Stormi Nyx

On Sunday morning, September 15, 1963, it was Youth Day at Birmingham's 16th Street Baptist Church. In the basement, five girls were changing into choir robes, chatting about the first days of the new school year.

The church phone rang. “Three minutes,” a man told 15-year-old Carolyn Maull, and hung up. At 10:22, the bomb under the steps went off.

Four girls were killed: Addie Mae Collins, 14; Denise McNair, 11; Carole Robertson, 14; Cynthia Wesley, 14. The fifth, Addie's sister Sarah, 12, survived: blinded in one eye, 21 pieces of glass in her face.

Within seven hours, two more Black boys were shot dead: Johnny Robinson, 16, and Virgil Ware, 13. Six children, one Sunday.

Klansmen planted the bomb. One of them was convicted that October of possessing dynamite; the fine was $100. The murder convictions came 14, 38, and 39 years later. One suspect died in 1994, never charged.

The church stayed closed more than eight months, then reopened. In 1965, a window arrived from Wales: a Black Christ, arms outstretched, made by John Petts, installed over the front door.

The bomb went under the steps. The gift is over the door. The window still reads: “Given by The People of Wales.”

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