Sarah Collins Rudolph, 69, sole survivor of five 12-year-old girls in the basement of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, dynamited by Klansmen on Sunday, September 15, 1963, received a formal apology from the State of Alabama on Wednesday, September 30, 2020. Read story here.
Collins, who lost a sister and an eye in the blast, had 21 pieces of glass embedded in her face, and injuries to her chest and abdomen, “never received an apology, support, medical care, counseling or any kind of help or acknowledgment from the state for her injuries,” according to her lawyers.
The letter of apology, signed by Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey on behalf of the state, acknowledged the girls suffered “an egregious injustice” and the state was culpable for “racist, segregationist rhetoric used by some of our leaders during that time” which played an “undisputed role in encouraging its citizens to engage in racial violence.”
Isn’t that what Trump did when he called the Charlottesville Nazis “fine people,” and did again in last night’s debate when he told the Proud Boys to “stand by”? And if Trump’s words lead to violence against innocents, won’t those who support and vote for him be implicated?
Four men — Thomas Blanton Jr., Herman Cash, Robert Chambliss, and Bobby Frank Cherry, and possibly a fifth man, Gary Rowe — committed the bombing. With Blanton’s death on June 26, 2020 in prison, all are now dead. Then FBI director J. Edgar Hoover blocked federal prosecutions of the perpetrators and buried the FBI file. Years later, Doug Jones, now a U.S. senator up for re-election this fall, prosecuted Blanton and Cherry.
Photos: Top left, Sarah Collins; lower right, the monster Thomas Blanton; bottom, the crime scene.
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