(RICHARD FARINA) (1964)
Tune: "I Loved a Lass"/"The False Bride" (trad.)
The children killed, left to right: Denise McNair, Carole
Robertson, Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley.
Eighteen days after the euphoria of the March
on Washington, four hundred worshippers crowded into the
Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham
for Sunday services. Only months earlier, the church had been the
rallying point for the marches against Bull
Connor's police dogs and fire hoses. On September 15, 1963, a group
of young girls had just finished a Sunday
school lesson and were in the basement changing into their choir robes.
A few blocks away, but within sight of the
church, a white man stood waiting on the sidewalk. He was
Birmingham truck driver and one-time city
employee Robert Edward Chambliss -- the man whom friends in the
Eastview 13 Klavern of the Alabama Klan called
Dynamite Bob.
At 10:19 A.M., fifteen sticks of explosive
blew apart the church basement and the children in the changing room.
The four who died were Addie Mae Collins,
Carole Robertson, and Cynthia Wesley, all fourteen; and Denise
McNair, eleven. Some twenty others were injured.
Henry Hampton and Steve Fayer, eds., Voices
of Freedom, New York, NY, 1990, pp. 171-172.
JAMES BEVEL: My first reaction when I heard
about the bombing of the church was anger, rage. The
bombing felt almost like a personal insult;
the reactionary forces of the Klan, or whoever, were trying to teach us
a
lesson. Then I got information to the effect
that some of the guys involved in it were from the sheriff's department,
and then I was thinking about killing people.
I had to do a lot of thinking about that. That's when I started thinking
about what would be the appropriate response
to that kind of situation. I think it's natural for human beings to get
angry when there's an intense violation, and
I think if a person doesn't have the capacity to get angry, they don't
have the capacity to think through fully the
implications of that which causes them to be angry....
DIANE NASH: My former husband and I, Jim Bevel,
cried when we heard about the bombing, because in
many ways we felt like our own children had
been killed. We knew that the activity of the civil rights movement
had been involved in generating a kind of
energy that brought out this kind of hostility. We decided that we would
do something about it, and we said that we
had two options. First, we felt confident that if we tried, we could find
out who had done it, and we could make sure
they got killed. We considered that as a real option. The second
option was that we felt that if blacks in
Alabama had the right to vote, they could protect black children. We
deliberately made a choice, and chose the
second option....
DAVID VANN: I was driving south on Nineteenth
Street, which was two blocks from the church, and there on
the corner stood Chambliss, a known Klansman,
watching all of the commotion and excitement and fire trucks
and things that were coming and going. I remember
thinking that he looked like a firebug watching his fire.
Of course, several years later he was convicted
of being a participant in the bombing. One of the main reasons it
was a long time before he was brought to trial
is the FBI was called in by the city to do the initial investigation, and
there was such a distrust between the Birmingham
Police Department and the FBI that the FBI and the Justice
Department would never give any of the records
to either the state of Alabama or the city of Birmingham. Having
been a counterintelligence agent myself, I
know the policy of protecting informants had a great deal to do with the
FBI policy in those days. But it wasn't until
after Jimmy Carter became president that the attorney general of the
state, Bill Baxley, and I put all the pressure
we could on the new U.S. attorney general, and they did agree to
allow a review of those records by the state
attorney general's office. Within about six months, prosecution was
begun of Mr. Chambliss. Unfortunately, in
the meantime, the FBI at least claimed that they had lost all of their
records, and most of the physical evidence
that the FBI collected at the scene that day was nowhere to be found.
Quoted in Henry Hampton and Steve Fayer, eds.,
Voices of Freedom, New York, NY, 1990, pp.
172-175.
Lyrics as reprinted in Guy and Candie Carawan, Sing for Freedom: The
Story of the Civil Rights Movement
through its songs, Bethlehem, PA, 1990, pp. 122-123.
Come round by my side and I'll sing you a song.
I'll sing it so softly, it'll do no one wrong.
On Birmingham Sunday the blood ran like wine,
And the choirs kept singing of Freedom.
That cold autumn morning no eyes saw the sun,
And Addie Mae Collins, her number was one.
At an old Baptist church there was no need
to run.
And the choirs kept singing of Freedom,
The clouds they were grey and the autumn winds
blew,
And Denise McNair brought the number to two.
The falcon of death was a creature they knew,
And the choirs kept singing of Freedom,
The church it was crowded, but no one could
see
That Cynthia Wesley's dark number was three.
Her prayers and her feelings would shame you
and me.
And the choirs kept singing of Freedom.
Young Carol Robertson entered the door
And the number her killers had given was four.
She asked for a blessing but asked for no
more,
And the choirs kept singing of Freedom.
On Birmingham Sunday a noise shook the ground.
And people all over the earth turned around.
For no one recalled a more cowardly sound.
And the choirs kept singing of Freedom.
The men in the forest they once asked of me,
How many black berries grew in the Blue Sea.
And I asked them right with a tear in my eye.
How many dark ships in the forest?
The Sunday has come and the Sunday has gone.
And I can't do much more than to sing you
a song.
I'll sing it so softly, it'll do no one wrong.
And the choirs keep singing of Freedom.