Brave church install#
Those who couldn't go inside the church gathered at Kelly Ingram Park to watch the service on an outdoor screen.Īfter the service, Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin signed an international friendship pact with the country of Wales.Īfter the bombing in 1963, the people of Wales collected monetary donations to create and install the 'Wales Window' inside the 16th Street Baptist Church to aid in reconstruction efforts. The Carlton Reese Memorial Unity Choir and Miles College Choir sang throughout the service.
Assistant Attorney General For the Civil Rights Division, Kristen Clarke, and the Minister for the Economy of Wales, Vaughan Gething. SEE ALSO: "5th Little Girl" shares story 60 years after 16th Street Baptist Church bombing SEE ALSO: Faith community to honor victims of 16th Street Baptist Church bombing on 60th anniversary
But, can we really say that we are not confronting those same evils now? We have to own even the darkest parts of our history, understand them, and vow never to repeat them." Yes, our past is filled with too much violence, too much hatred, and too much prejudice. "Learning about our country's history can be painful but history is also our best teacher. We must teach it to our children and preserve it for theirs," said Jackson. The work of our time is maintaining that hard-won freedom and to do that we are going to the need truth. Knowledge emboldens people and it frees them. They have seen that once acquired, it can be wielded and once wielded it is transformative. Oppressors of every stripe, from the slave master to the dictator, have recognized for centuries that knowledge is a powerful tool. "What is needed is for us to pay careful attention to what we know. She continued to speak about the sacrifices made, and the strides taken since then but had a warning moving forward. Jackson said she "felt in her spirit" that she had to come to Alabama for the anniversary. Tough stuff for a child but my parents never lied to me." I knew those girls were killed simply because they were Black and because at that time, Black people were rising up to demand equal rights. "I knew that four little girls not much older than myself were murdered at the 16th Street Baptist Church when a bomb ripped through the basement, awakening the nation and the world to the horrors of race-based violence and oppression. "As you well know, Alabama is ground zero when it comes to this kind of instruction," she said. In particular about its critical connection to the Civil Rights struggles of African Americans during the 1950s and 1960s," said Jackson. "I want to assure you that I actually do know a lot about Alabama. She pointed to Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman to hold the position, as another result of the ultimate sacrifice the girls and their families paid.ĭuring her comments, Justice Jackson admitted it was her first time in Alabama, but said she knew Alabama very well through her parents who were educators. Sewell added the deaths of the girls opened the doorway for a better future for herself and other Black Americans. Johnson as he signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965," said Representative Terri Sewell. It was their memory that burned in the mind of President Lyndon B. It was their memory that carried John Lewis and those brave foot soldiers, unarmed and unafraid, across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in my hometown of Selma, Alabama. Indeed, it was the senseless deaths that occurred right here in this church 60 years ago that awakened a slumbering consciousness of America and galvanized the Civil Rights Movement. "Though we can never bring back the lives lost, we can take comfort in knowing their loss was not in vain. Their deaths marked a turning point in the Civil Rights Movement. The names of the girls are ingrained in America's history-Denise McNair, Cynthia Morris Wesley, Addie Mae Collins, and Carole Robertson. The 16th Street Baptist Church was filled to capacity Friday morning for the 60th-anniversary service commemorating the racially motivated bombing that killed four Black girls.
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