![The crater and other damage caused by the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, which killed four African-American girls. AP Photo](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/eot2008/20090512024042im_/http://www.fbi.gov/headlines/firescene092607a.jpg) |
The crater and other damage caused by the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, which killed four African-American girls. AP Photo.
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A
BYTE OUT OF HISTORY
The ’63
Baptist Church Bombing
09/26/07
It was a quiet Sunday morning in Birmingham,
Alabama—around 10:24 on September 15,
1963, 44 years ago this month—when
a dynamite bomb exploded in the back stairwell
of the downtown Sixteenth Street Baptist
Church. The violent blast ripped through
the wall, killing four African-American girls
on the other side and injuring more than
20 inside the church.
It was a clear act of racial hatred: the
church was a key civil rights meeting place
and had been a frequent target of bomb threats.
Our Birmingham office launched an immediate
investigation and wired the FBI Director
about the crime. FBI bomb experts raced to
the scene—via military jet—and
an additional dozen personnel from other
offices were sent to assist Birmingham.
At 10:00 p.m. that night, Assistant Director
Al Rosen assured Assistant Attorney General
Katzenbach that “the Bureau considered
this a most heinous offense … [and] … we
had entered the investigation with no holds
barred.”
And we backed that promise up. Dozens
of FBI agents worked the case throughout
September and October and into the new year—as
many as 36 at one point. One internal memo
noted that:
“…we have practically torn
Birmingham apart and have interviewed thousands
of persons. We have seriously disrupted Klan
activities by our pressure and interviews
so that these organizations have lost members
and support. … We have made extensive
use of the polygraph, surveillances, microphone
surveillances and technical surveillances…”
By 1965, we had serious suspects—namely,
Robert E. Chambliss, Bobby Frank Cherry,
Herman Frank Cash, and Thomas E. Blanton,
Jr., all KKK members—but witnesses
were reluctant to talk and physical evidence
was lacking. Also, at that time, information
from our surveillances was not admissible
in court. As a result, no federal charges
were filed in the ‘60s.
It’s been claimed that Director
Hoover held back evidence from prosecutors
in the '60s or even tried to block prosecution. But
it’s simply not true. His concern
was to prevent leaks, not to stifle justice.
In one memo concerning a Justice Department
prosecutor seeking information, he wrote, “Haven’t
these reports already been furnished to
the Dept.?” In 1966, Hoover overruled
his staff and made transcripts of wiretaps
available to Justice. And he couldn’t
have blocked the prosecution and didn’t—he
simply didn’t think the evidence
was there to convict.
In the end, justice was served. Chambliss
received life in prison in 1977 following
a case led by Alabama Attorney General Robert
Baxley. And eventually the fear, prejudice,
and reticence that kept witnesses from coming
forward began to subside. We re-opened our
case in the mid-1990s, and Blanton and Cherry were
indicted in May 2000. Both were convicted
at trial and sentenced to life in prison.
The fourth man, Herman Frank Cash, had died
in 1994.
If you are interested in learning more, please read our 3,400 pages on this case—what was called the “BAPBOMB” investigation—now posted online.