us in the paddy wagon.

Al Hibler was standing beside the building like that...

...and Bull looked and said;

"HeyI Go on and get that blind nigger and bring him over herel"

See how funny this insane man was?

He's hollering across the street, "Bring that blind nigger over here!"

Now here's a blind man.

He doesn't understand human nature...

...enough to relate even to a blind man. Bull was like that.

You wonder what makes people like that tick.

What's going on inside their mind...

...the brain, the head, if they have a brain...

...that makes them hate folk...

...want to do evil, the way that they did.

You just wonder, "What are they thinking about?"

You must understand that a Bull O'Connor couldn't exist...

...without the nods from the status quo people.

The big boys in any town.

No Bull O'Connor can exist without them.

He may be the person who actually does the talking...

...but, believe me, the Bull O'Connors have the blessing of somebody else.

In the name of the greatest people...

...that have ever trod this earth...

...I draw the line in the dust...

...and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny...

...and I say segregation now...

...segregation tomorrow, and segregation foreverI

I think George Wallace was the cause of many people's death.

Certainly much suffering.

The whites of Birmingham should've been commended by the President...

...for their restraint during the demonstrations.

White people have not been involved, only lawless Negroes.

George Wallace was a dynamic expression...

...of the mentally deranged white people.

People who are afraid of change...

...and frustration, George Wallace expressed that mental illness.

He's dynamic. Best in the business.

"Now therefore, I, George C. Wallace...

"... as Governor of the State of Alabama, have, by my action, raised issues...

"... between the central government and the sovereign State of Alabama...

"... which said issues should be adjudicated...

"... in the manner prescribed by the Constitution of the United States...

"... and being mindful of my duties and responsibilities...

"... under the Constitution of the United States...

"... the Constitution of the State of Alabama...

"... and seeking to preserve and maintain the peace and dignity of this state...

"... and the individual freedoms of the citizens thereof...

"... do hereby denounce and forbid... "

Governor Wallace...

...I take it from that statement that you are going to stand in that door...

...and that you are not going to carry out the orders of this court...

...and that you will resist us from doing so.

- Is that correct? - I stand upon that statement.

The day in which Governor Wallace stood in the door was...

...a really hot Alabama summer day.

Going down before we got there...

...I had been interrupted and had a call from Bobby...

...who said the President wants you to make him look silly.

I said, "How do you do that?"

He said, "I don't know, but you figure it out. "

So I was nervous about that...

...and I was hot and irritated at the whole show...

...at the hundreds of newsmen and cameras.

All of this for something...

...that I thought was just plain wrong and silly.

A silly point that he was trying to make.

George Wallace was George Wallace.

He's seeking redemption now, I understand.

Sometimes I wonder...

...if he believed in all of those things he did himself...

...or if he was doing it because it was...

...expedient to do as a politician.

George Wallace, when he was an elected person in office...

...was very much like...

...a situation in a story I had in The Reader.

In The Reader, the horse...

...used to be a fire horse, and he was sold to a milk company.

When he was sold to the milk company...

...one day the milkman stopped at a house...

...and was going up to set a bottle of milk down...

...and the fire whistle blew.

When the whistle blew, the horse took off with the wagon...

...and broke all the milk.

George Wallace was that type of person.

As long as he was sitting down...

...talking to you one on one, nicest guy you ever want to sit down with.

But when the cameras came and got on him in the political arena...

...he turned into that fire horse and broke every bottle of milk on the truck.

Ed, come over here, just one minute.

Here's one of my best friends, right here.

My best friend, right here.

I wouldn't go anywhere without him. All over the world with me.

Would you stand for our opening hymn, Hymn 350...

...The Church is One Foundation.

One of the things you have to have...

...in a movement is a meeting place.

Rev. John Cross and the people of 16th Street Baptist Church...

...literally made their church the headquarters.

It was a movement church by logistics...

...as it was right across the street from Kelly Ingram Park...

...which was the gathering ground...

...and almost catecorner from the Gas & Motel...

...where the movement people headquartered.

It was very convenient, close to downtown.

You could gather in the 16th Street Church and march downtown from there.

I was 12 years old...

...when the marching began...

...when Dr. King was there...

...and Rev. Young and Rev. Bevel...

...and Rev. Abernathy.

First of all, I was very impressed by how articulate they were.

They'd walk into the audience and tell us:

"If you've got anything in your pocket, even a nail file, let's have it.

"We don't want anybody to think or be able to say...

"... we're here for any purpose other than what we're here for...

"... which is a serious march to try to regain our rights. "

You can't imagine how it really was.

There were some good days and there were some bad days.

- We've come a long way. - I remember the good days...

...because I used to love the freedom songs.

And my favorite was;

"All bound in jail

"Had nobody to go their bail

"Keep your eyes on the prize

"Hold on, my Lordy, hold on

"The only thing that we did wrong

"We stayed in the wilderness a day too long

"Keep your eyes on the prize

"Hold on, my Lordy, hold on

"Hold on

"Hold on

"Keep your eyes on the prize

"Hold on, my Lordy, hold on"

Negotiations are unproductive.

