(ThyBlackMan.com) Sunday morning September 15th started out as just another typical Sunday morning. People throughout the city of Birmingham, Alabama, like places across the US were either at Sunday morning service, traveling to service or preparing themselves to head to their place of worship.
As for 11-year old Carol Denise McNair, and 14-year-old Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Dionne Wesley and Carole Robertson they were already at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. They along with 200 members of the church had attended Sunday school classes prior to the start of the 11 am morning service.
It would be a similar scene in churches throughout the US. Sunday school classes followed by the main church service at 11 am. Attendees to the Sunday school classes would be grouped by age and a teacher would be assigned to lead a class in instruction about the Bible and tenets and practices of Christianity.
Sunday school classes had ended and Carol Denise McNair, Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Dionne Wesley and Carole Rosamond Robertson who were youth choir members were busy putting on their choir robes and preparing themselves for the morning church service. The youth choir would lead the church in song for one of the musical presentations at the 11 am service.
It was Youth Day at the church. There was an element of joy and excitement in the air.
Carol, Addie, Cynthia and Carole talked while putting on their robes. They prepared themselves for the morning service in the church basement ladies’ bathroom.
Like other typical girls, 11 and 14 years of age, they talked about their regular school teachers and classmates. Public schools had been in session just a few days in Birmingham after the summer recession.
The girls busied themselves discussing their new teachers, new and old classmates as well as the subjects they were taking. Eleven year old Denise had just started the 5th grade. Addie, Cynthia and Carole had just started junior high and were in the seventh grade. While talking Addie helped Carol tie her robe’s dress sash.
Typical girls their age, they talked about the latest fashion. What was in and what was now out of style.
They talked about shows on television. They talked about the latest movies in theaters.
They spoke about the latest songs that were topping the music pop record charts. They talked about what was happening in their lives at that time.
They also spoke about the future. Like girls typical their age they share their dreams, hopes and plans for the future. The future belonged to Carol, Addie, Cynthia and Carole.
It was a typical September Sunday morning in America. Then just like that it wasn’t.
At 10:22 am a massive explosion ripped through the church. The blast destroyed the church’s rear wall.
The explosion was so violent that it blew a passing motorist out of his automobile. It destroyed automobiles parked on the street outside the church.
Properties located more than two blocks from the church had their windows blown out. Bricks and mortar from the church was sprayed everywhere.
The blast caved in the church’s interior walls and destroyed all but one of the church’s stained glass windows. The only stained glass window left in tack depicted Jesus leading a group of children.
It demolished the basement ladies’ bathroom. The bathroom where Carol, Addie, Cynthia and Carole were preparing for the 11 am church service.
The explosion resulted in 22 injuries. The bodies of Carol, Addie, Cynthia and Carole were found beneath the rubble created by the blast.
Like a thief in the night, the explosion stole the future of Carol Denise McNair, Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Dionne Wesley and Carole Rosamond Robertson. They would not give their musical rendition later that day at the 11 am church service. There would be no church service.
Carol would not be given the chance to graduate from fifth grade to sixth grade. She would not be given the opportunity to eventually attend junior high with Addie, Cynthis and Carole.
Carol, Addie, Cynthia and Carole would not have the opportunity to attend their high school prom. To join with others in celebration upon their graduation from high school.
Years later, they would not have the opportunity to recollect exactly where they were when they learned that John F. Kennedy, the President of the US had been assassinated. Where they were and what they were doing when the news came over the radio and television that Malcolm X had been killed. That the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had been murder.
To reminisce where they were when they learned that Robert Kennedy had been shot. What they were doing when the planes went into the World Trade Center buildings on 9/11.
Carol, Addie, Cynthia and Carole would not get the chance to listen and dance to the Four Tops’ “Reach Out I’ll Be There”, “Baby I Need Your Loving”, “I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)”, “Still Waters Run Deep” and “It’s the Same Old Song”.
They would not get to hear the Temptations’ “Beauty is Only Skin Deep”, “My Girl” and “Ain’t too Proud to Beg”.
They would miss out on the opportunity to hear the Supreme sing “Where Did I Love Go”, “Stop! in the Name of Love”, and “Love is Like an Itching in My Heart”. They would not get to hear Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell duet “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” and “If This World Were Mine.”
Carol, Addie, Cynthia and Carole would not get the chance to watch The Beverly Hillbillies, I Dream of Jeannie, Bewitched, and The Flip Wilson Show.
They would be denied the opportunity to experience the anticipation, excitement and joy of opening college acceptance letters. Of attending college and graduating.
Denied the opportunity after graduation to embark on careers. Perhaps becoming teachers, college professors, lawyers, doctors, nurses, scientists, business owners, council members, state legislators, mayors and members of Congress. Carol, Addie, Cynthia and Carole would not be given that opportunity.
Carol was a friend and classmate of Condoleezza Rice. Condoleezza Rice went on to become the first female Black secretary of state and the first woman to serve as national security advisor.
Perhaps, Carol would have become an aide to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Then again, maybe Condoleezza Rice might have been an aide to Secretary of State Carol Denise McNair.
Carol, Addie, Cynthia and Carole were not given the opportunity to be bridesmaids in the weddings of family and friends. They would not be given the chance to date and marry becoming brides themselves.
