Last month, we had celebrations of the the 1963 March on Washington and the “I Have a Dream Speech” by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (see our post The Social Justice Roots of the 1963 March on Washington).
As we remember this high point of the Civil Rights movement, today we should take a somber moment to remember a low point, the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. This was a reliation against the Civil Rights movement that resulted in the deaths of four girls on a Sunday at a Birmingham church. The brutality of this event pushed the nation to action and helped increase momentum toward the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Here’s a short video summarizing the event.
Klan Bombing of Birmingham Church 1963