We have no alternative but to demonstrate.

In a meeting today, we discussed...

...all of these issues, and we all agree...

...that if the present negotiations...

...that are taking place...

...are not productive...

...we will have no alternative...

...but to call for the new demonstrations...

...here in Birmingham, Alabama.

The movement was failing.

Nobody was even asking questions at press conferences in Washington...

...about Birmingham...

...after two months of active demonstrations.

The first demonstrations we had were just a handfuI of people.

In fact, when Dr. King himself went to jail...

...only 55 people would go with him.

So, when young people today ask me;

"When are we going to be able to get together like you all were in the '60s?"

Nobody was together in the '60s.

It was a small group of dedicated people...

...who got it started.

Then the kids took it over.

In 1963...

...I was directing the movement in Mississippi.

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Greenwood.

Dr. King, Abernathy and Shuttlesworth and these guys...

...were trying to get adults, and they'd gotten about as many adults...

...so he called me on the phone and asked me...

...would I come to Birmingham and help to organize the people...

...the young people.

So I went to Birmingham...

...to help organize the people...

...and involve the young people in the movement.

James Bevel, principally...

...and Andy Young and Dorothy Cotten, were given the task...

...to get the college students of Miles and another junior college there.

Bevel, sort of on his own, went down to Parker High School.

And the teachers told us they couldn't go and get in the movement.

They locked the gates. That was it.

They locked the gates, but the kids climbed them...

...and got in the movement.

When the high school kids got in, the junior high school kids...

It was like an avalanche. Then the little kids wanted to come.

We got word that the children wanted to march.

My thing was like, we have two colleges here.

We have Payne, we have Miles College...

...and you got all these 12 high schools.

All these young people are as big as their moms and dads...

...and they don't have to pay rent, house notes, car notes.

So if they were involved...

...by the thousands...

...then you'd have the whole African-American community involved.

I don't know of any precedent in history...

...for using children that young in a political campaign like this.

There was tremendous, ferocious opposition...

...to what they decided to do.

As one teacher said...

...she turned her back to write on the board and said;

"I hope when I turn around that everyone isn't gone. "

And she turned around, and they all were gone.

First day, I'll never forget at home...

...turning on the TV news...

...and there were children, high school kids...

...marching in lines of two.

And it just hit me.

"God," I said, "I've got to go, Mama!"

I could have been surprised if I had joined up with the SCLC group...

...civil rights group.

But they couldn't find me...

...as they didn't know I'd let my children...

...go out. I had eighth grade.

I had about five or six young boys...

...who every time they would have a march, they would go.

And I let them go.

Even little ones. You'd say, "Where have you been?

"I've been to jail.

"What did you go to jail for?

"See, I've been going to jail for freedom. "

It was one of the most...

...frightening experiences of my life.

It was very scary...

...and they put us in this place.

The place was with the inside bedrooms already taken...

...so we were on the floor for five days...

...right there on the floor, right in the hall.

They purposely put us in...

...with kids who were criminals...

...little boys who were real hard.

I was not real hard. I was definitely scared.

I want equal rights.

I want equal rights.

Just like everybody else.

I want my freedom just like everybody else.

I want to be treated just like everybody else is treated.

When we got out...

...and I saw my parents...

...all I wanted to do was hug them.

I'll never forget...

...they were both crying.

I'm trying to be like a man.

I've been in jail now for five days.

I'm wanting to cry, but I'm trying to be real hard.

You know, I've been there.

It was a badge of courage.

It was incredible, and they were so proud of me.

Denise came in one day, and she was saying...

...to my cousin, Helen and me...

...if she could go march.

We said, "No, you're too little. " She said, "You're not too little. "

I don't know how we conveniently got out of that...

...and didn't make ourselves look bad...

...which is what we felt internally.

Here's an infant saying...

...you can do something about a situation, and you refuse.

Kelly Ingram Park on May 3 was the turning point...

...in the Birmingham movement.

It was a hot day.

It was 90 plus and humid in Birmingham.

These firemen had been out there for four hours...

...waiting for something to happen that wasn't apparently going to happen.

And the crowd again had gathered, and somebody threw a brick.

The firemen, in their frustration...

...they turned that water cannon on.

It was absolute helter-skelter.

You know how you take blowers and blow leaves and things.

This is how folks were.

We were rolling past them, trying to grab anything.

The dogs were barking, biting...

...boys were clubbing...

The little kids on the inside, for the most part, were protected.

I don't know if anybody has ever even thought about the pressure...

...of one of those hoses.

You could just feel it sting.

It was like being whipped, with a whip or something.

It just sort of hit me in the face and went this way and took my hair out.

I have always been afraid of dogs.

To have the police department have dogs on us...

There were people being bitten by dogs as we were trying to run away...

...from the dogs...

...and the fire hoses.

Children were being washed down the street.

It caught me right on 17th Street...

...in front of a cafe called...

...Zanzibar.

That's when it knocked me down.

There was so much hate here then.

They said, "Get this lady to a hospital."

