The Birmingham Church Bombing: What We Remember, What We Forget
Today is the 49th anniversary of the 1963 Birmingham church bombing, in which four black girls were killed by white supremacists who planted dynamite at the steps of their church.
The bombing is one of the best known incidents in the history of the American civil rights movement. There are a few things about it, however, that most folks don’t know, but should.
First, the girls who were killed that day weren’t small children. They were adolescents — three were fourteen
Attica
The bombing is one of the best known incidents in the history of the American civil rights movement. There are a few things about it, however, that most folks don’t know, but should.
First, the girls who were killed that day weren’t small children. They were adolescents — three were fourteen
Attica
I didn’t write about Attica on the just-passed anniversary, though I thought about it a lot.
Tom Wicker’s A Time to Die was a formative book for me when I read it, early in college. I haven’t read it since, and shouldn’t talk much about it until I read it again, but what’s stuck with me in the intervening years is Wicker’s dismay. Dismay at the conditions in the prison. Dismay at the refusal of prison officials and politicians to engage with the legitimate complaints of the prisoners. Dismay at the unnecessary, brutal violence of the raid that ended the uprising, a raid in which police caused the deaths of nine hostages and murdered any number of
Tom Wicker’s A Time to Die was a formative book for me when I read it, early in college. I haven’t read it since, and shouldn’t talk much about it until I read it again, but what’s stuck with me in the intervening years is Wicker’s dismay. Dismay at the conditions in the prison. Dismay at the refusal of prison officials and politicians to engage with the legitimate complaints of the prisoners. Dismay at the unnecessary, brutal violence of the raid that ended the uprising, a raid in which police caused the deaths of nine hostages and murdered any number of