While the World Watched

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While the World Watched: A Birmingham Bombing Survivor Comes of Age during the Civil Rights Movement

Copyright © 2011 by Carolyn McKinstry. All rights reserved.

Cover photograph of author and interior photograph of author in church by Stephen Vosloo copyright © Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.

Cover and interior photograph of Birmingham street used with the permission of the Birmingham, Alabama, Public Library Archives, Cat. #85.1.9.

Cover and interior photographs of four girls; caskets; mourners on street; grieving mother; civil rights leaders; Justice Department demonstration; policemen outside church; and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. copyright © AP Images. All rights reserved.

Photograph of demonstrators being hosed copyright © Charles Moore/Black Star. All rights reserved.

Photograph of police dogs attacking young man copyright © Bill Hudson/AP Images. All rights reserved.

All other photographs are from the personal collection of the author and used with permission.

Background texture pattern copyright © Morgan Lane Photography/Shutterstock. All rights reserved.

The following speech excerpts are reprinted by arrangement with The Heirs to the Estate of Martin Luther King Jr., c/o Writers House as agent for the proprietor New York, NY:

“Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” copyright 1963 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; copyright renewed 1991 Coretta Scott King

“Where Do We Go from Here?” copyright 1967 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; copyright renewed 1995 Coretta Scott King

“I Have a Dream,” copyright 1963 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; copyright renewed 1991 Coretta Scott King

“I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” copyright 1968 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; copyright renewed 1996 Coretta Scott King

“Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech,” copyright 1964 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; copyright renewed 1992 Coretta Scott King

Funeral speech for the slain girls, copyright 1963 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; copyright renewed 1991 Coretta Scott King

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Edited by Stephanie Voiland

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All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible,
New International Version
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Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.
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Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the
Holy Bible
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Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

McKinstry, Carolyn Maull, date.

While the world watched : a Birmingham bombing survivor comes of age during the civil rights

movement / Carolyn Maull McKinstry with Denise George.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-1-4143-3636-7 (hc)

1.  McKinstry, Carolyn Maull, date. 2. 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing, Birmingham, Ala., 1963.

3. Civil rights movements—Alabama—Birmingham—History—20th century. 4. African Americans—Alabama—Birmingham—Biography. 5. Birmingham (Ala.)—Social conditions. 6. Birmingham (Ala.)—Biography. I. George, Denise. II. Title.

F334.B653M356 2011

976.1'781063—dc22 2010047575

This book is dedicated to my grandparents, Reverend Ernest Walter and Lessie V. Burt, whose prayers sustained us and whose wisdom and love still live within me and my family;

my parents, Samuel and Ernestine Burt Maull, who gave us their absolute best and prepared us in such a loving way for the rough road that lay ahead;

my husband, Jerome McKinstry, whom God sent in the midst of all my pain and confusion and who still stands today as a cornerstone for me; and

my children—Leigh, Joya, and Brandon—who are the fruit and the joys of my life and who have made this struggle worth every day.

Finally and especially, this book is dedicated to the memory of my friends Addie Mae Collins, Carol Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, and Cynthia Wesley, killed September 15, 1963, when Sixteenth Street Baptist Church was bombed, and to the memory of Johnny Robinson and Virgil Ware, also killed September 15, 1963, who now laugh and walk with Addie, Denise, Carole, and Cynthia.

May they all rest in peace and in the knowledge that their story and their witness live on in the hearts of people of goodwill all over the world.

—C. M. M.

Introduction

Almost half a century has passed since the Klan bombed Sixteenth Street Baptist Church at 10:22 on Sunday morning, September 15, 1963, and my four young friends died agonizing deaths. And it’s been almost half a century since, as a young teen, I marched under the leadership of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and got a handful of hair torn from my scalp by Bull Connor’s powerful water hoses.

For twenty years after these experiences, I tried hard to forget the senseless deaths, the inhumane injustices, the vicious German shepherds, and children getting arrested right on the streets of downtown Birmingham. In fact, we were encouraged by our parents, other church members, and our black community to forget what had happened. For almost five decades, I had not been able to muster the courage, nor the composure, to publicly record the stories that have become such a dark part of our nation’s past. I had struggled to forget these stories, to rid them from my head and heart. They proved too horrible, too painful, to dredge up to memory. But now, as I see new generations coming and old generations passing, I feel compelled to remember, to write down in permanent ink my eyewitness account of just what happened while the world watched . . . lest
I
forget. Lest
we all
forget.

I hope this story will challenge you to reexamine your life; your daily living; your values; and your relationship with God, our Creator. As you consider the events on these pages, may you choose to love, and may you commit yourself to live a life of reconciliation—first with God and then ultimately with those who share this world with you.