I said, "No. I'm afraid to go to the hospital."

I didn't know where they'd take me...

...so I just suffered the consequences.

Yes, I will say this, I'm going to be frank and tell you the truth.

With the hose and the dogs and the folks...

...I was really afraid.

But I respected what they were marching for...

...so I didn't march.

I was in Princeton, New Jersey, when...

...the fire hoses and the marches in Kelly Ingram Park...

...and near the church, were held.

They were on the front page of the New York Times.

I recall having to explain to my professors...

...and to my friends...

...every single day that...

...all of Birmingham hadn't erupted in violence.

And in fact...

...it was awfully hard to explain how...

...I didn't think the fire hoses were the worst thing that could've happened...

...certainly compared to firearms...

...certainly compared to killing and beating.

It was devastating...

...because it was just so ugly...

...the way they were doing young people.

To think a grown man would sit up and put a fire hose on a child.

It was awfuI, and I really didn't like it.

As an individual there was nothing I could do but pray, and I did a lot of that.

I think about the people who went through all that...

...back in those days.

We did not give them credit for doing it...

...because they fought my battle.

I should have been out there.

...and particularly in the year 1963 when this took place...

...had become the focal point of the struggle and the South.

It had been sort of a violent year.

In June, Medgar Evers had been killed.

But it was also a year of ecstasy and triumph.

On August 28...

...a quarter of a million people assembled in Washington D.C.

And those of us in the movement...

...were almost as surprised as we were delighted...

...to see this magnificent thing happen.

We felt, at the march...

...that at last we had the attention of America...

...the Congress, the President, and the world.

I was angry with Chris...

...during that time...

...because he'd done something that I didn't think was kosher.

I'm walking around glaring at him, both of them...

...because seemingly in my mind...

...they were, you know, infringing on me.

My wife, I think, had eaten.

When I came home, evidently, she didn't have what I wanted to eat.

I decided I wanted a broiled chicken.

So I proceeded to get a chicken, cut up a chicken...

Denise came up there, where I was.

She jumped up on the kitchen counter.

Her mother came in the kitchen and looked at her...

...and she looked at me...

...and I didn't tell her to get off the counter.

"Daddy didn't tell me to move, 'bye to you. "

I just thought that sitting on the counter...

...in the kitchen, where you're going to put food...

No. That's a no-no.

So I let her sit up there.

I finished cutting up the chicken, cleaned it, seasoned it...

...proceeded to broil it, did broil it.

Then we ate the chicken, had a good time.

To me...

...and I've often referred to it with my wife in that tone...

...it was like the Last Supper...

...as I imagine it would've been with Christ and his disciples...

...and I'm serious about this.

Two weeks before the church was bombed...

...my mother was in the kitchen.

We were getting ready for church and all those things.

She was standing there at the sink.

Then she turned around and said to Ray, my oldest brother:

"I know you've been going out there leading those demonstrations...

"... leaving school and going down to Birmingham.

"I know you've been doing that. "

He didn't admit it, but he wouldn't deny it.

She said, "Mama just wants to ask you this:

"Don't go back into 16th Street Baptist Church.

"God has shown me something terrible is going to happen there. "

I dreamed, seemingly out of a clear blue sky...

...that there was going to be something...

...terrible happening at 16th Street...

...and I saw a lot of blood.

I mentioned it at the breakfast table.

It was on a Saturday morning.

I said, "Please, I don't want any of you... "

I said, "Ray, I don't want you...

"... nowhere near 16th Street Baptist Church. "

Ray went, "Ma!"

Dad said, "Esther, don't tell the children superstitious stuff like that. "

And she said, "No, God has shown me. I dreamed it last night.

"It was just blood coming all out of that church.

"Blood just pouring out of the church.

"I don't want any of my blood spilt. "

We were all looking like...

And then...

...I guess, since Ray didn't respond as we normally respond...

...when Mama demands something...

We weren't from a family...

...where your parents ask you to do something, they told you...

He didn't respond...

...and next thing, she just fell on her knees.

And I started crying...

...because it seemed so real to me in the dream.

When this happened I think we all thought about it.

That Sunday was so dramatic, traumatic, rather...

...until it's almost hard to talk about it.

We were at our various homes...

...getting ready for church.

This was the beginning...

...of a monthly youth day service.

The children were real excited to have this opportunity to...

...take part in the leadership of the church that day.

When Addie and Sarah and I started to walk to church...

It usually takes about...

...maybe 15 or 20 minutes to get to church...

That particular Sunday it took a little bit longer, because...

...we played a game with my purse.

Like I said, it was shaped like a football.

It was just a regular Sunday morning.

Light breakfast and she left.

She always went by my parents on Sunday morning.

That particular Sunday...

...I was supposed to go to Sunday school with Carole.

I was running a little late...

...and I didn't get an opportunity to go.

We had the best time.

We were laughing so hard and playing so hard...

...we just did it all the way to church, just throwing it back and forth.

When we got to church, I went down in the basement with them.

I didn't want to go up because we had to get ourselves fixed up...

...because we played and messed ourselves up.