They would not be given a chance to become pregnant and experience the wonder, magic and joy of motherhood. They would not have the opportunity to see their children attend kindergarten, graduate high school, college and have successful careers of their own.
To see their children have children making them grandmothers. Their children’s children make them great grandmothers.
Carol, Addie, Cynthia and Carole would not be there to take care of elderly parents and family. They would not be there to assist their grandparents and eventually their parents take their final breaths prior to transitioning to sit at the foot of Jesus.
They would not be there to celebrate the joy and comfort the sadness of other family members and friends during good times and tough times. Friends that they may have known from childhood, college or career. Carol, Addie, Cynthia and Carole would be denied all of that.
They would be denied being able to see Roots, Soul Train, Amen, 227, Laverne & Shirley, Love Boat, The Cosby Show, Dallas, Dynasty, Good Times, Hills Street Blues, Sanford and Son and The Jefferson. They would not get to see Martin, Law and Order, ER, In Living Color, The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, 60 Minutes, The Oprah Winfrey Show, Donnie Simpson’s Video Soul, Bobby Jones Gospel, BET Gospel and West Wing.
They would not get to watch The Wire, Sex in the City, Suits, House of Cards, Power, Game of Thrones, Greenleaf, Sistas and Queen Sugar. They would be denied the opportunity to see Shameless, Red Shoe Diaries, The Handmaid’s Tale, Harlem, Being Mary Jane, And Just LIke That, Godfather of Harlem, Bel Air and Run The World.
They would not hear Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On”, Luther Vandross with the group Change singing “The Glow of Love”, Stevie Wonder, Al Green, Isaac Hayes, Patti LaBellE, Michael and Janet Jackson, The Jackson Five, Sounds of Blackness, Beyonce and so much more, so much more.
They would not get a chance to experience the profound joy of seeing President-elect Barack Obama raise his hand and take the oath of office becoming the first Black President of the US. To see Kamala Harris become the first Black and woman to become Vice President of the US. Of seeing Venus, Serena and Coco. Joining with family and friends doing the Boogaloo, Robot, Worm, Cabbage Patch, Running Man, Harlem Shake and Electric Slide.
The opportunity to see and experience all of that and so much more was stolen from Carol Denise McNair, Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Dionne Wesley and Carole Rosamond Robertson.
The explosion that stole the future of Carol Denise McNair, Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Dionne Wesley and Carole Rosamond Robertson was the result of no less than 15 sticks of dynamite being placed beneath the stairs of one of the 16th Street Baptist Church’s entrances. Immediately, church members and others knew exactly what had happened.
The terrorist bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church was the third bombing in 11 days in Birmingham after a federal court order mandating the integration of Alabama’s school system. The church had been targeted because many of the civil rights protest marches that took place in the 1960s began at the steps of that church. It had long been a significant religious center for the city’s Black population and a routine meeting place for civil rights activities.
The horrific church bombing was viewed by many in the US and far more throughout the world as not just an attack on Black people but the very body of Jesus itself. Roughly 2000 years earlier while Jesus was on the cross a Roman soldier took a spear and thrusted into the body of Jesus. Now roughly two thousand years later no less than 15 sticks of dynamite had been used to attack the body of Jesus.
But why are we recalling this incident which happened so very long ago? Isn’t it time to move forward to stop looking back at the past. Isn’t it time to turn the page?
Are we too busy looking behind us that we are unable to see and enjoy today and tomorrow? Can we just forget about the past?
The answer is an explicit and emphatic “no.” Yesterday is so very much who and what we are today. The past is today and today is so much the past.
In so many ways we never left the past. The same attitudes and forces of bigotry, discrimination, intolerance, racism, hate and evil never vanished. They remain just as alive, just as ugly and vicious as that fateful September 15th Sunday morning.
Those who have such attitudes might not march around as cowards hiding behind and covering their heads and faces with soiled white sheets. Instead like cowards behind keyboards and keypads emitting their insanity, ignorance, racism and evilness.
Just as sadly and unfortunately, there remain so many people in the US who are unable or just refuse to see in the faces of Denise McNair, Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley and Carole Robertson their child, their grandchild or great grandchild. Their inability and/or refusal makes them just as indirectly compliant today as so many others had been on that September Sunday morning that they might as well had planted the dynamite under the stairs of the church themselves.
It is important for Black people to remember their history and teach their children and their children’s children their history. That the history is passed down from one generation to the next.
Such an act is not about seeking revenge or retribution. It is not about the continuation of hate, inhumanity and evil. But it is about making sure that such inhumanity and evil never ever happens again to them or anyone else.
If Carol Denise McNair who was born on November 17th had lived she would have been 70. Addie Mae Collins who was born April 18th, Cynthia Dionne Wesley who was born April 30th and Carole Rosamond Robertson who was born April 24th would be 74.
Carol Denise McNair, Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley and Carole Rosamond Robertson lived. Their lives, like all lives, were sacred. They were like all children, regardless of race, gender, country of birth, religion, creed, languages they speak, children of God.
To that end, we remember Carol Denise McNair, Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley and Carole Rosamond Robertson.
Staff Writer; Al Alatunji
Question? Comment? Regarding the above article. Feel free to send a message to this address: Alatunji@ThyBlackMan.com.