Recognition sought for church bombing victims

WASHINGTON -- Nearly 50 years ago, white supremacists planted a bomb in a Birmingham, Ala., church that killed four young girls, an act of terror that shocked the nation and propelled Congress to pass the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Lawmakers now want to honor those victims of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing with the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honor that Congress can bestow.

Birmingham Reps. Terri Sewell, a Democrat, and Republican Spencer Bachus announced the effort yesterday to award the medal to Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley, all 14 when they were killed, and Denise McNair, who was 11.

Sewell said the bombing was a catalyst for the civil rights movement.

"I wouldn't be here, my mayor wouldn't be here, were it not for the struggle and sacrifice of those freedom fighters," Sewell said during an event Tuesday in the National Press Club.

She was joined by Birmingham Mayor William A. Bell, who said his brother was Denise McNair's classmate and their families were friends. At that time, "everybody in Birmingham -- they had some kind of connection or relationship," to the victims, he said.

The girls were among 26 children entering a church basement on Sept. 15, 1963, when dynamite equipped with a timer detonated. Twenty-two others were injured.

The horrific images drew national attention and deepened tumult in Birmingham, already rife with racial tension. In the aftermath, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered a eulogy for the "martyred children." Within a year, Congress passed the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act and, a year later, the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

It took more than a decade before the perpetrators were brought to justice. Robert Chambliss, a Ku Klux Klan member, was convicted of murder. Thomas Blanton Jr. and Bobby Frank Cherry were convicted for their roles, Blanton in 2001 and Cherry in 2002. A third suspect, Herman Cash, had already died when the FBI reopened the case in 1977.