We'd been out to my sister's house the night before...

...the afternoon before...

...and we didn't get to church...

...exactly on time to hear all of what the preliminaries were...

...for the Sunday school.

She had this pretty white dress.

She had new black shoes...

...her first little heels, they were...

...not high heels but the first heels she had worn.

I remember telling them:

"Make sure when you get through fixing your hair, you go upstairs...

"... because we're already late and we don't want to get any later. "

Thirty-three years ago today...

...I left home, coming to Sunday school...

...to this, my church, 16th Street.

I had just walked up the steps...

...and walked out into the sanctuary.

The phone rang before I walked out into the sanctuary.

This was the second phone call I had taken that morning.

The caller on the other end said, "Three minutes. "

Being 14 years old, I had no idea that it meant anything.

When I walked into the church, it was like, wow!

The first thing I said was:

"It looks strange in here. "

The feeling that I felt.

I even noticed it. It was like...

I've never felt this in this church before. It was a different feeling.

I was one of the Sunday school teachers.

My class was downstairs in the basement...

...near where the bombing took place.

I think I was the last person in the family to see Denise that morning.

I went on upstairs to my class...

...in the choir loft, and she went downstairs in the basement.

Denise came to my room...

...and I said, "What are you doing in here?"

She said, "I came to borrow your comb, your compact and a quarter. "

I said, "Don't you have any of that?

"No. " Her mother wouldn't give it to her.

So she borrowed my comb, my compact and a quarter.

The next thing I heard was this loud blast...

...and my first words were, "My baby, my baby. "

It was just a loud noise and the building shook, and I just remember...

...something hitting me in my head, a piece of the light fixture...

...and just screams...

I just remember seeing black soot everywhere.

My first reaction was I thought Russia had sent a sputnik bomb.

I remember reading the paper at that time, about Russia...

...and about bombs and things like that.

I didn't think they'd bomb that church.

When I heard the noise from my church...

...it sounded a little like thunder, it was an overcast day, but...

I turned to my brother and said: "Was that thunder?" He said, "No. "

My husband had carried...

...Carole to Sunday school and I was dressing for church when I heard the bomb.

I think I was in the bathroom putting on make-up.

My parents and I, my sisters and brothers...

...we were all sitting down at the table eating breakfast.

The whole house shook.

Birmingham was always known for foundries and blasting and things like this.

When you hear it, sometimes you think...

...that it's one of the foundries blasting coal, iron or whatever.

We didn't want to think the worst.

Somehow or another somebody had told our pastor...

...that 16th Street had been bombed.

We got the children together and told them to hold hands.

We went outside, and when we got outside...

...all we could see were policemen.

When we got on the outside...

...going down the steps, it was like, I ran into Junie.

And when I ran into Junie...

...we were walking back and forth and finally it struck us that...

...we didn't see Addie and Sarah.

You can imagine just how terrible it was for everybody.

People were digging in the ashes, among the rubble...

...trying to find their loved ones.

In a few minutes my wife's cousin...

...the one we call Mama Helen who lives up the street there...

...she came by in her car and she said:

"Come on, go with me. We can't find Denise. "

I looked everywhere.

All over the church, upstairs, downstairs and everywhere.

And I couldn't find my children.

I immediately reached down and pulled...

...one of the large concrete blocks away.

And there was one of the girls' head...

...I had discovered.

God, when I found out that my classmate...

...Cynthia, was one of them, the first thought was...

...that I saw her as we were leaving school...

...that Friday, and we said to each other:

"See you Monday. "

She said something, I don't remember, but something to make me laugh.

We said, just rushing, "See you Monday. "

But I remember so vividly looking into her eyes.

When did you find out that Carole had been in the blast?

When my husband and my mother and all came in to tell me.

Oh, boy.

It was just... It was awfuI.

They told me, let's see...

My husband told me first, because he got here first.

He was upset.

He was the kind of gentleman...

...he was kind, nice.

I guess, he just didn't believe anybody would do anything like that.

He died not realizing that people do things like that.

Someone came and told me that...

Miss...

Mrs. Arnold carried me to the hospital so I could see her.

When we got to University Hospital and started searching, we ran upon...

...another one of my wife's cousins.

His name is Cleveland and we called him Brother Cleveland.

At any rate, he helped us search around and we found...

...the room that they were using as a morgue.

In there were all four of the girls Iying up there.

Then there was Denise among them with...

...this piece of concrete...

...mortar-like rock, embedded in her head.

When I got there...

...my cousin, Henry, was there.

He was very angry.

He was using words that let you know he was angry, too.

And the lady wanted to know who I was.

I told her that I heard that my daughter...

...Denise McNair, had been killed.

She said, "You're Maxine. " I got so angry with her!

How dare she call me Maxine? She wasn't a friend of mine.

She didn't know me from Adam.

And here she's going to take the liberty of calling me by my name.

I said, "I'm Mrs. Chris McNair.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," was her comment.

But it was too late, she'd done it. That old mentality:

"You're nothing and I'm something," came out.

She went in and then she let me go in and see her.

