Birmingham Sunday September 15, 1963

The four girls killed in the bombing (Clockwise from top left,
Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley,
Carole Robertson and Denise McNair)

In Birmingham, Alabama, a senseless, racially motivated  attack occured on September 15, 1963. Members of the Ku Klux Klan dynamited the basement of Birmingham's Sixteenth Street Baptist Church during Sunday School and 4 little girls lost their lives, Addie Mae Collins (age 14), Denise McNair (age 11), Carole Robertson (age 14), and Cynthia Wesley (age 14) died and 22 other people were injured on that fateful Sunday.


While it's important to remember these terroristic acts of bigotry and cowardice it is even more important to remember that the children of Birmingham were not simply victims. The children of Birmingham, in the face of grave personal peril, courageously played a vital role in the acquisition of their civil rights. They left a legacy, which must be acknowledged and continued in order for their acts to not have been done in vain.
Web Prospector


Birmingham’s Child Heroes      
By Steve Theunissen
(excerpt)
"And so it was that on May 2nd, more than one thousand Black students skipped school and congregated at the 16th Street Baptist church ready to march downtown. Police Chief Eugene “Bull” Connor marshaled his forces against them. Coming out of the church in waves of 50, the students were arrested and carted off in police vans. Soon, however, there were no vans left and the police had to recruit school busses. Mahatma Gandhi’s non-violent goal of filling the jails was being realized.
The next day hundreds more children turned up at 16th Street Baptist, ready and willing to be carted off to jail."

see the complete article at 
http://blog.richmond.edu/heroes/2012/09/08/birminghams-child-heroes/