Carolyn Maull McKinstry

Spring 2011

The Civil Rights Movement . . . Through the Eyes of Carolyn Maull McKinstry

1948

January 13, 1948:
Carolyn Maull is born in Clanton, Alabama.

1954

May 17, 1954:
Supreme Court bans segregation in schools in the
Brown v. Board of Education
decision.

1955

August 28, 1955:
Fourteen-year-old Emmett Till is kidnapped and
murdered in Mississippi.

December 1, 1955:
Rosa Parks is arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white in Montgomery, Alabama.

December 5, 1955:
Montgomery bus boycott begins.

1956

November 13, 1956:
Supreme Court affirms ban on segregated seating on Alabama buses.

December 25, 1956:
Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth’s house in Birmingham is bombed.

1957

September 2, 1957:
Klan members kidnap and castrate Edward Aaron in Birmingham.

September 24, 1957:
The “Little Rock Nine” enter Central High under the protection of the United States Army’s 101st Airborne Division.

1961

1961:
Freedom Rides begin from Washington, D.C., into Southern states.

January 20, 1961:
John F. Kennedy is inaugurated as president of the United States.

1962

February 26, 1962:
The Supreme Court rules that segregation is unconstitutional in all transportation facilities.

1963

January 14, 1963:
Newly elected Alabama governor George C. Wallace takes the oath of office.

April 12, 1963:
Dr. King is arrested and locked up in a Birmingham jail.

May 2–3, 1963:
Children’s marches in downtown Birmingham are broken up by police with attack dogs and fire hoses.

June 11, 1963:
Alabama governor George Wallace stands in the doorway of University of Alabama to try to keep Vivian Malone and James Hood from enrolling.

June 12, 1963:
Klan member kills Mississippi Civil Rights leader Medgar Evers.

August 28, 1963:
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. leads march on Washington, D.C., with more than 250,000 people in attendance.

September 15, 1963:
A bomb planted at Sixteenth Street Baptist Church explodes and kills four girls.

September 15, 1963:
Virgil Ware, 13, is killed in Birmingham by two white youth; Johnny Robinson, 16, is killed by police in Birmingham.

September 30, 1963:
Police arrest Robert Chambliss, Charles Cagle, and John W. Hall in conjunction with the Sixteenth Street Church bombing; they are released after each paying a $100 fine.

November 22, 1963:
President John F. Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas, Texas.

1964

July 2, 1964:
President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

October 14, 1964:
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for advocating a policy of nonviolence.

1965

February 21, 1965:
Malcolm X is assassinated.

March 25, 1965:
Martin Luther King Jr. leads thousands of nonviolent crusaders to the completion of a 54-mile pilgrimage from Selma to Montgomery.

August 6, 1965:
President Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act outlawing literacy tests for voting eligibility in the South.

1967

October 2, 1967:
Thurgood Marshall is sworn in as the first black Supreme Court justice.

1968

February 1968:
FBI closes its investigation of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing without filing charges.

April 3, 1968:
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech in Memphis, Tennessee.

April 4, 1968:
Dr. King is assassinated in Memphis.

June 5, 1968:
Robert F. Kennedy is shot in Los Angeles, California, and dies 26 hours later.

1971

1971:
Alabama attorney general Bill Baxley reopens 1963 church-bombing investigation.

1977

November 18, 1977:
Robert Chambliss is found guilty for the murder of Denise McNair and sentenced to life in prison.

1985

October 29, 1985:
“Dynamite Bob” Chambliss dies in prison.

1988

1988:
Alabama attorney general Don Siegelman reopens the church-bombing case again.

1989

1989:
Army general Colin Powell becomes the first black to serve as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

1989:
L. Douglas Wilder (Virginia) becomes the first black elected governor.

1993:

1993:
Birmingham-area black leaders meet with FBI about the church bombing, and agents secretly begin new review of the case.

1994:

February 7, 1994:
Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing suspect Herman Frank Cash dies.

1998:

October 27, 1998:
Federal grand jury in Alabama begins hearing evidence regarding church-bombing case.

2001:

April 15, 2001:
Thomas Blanton Jr. goes on trial for the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing.

May 1, 2001:
The court finds Blanton, 62, guilty on four counts of first-degree murder.

2002:

May 6, 2002:
Carolyn testifies in court during Bobby Cherry’s trial.

May 22, 2002:
The court finds Cherry, 71, guilty on four counts of murder and sentences him to life in prison.

2004:

November 18, 2004:
Bobby Frank Cherry, 74, dies in prison from cancer.

2007:

Spring 2007:
Carolyn and Dr. Neal Berte raise $4 million for the
Sixteenth Street Baptist Church restoration.

2008:

November 2008:
Barack Obama is elected first African-American president of the United States.

2013:

September 15, 2013:
The Sixteenth Street Baptist Church will commemorate
the 50th anniversary of the bombing.