She said, "But your husband has already identified her. "

But that was my privilege to...

...identify my child, to me.

I didn't think anybody should take it away from me...

...and I'm sure I said as much, because by that time, I was kind of ticked off.

Okay...

...they carried me on to my mother's house.

When I got in there, I couldn't stop hollering.

I couldn't stop screaming.

I can just see myself, sitting in the chair, just...

...being so upset...

...in a place that I wanted to rub and I couldn't rub it.

I later found out that I was the only parent that was...

...at church that day.

I'm quite sure that my parents...

...they identified a body but...

...all I heard was that my sister, Junie...

...had identified the body.

Because it had somewhat of an affect left upon her.

It had a really kind of a nervous-like, you know.

It really affected her.

It was just a devastating...

...experience.

I...

...experienced a lot of panic attacks, too.

Once upon a time I was...

...real afraid of being on the...

...outside, as well as the inside.

Of what?

Of anywhere. Because the bombing happened in a church where...

...you normally would feel safe, or you'd think you were safe.

And of all places, you know, a church.

That Sunday...

...when the little girls were killed, in the church...

...my former husband and I, Jim Bevel...

...were in Edenton, North Carolina.

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference was carrying out a...

...voter registration project.

I was scheduled to preach that Sunday morning.

When the church blew up, we heard about it before I got to church.

And we felt that...

...in order to respect ourselves...

...as an adult man and woman...

...we could not let little girls be killed.

It was like somebody was hitting me with hot steel.

And I felt personally insulted, because it was like...

They knew these children was using that church...

...and they really felt insulted because the children have defeated them, right?

They're coming back on the children to say: "We will teach you a lesson. "

My point is, "No, we will teach you a lesson. "

We felt that there were two things that we could do.

The first option is that we...

...felt confident that we could find out...

...who was responsible for having killed those girls...

...and we could make certain that they got killed.

That was option one.

I said:

"I'm going to have to get out of the movement and kill these guys.

"We are not going to let guys...

"... come in here, blow up our churches and kill our children.

"We're not going to do it. "

The second option was...

...that if blacks in Alabama got the right to vote...

...they could protect their children.

That's where...

...this bombing of the church...

...is where the Selma Right to Vote movement was born.

I remember that Sunday very clearly.

I'm not sure where I went to church.

As I think about it now I probably took that Sunday off.

But I know I got an urgent call from Dr. King.

He told me they'd bombed the 16th Street Church...

...and four little girls were dead. We had to go to Birmingham right away.

I don't know where we met, but we had a great deal of conversation about it.

Dr. King said, he began to bemoan the fact, "They're going to blame me. "

He was supersensitive about things like this.

He said, "People will say, if we'd never come to Birmingham...

"We got to go. I dread going, but we've got to go. "

We got ourselves together and went over to see the families and whatnot.

Dr. King came by the parsonage where I was living...

...the early part of that evening...

...and talked with me about the funeral arrangements. I told him...

...that we tried to get a mass funeral but...

...there was one family that wanted to hold out.

I tell you, we got up Monday morning...

...and started making plans.

Planned everything because...

...we had no idea they were planning a joint funeral until...

...late Monday evening when...

...King and Cross...

...Abernathy, Gardner, Smith...

...there were seven of them...

...Shuttlesworth, that came out.

Dr. King talked as he...

...tried to persuade her to change her mind.

She said, "I told Rev. Cross...

"... what my intentions are and that's what I want to do. "

So...

...he had prayer with her...

...and then we left.

I don't know what we would've done if we'd known early on Monday...

...that they were planning a mass funeral.

I don't know what the decision would have been, then.

But...

...we went about the business during that Monday and we just let it stay.

We went downtown and we picked out...

Her favorite color was yellow.

So we went to Parisian's...

...and we got her a yellow dress.

And the lady knew me because I had been shopping there before.

Then she was saying how sorry she was, and...

...she sold me the dress...

...and the socks and whatever else I bought that day.

We carried it on over to the funeral home...

...and put it on her.

The man told me that they weren't going to be able to do a good job...

...with fixing her up because...

...the brick that we found, that we have...

...was embedded in her head and it had...

...done something to her skin on this side.

He said, "But we will make it...

"We will make it look the very best that we can.

"We won't disappoint you. "

I had trust and faith in him because he was a friend of mine.

And sure enough, they pulled the hair...

...around and fixed her up, and she looked nice.

Carole's funeral was a very quiet funeral.

I mean, just a normal, sad funeral.

Whereas, the next day I mean, it was more spectacular...

...with the news and they were there from everywhere.

What I really remember most was when we got out of the car to the church...

...I remember looking up and there were cameras...

...and people in the trees.

The family could hardly get in the church.

Most kids didn't go to the funeral. School was going on...

But I remember specifically...

...I'd worn a shirt and tie that day.

And George Bell, my principal...

...the famous George Bell...

...as I was leaving, I got a note from my mother...

...came up to me and took his tie off.

He said, "Son, you want to wear dark ties to funerals. "

He said, "You're representing us. "

Then, inside the service...

