America's Secret Jihad: The Hidden History of Religious Terrorism in the United States by Stuart Wexler Page A
Authors: Stuart Wexler
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hurt badly enough to have hospital treatment.â In the immediate aftermath, âthe survivors, their faces dripping blood from the glass that flew out of the churchâs stained glass windows,staggered around the two-story brick and stone building in a cloud of white dust raised by the deafening explosion.â 2 Four girls did not survive the attack. The coronerâs report detailed the horror:
              NAME: Addie Mae Collins
              DEATH WAS CAUSED BY: Multiple Fractures, Lacerations of Head and Back (Chest)
              AGE IN YEARS LAST BIRTHDAY : 14
              NAME: Carol Robertson
              DEATH WAS CAUSED BY: Fractured Skull and Concussion
              AGE IN YEARS LAST BIRTHDAY : 14
              NAME : Cynthia Wesley
              DEATH WAS CAUSED BY: Compound Fractures of the Head and Chest
              AGE IN YEARS LAST BIRTHDAY : 14
              NAME : Denise McNair
              DEATH WAS CAUSED BY: Fractured Skull and Concussion
              AGE IN YEARS LAST BIRTHDAY : 11
              DESCRIBE HOW INJURIES OCCURRED: Dynamite Blast â Bomb
The bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church remains a metaphor for the tragic sacrifice and principled persistence that marked the entire civil rights movement. That preceding May, children had left the middle-class church and marched onto the streets of Birmingham, eliciting a wave of violent police retaliation that shamed the Magic City into desegregating many of its public and private facilities. Just four months later, the martyrdom of four girls in that same but broken building shamed a lethargic Congress into a renewed focus on legislation that would, over time, desegregatethe rest of the nation. But in the immediate wake of the bombing, it seemed at times as if the city itself could come undone.
UPI described the riots that followed the bombing as a âreign of violence and terror.â It added:
It took police two hours to disperse the crowd of 2,000 hysterical Negroes who poured out of their homes. . . . Shootings and stonings broke out spasmodically through the city, continuing through the afternoon and into the night. . . . At least five fires were reported. Police shot and killed a Negro boy stoning white personsâ cars. A 13-year-old Negro riding a bicycle outside the city was ambushed and killed. 3
Tensions remained high as President John F. Kennedy decided how to handle the trouble. On the one hand, the situation seemed too much for the Birmingham Police Department, the Alabama State Highway Patrol, and the Alabama National Guard to handle. On the other hand, Kennedy feared that federal intervention might inflame the situation further or give Alabamaâs racist, rabble-rouser governor, George Wallace, the kind of public attention he coveted. Kennedy sent two personal representatives to the city to negotiate a truce between civil rights leaders and Birminghamâs white establishment.
Perhaps more than anything, the arrival of civil rights leaders from around the country, and the leadership of local activists, helped pacify the city. Notably, as he had after the murder of Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King Jr. came to Birmingham from his home in Atlanta to eulogize the four girls. This was not surprising, as Birmingham had been the major focus of Kingâs operations for the previous two years. King told the gathering of mourners:
These
              NAME: Addie Mae Collins
              DEATH WAS CAUSED BY: Multiple Fractures, Lacerations of Head and Back (Chest)
              AGE IN YEARS LAST BIRTHDAY : 14
              NAME: Carol Robertson
              DEATH WAS CAUSED BY: Fractured Skull and Concussion
              AGE IN YEARS LAST BIRTHDAY : 14
              NAME : Cynthia Wesley
              DEATH WAS CAUSED BY: Compound Fractures of the Head and Chest
              AGE IN YEARS LAST BIRTHDAY : 14
              NAME : Denise McNair
              DEATH WAS CAUSED BY: Fractured Skull and Concussion
              AGE IN YEARS LAST BIRTHDAY : 11
              DESCRIBE HOW INJURIES OCCURRED: Dynamite Blast â Bomb
The bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church remains a metaphor for the tragic sacrifice and principled persistence that marked the entire civil rights movement. That preceding May, children had left the middle-class church and marched onto the streets of Birmingham, eliciting a wave of violent police retaliation that shamed the Magic City into desegregating many of its public and private facilities. Just four months later, the martyrdom of four girls in that same but broken building shamed a lethargic Congress into a renewed focus on legislation that would, over time, desegregatethe rest of the nation. But in the immediate wake of the bombing, it seemed at times as if the city itself could come undone.
UPI described the riots that followed the bombing as a âreign of violence and terror.â It added:
It took police two hours to disperse the crowd of 2,000 hysterical Negroes who poured out of their homes. . . . Shootings and stonings broke out spasmodically through the city, continuing through the afternoon and into the night. . . . At least five fires were reported. Police shot and killed a Negro boy stoning white personsâ cars. A 13-year-old Negro riding a bicycle outside the city was ambushed and killed. 3
Tensions remained high as President John F. Kennedy decided how to handle the trouble. On the one hand, the situation seemed too much for the Birmingham Police Department, the Alabama State Highway Patrol, and the Alabama National Guard to handle. On the other hand, Kennedy feared that federal intervention might inflame the situation further or give Alabamaâs racist, rabble-rouser governor, George Wallace, the kind of public attention he coveted. Kennedy sent two personal representatives to the city to negotiate a truce between civil rights leaders and Birminghamâs white establishment.
Perhaps more than anything, the arrival of civil rights leaders from around the country, and the leadership of local activists, helped pacify the city. Notably, as he had after the murder of Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King Jr. came to Birmingham from his home in Atlanta to eulogize the four girls. This was not surprising, as Birmingham had been the major focus of Kingâs operations for the previous two years. King told the gathering of mourners:
These
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