A bombing in Birmingham
September 15, 2023
Today is the monthly fast for peace, and like others around the country and the world, I’m giving up food. Sixty years ago today in Birmingham, Alabama, four girls gave up their lives… and that’s the story I’d like to tell in this post.
Although it had been nearly a decade since the Supreme Court had ruled that school segregation was unconstitutional, in 1963 Alabama was still resisting integration. (I find it more sad than ironic that in 2023, the state is once again refusing to abide by a Supreme Court order to treat Blacks equitably.)
In the spring, Birmingham had attracked national attention as Martin Luther King Jr. and others led a struggle for civil rights. King was arrested in April for protesting in violation of a court injunction, and held on $160,000 bail, which even today seems like an obscene amount for a protester. The time behind bars gave him the oppertunity to pen his famous Letter from Birmingham Jail.
The city had earned the nickname ‘Bombingham,’ from the frequent use of explosives as weapons of terror against Blacks. In September, after the school system was forcibly integrated, three bombs were set off in an 11-day span, the last of which was on Sunday, September 15 at the 16th Street Baptist Church. Some 200 people were inside the building. When the rubble was cleared, the bodies of four girls ranging in age from 11 to 14 were found.
Three days later, King delivered a eulogy before a crowd of 8,000 mourners, which I’d like to share an excert from:
…they died nobly. They are the martyred heroines of a holy crusade for freedom and human dignity. And so this afternoon in a real sense they have something to say to each of us in their death.
They have something to say to every minister of the gospel who has remained silent behind the safe security of stained-glass windows.
They have something to say to every politician who has fed his constituents with the stale bread of hatred and the spoiled meat of racism….
They have something to say to every [person] … who has stood on the sidelines in a mighty struggle for justice.
They say to each of us, black and white alike, that we must substitute courage for caution.
They say to us that we must be concerned not merely about who murdered them, but about the system, the way of life, the philosophy which produced the murderers.
Their death says to us that we must work passionately and unrelentingly for the realization of the American dream.
Sixty years later, America still has many systemic problems, many stemming from the triple evils of poverty, racism, and miltarism that King identified.
The work must go on, passionately and unrelentingly. The fast for peace, a concept King defined as the prescence of justice, is a call for cooperation. Together, we will prevail.
Can you think of a time you substituted courage for caution?