...Dr. King spoke.

And we tried to not cry and listen...

...but there was not a dry eye in the house.

And...

...his speaking calmed us...

...and I think the crying helped.

I remember Martin Luther King when he was there.

But I can't remember everything that he said...

...because you are so hurt...

...you're seeing three caskets...

...around the front part of the church.

And you know your sister is in one of those caskets.

You can't really listen. The only thing you can do is feel...

...and there was just nothing but hurt that I felt.

And at some point he said something about life is hard...

...or life is as hard as steel.

Things you remember; The three coffins...

...this group of hundreds of black and white ministers...

...and others, famous people.

"But life is as hard as steel."

Not an exact quote, but that was the point. I'll never forget that.

The service was sad, but it wasn't morbid.

It was a tender moment, but at the same time, it was a sad moment.

Because the realization was...

...these little girls would never get a chance to realize life.

Because of some person's decision to make...

...them, maybe the victims, of why the movement should stop.

I remember coming down the steps at Addie's and Denise's funeral...

...and letting go of the casket.

I don't know, I just lost something.

This was one of my best friends in life...

...and I had never lost a best friend before.

And James Stewart grabbed me and held me, man...

...because I lost complete...

...faith in humanity and didn't know it.

I remember being very, very, uptight...

...and...

...just overwhelmed by something.

The next thing I knew, somebody was saying, "You passed out at the cemetery. "

"Dear Mr. and Mrs. McNair;

"Here in the midst of the Christmas season...

"... my thoughts have turned to you.

"This has been a difficult year for you...

"... the coming of Christmas when the family bonds are more closely knit...

"... makes the loss you have sustained even more painfuI.

"Yet, with the sad memories...

"... there are the memories of the good days...

"... when Denise was with you and your family.

"As you know, many of us are giving up our Christmas...

"... or severely limiting them as a memorial for the great sacrifices...

"... made this year in the freedom struggle.

"I know there is nothing that can compensate for the vacant place...

"... in your family circle.

"But we did want to share a part of our sacrifice, this year, with you.

"Perhaps, there is some small thing dear to your heart...

"... in which this gift can play a part.

"Sincerely yours, Martin Luther King, Jr. "

This was photographed, Mother's Day '62.

We were on our way to church, Sunday school...

...and he snapped this shot. She said, "Wait, Daddy...

"... I'm not ready, you're too fast. "

He snapped it anyway.

We were running late so he didn't do it over, that I recall.

These are some of her coloring books and...

...things that we found in a trunk...

...that were musty and old and tired looking.

She loved dolls and toys...

...and if she could make a...

...tacky little something, that I called tacky, that she didn't call tacky...

...doll clothes, piggy banks...

...jewelry...

...pocketbooks, things she did in school.

This was taken one Sunday in Tupelo, Mississippi, where we lived.

We had come home from church and she had gotten tired of staying...

...because we would go for Sunday school and it seemed like an all day thing.

And she went to sleep, and she was wrinkled.

Her daddy liked the little outfit she had on, so he said:

"I want a picture. " I said, "Let me press it.

"No, I want it just like it is. "

This was the strange brick that was...

...that penetrated her skull...

...that a friend of mine at the cemetery saved...

...and gave to my mother, and my mother some years later...

...gave to me.

When I was going to school...

...before, after she had died, when I was going to school...

...it was like, you know how you just...

...remember such a good time you used to have?

You know you'll have a good time...

...at home because you're going to get with your sister.

That was the type of relationship we had. I knew that when I got home...

...me and Addie was going to have us a good time playing.

I rushed home that evening from school...

...thinking that I was rushing home to get with Addie.

I had remembered that Addie was dead.

That thing hurt me. It hurt me so deep until...

It's not easy, because we had put so much of this behind us...

...and we don't remember.

We don't remember anymore, you know what I'm saying?

But you know how you felt.

You may not remember details or what...

...step by step, what I had to go through...

...but I do know it affected me...

...so bad.

I don't think the white community really understood...

...the depth of the problem and the depths of the hate...

...of the Klan and its friends in the South...

...in the North, too, for that matter...

...until that incredibly...

...mean-spirited, terrible crime...

...of blowing up kids in a Sunday school basement.

Up to that time, I think it was looked at primarily...

...as a...

...an interesting kind of a social development...

...that would come along somehow or other in the generations to come.

At that moment that bomb went off, and those four little girls were...

...blasted and buried in the debris of the church...

...America understood the real nature of the hate...

...that was preventing integration, particularly in the South...

...but also throughout America.

This was the awakening.

I think...

...that incident, as tragic as it was...

...convinced white America more deeply than anything else...

...why there had to be a Birmingham confrontation and why...

...there needed to be a Martin Luther King on the issue of race.

The bombing of the churches...

...in Birmingham, with the death of the little girls...

...was just an act of terrorism in my judgment, and those are the...

...many ways, as we know today, the hardest ones to resolve...

...and the cruelest, because they don't care who it is...

...that gets killed, as long as...

...there's some symbolism in what they're doing.

It just seemed pointless.

