Birmingham Church Bombed

Location: Birmingham, AL

Ku Klux Klan members planted a bomb at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham that killed four girls, ranging in age from 11 to 14. In the early morning hours, Bobby Frank Cherry, Thomas Blanton, Herman Frank Cash, and Robert Chambliss, members of United Klans of America, planted a box of dynamite with a time delay under the steps of the church, near the basement. At about 10:22 a.m., twenty-six children walked into the basement assembly room when the bomb exploded. Four girls, Addie Mae Collins (aged 14), Denise McNair (11), Carole Robertson (14), and Cynthia Wesley (14), were killed and 22 others were injured.