It wasn't going to stop the movement.

It just took the lives of four beautiful innocent little girls.

Four lovely children...

...today could have been Spellman graduates...

...Harvard graduates.

Could have been doing things in their community.

Could have been...

...wonderful doctors, lawyers.

Or just plain hard working people.

But human beings.

The bad news is four innocent babies were killed.

The good news is we were able to transform a crucifixion...

...into a resurrection.

New life, new hope, new energy and more determination.

120 years of history suddenly destroyed.

Five churches with black congregations have burned in Alabama this year.

This is one of dozens of southern black churches that burned.

Last week somebody torched this church...

President Clinton wants to know if the fires are racially motivated.

What's painful to me as we look at the story today...

...they're burning churches again.

More than anything that really bothered me...

...was when I found out how many churches had burned since 1994.

Over 22 churches in the South had burned down.

People kept saying it was not a conspiracy and things like that...

...but the thing that I believe is that it's a conspiracy of the mind.

Once you burn one down, other people are going to burn others down.

This was true...

...after the Civil War when the Ku Klux Klan was organized.

They, too, burned black churches. They had a symbol where they set...

...the cross of Jesus on fire.

They're still doing it, but the result will be the same.

We're going to rebuild those churches and make them big and stronger.

The message has to be clear.

You can burn them down, but not faster than we can build them up again.

Four young black girls were killed in the 1963 bombing...

...of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham.

It was one of many bombings near Birmingham...

...during the late '50s and early '60s, and it was never solved.

Last month a grand jury began a new investigation...

...and yesterday indicted two men.

One was Robert Chambliss of Birmingham, a former Ku Klux Klan member.

Chambliss, jailed last night, is being held without bond...

...on four counts of first degree murder.

I think Bob Chambliss was responsible...

...for more evil than any other...

...human being...

...in the history of this county, maybe this state.

I won't say he's the most evil man because I can't judge.

But he was responsible for more evil because he, by himself...

...was responsible for nearly all the bombings in Birmingham...

...during the '40s, '50s, '60s.

His nickname was Dynamite Bob and...

...instead of being scared or worried or concerned, he was proud of it.

He didn't think that the police would ever try him for anything.

He wore it like a badge of honor. Dynamite Bob.

I saw Chambliss standing on the corner...

...watching the excitement down at the 16th Street Baptist Church.

I remember saying to myself:

"He's the firebug that's come back to watch the fire. "

This is the court room where...

...Bob Chambliss was tried for...

...killing four little girls at the 16th Street Church bombing.

The court room is arranged exactly as it was at the trial.

Bob Chambliss sat here.

I sat here.

Assistant Attorney General John Young sat here...

...and the Attorney General of Alabama, Bill Baxley...

...sat there, during the prosecution.

Ever since the day it happened, like I said, I had...

...hoped that some day I could be a part of...

...solving or bringing the people that did that to justice.

In fact, this never has been mentioned before, but I got this record...

...shortly after that, Joan Baez, who was one of my favorites.

And she had a song called Birmingham Sunday.

And it mentioned four little girls and...

...almost every morning of my life...

...until I became Attorney General...

...I played that Joan Baez song of Birmingham Sunday.

In Birmingham, Alabama, the trial of Robert Chambliss...

...charged with the bombing of a black church in 1963...

...four young girls were killed.

The defense finished today and the case has gone to the jury.

In the FBI documents...

...that were submitted, from the Birmingham Field Office...

...in 1964 and 1965, to J. Edgar Hoover...

...four men were identified as...

...suspects by the FBI.

According to the FBI, they had informers...

...who said they'd gone to the church that night.

They were...

...Bob Chambliss, Tommy Blantin Jr...

...Bobby Frank Cherry and Herman Cash.

Of those four...

...Baxley indicted only Chambliss...

...because he felt he could make the strongest case there.

Still, by the time we got to trial we had evidence that we couldn't use.

We had people who wouldn't testify.

It was an iffy case to win.

I felt like we might ought to wait because I felt like there were people...

...that still might talk and I knew that if we went to trial and lost...

...and the case was marginal, then they'd never be solved.

I went to Chris McNair, who, as I said, was a friend of mine and...

...I told him that we'd gotten about as far as we could go.

And I said, "Chris, what would be your desire as one of the...

"... the victims, as the father of Denise?

"Would you want us to go ahead with an iffy case and run the risk of losing, or...

"... wait and hope somebody'll take it from here?"

Chris basically said if it wasn't done in my term of office...

...he didn't think it would ever get done.

Chris did one of the bravest things that I've ever seen...

...anyone do, which was, he went on the witness stand...

...and they brought him...

...the post-mortem photographs of Denise.

And...

...because they wanted the jury to see the loss of a parent...

It's one of the most riveting moments...

...I've ever witnessed in a court room, or anywhere...

...when the prosecutor presented...

...those photographs to Chris and...

...he didn't speak at first...

...held out to him and he...

...went back in his chair as if he'd been hit...

...a blow in the chest with a heavy mallet.

With great calmness he said, "That is my daughter...

"... that is Denise McNair. "

I think the big break came when...

...Chambliss' niece decided to talk.

I'll never forget, I was sitting right behind Art Haines Jr., Art Haines Sr...

...and Chambliss is between them.

The old man looks over his shoulder and sees this woman walking in...

...and he turns and his attorneys lean over to him...

...and ask him, "Who is that?"

And it's clear they're totally unprepared for this witness.

This small woman with a cross, she was a Methodist minister...

...she walked up on that stand and she put that man in prison that day.

The gist of her testimony was this...

...that...

...in the days leading up to that bombing...

...she opened a door in the back of his house...

...and walked in and saw dynamite and he berated her fiercely...

...for doing that.

And then...

...they were talking about the events in Birmingham and he was enraged...

...because he had read...

...in the paper, I think, about a black woman...

...or a white woman being assaulted by a black man on a bus or something...

...I've forgotten the details. This twisted him into a rage as she told it.

And he said, "Wait until Sunday and they'll beg us...

"... to segregate again. "

The night before...

...we finished arguing the case to the jury.

I started the arguments after lunch...

...and I got back from lunch...

...and one of my assistants, John Young...

...called me up there, I was trying to get my thoughts collected for the argument.

I didn't want to be bothered. He said, "Look at this. "

One of the exhibits was the death certificate for Denise McNair.

He says, "Look at this. " That day...

...was Denise's birthday.

In my final argument, I closed by...

...telling him that by some accident of fate...

...that this day was Denise's birthday.

Then I went in that had it not been for this act that...

...there'd probably be a party over at the McNair's house...

...maybe with some little grandchildren and that bit.

I closed by saying, "Give Denise...

"... a birthday present, bring her killer to justice. "

It wasn't too long, the next morning, after the jury came back...

...and I was on the phone when the jury came in...

...and I heard the verdict of guilty.

I just said a prayer of thanksgiving.

Chambliss was...

...the most pathological racist I have ever encountered.

He was a chilling character. I visited him twice in prison.

He named to me four other people...

...that he said had planted the bomb.

They were people I knew by name to be associated with the Klan.

He began to spring a long narrative.

Spin a long narrative about these people.

And he described how these people by his allegation...

...had gone to a place on 3rd Avenue West...

...and phoned in a phony bomb tip to pull the police away.

Then he described the route they'd driven to plant the bomb at the church.

He described how they'd driven over by Birmingham Southern College...

...and Arcadelphia Road and Findlay Avenue to escape.

I realized that as he was telling this...

...he was telling me how they planted the bomb that night.

This is my favorite photograph of Denise of all the many pictures I have of her.

And, well...

...I would say it's my favorite because I think it's a good photograph.

I made it with her little Brownie camera.

And she was sitting in the bed playing with her doll...

...and said, "Make a picture of me, Daddy. " And I said, "With this camera?"

"With my camera. " I did it, and it was a flashbulb.

So, the distance that I was from her...

...really was too close.

But I made the picture because I wanted to fill the frame up pretty good.

When the film was developed...

...I saw that the negative was way overexposed...

...and I never worried about it anymore until after she died.

And I went back through the negatives and I saw it again and I reduced it.

And then I made a print of it and I realized what a jewel I had.

It wasn't God that brought the bombing on.

A lot of people would think, well...

...God did this and God did that.

Just like it's a god of good, we have a god of evil too.

It's no part of God, you know.

When we realize that God has our best interests and he has a plan...

...for each one of us, a plan that's good and not for evil...

...then we can begin to come and receive healing.

A friend of mine who's a pastor said:

"God has a will for everything, Maxine.

"You just have to go with it and you can't ask him why.

"Because he has a divine plan and you know that.

"So don't ask.

"Just, go on and do what you know is right to do. "

I worked hard not to feel...

...anger and hatred.

But...

...I did.

I just had to work on it.

And I had to kind of...

...keep my spirits up...

...so that I could...

...help my husband to keep his up.

And you know, the other folk around me.

And we had...

...good friends and family...

...who gave us a lot of support.

And I just had to work with it and pray.

Did it take a number of years for that to happen, for you to arrive at that?

Yes, gradually it came about because...

...the hating of people wasn't going to do me any good.

It would hurt me worse than it would them.

I think I conquered it.

Every now and then it still comes out, though.

Not hatred, but anger.

How does it come out?

I don't know, different ways.

That's a tricky question.

I'm not trying to be Mike Wallace, now.

- Or Ed Bradley? - Or Ed Bradley. I just want to...

I guess it's a question...

...that deserves an answer, I guess.

You're asking me how does it come out?

Sometimes it comes out in ways that I'm not even conscious of.

You know, you're thinking about something and...

...having the wrong thoughts and something comes up...

...and anger expresses itself.

But I've tried to just put all of that behind me and go on and live.

Because in addition to that, so many other things have happened.

My husband is gone, my three brothers, my sister...

...my parents.

And of course, I still have my kids, my family.

I have two. A son and a daughter.

Three grandchildren...

...and four great grandchildren.

So, I have something to be thankful for after all.