<
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/mar/02/civil-rights-movement-trump>
"Carolyn McKinstry knows about the dangers of extremism in America. She lived
it.
McKinstry was the Sunday school secretary at the 16th Street Baptist church in
Birmingham, Alabama, when the church was bombed by white supremacists on 16
September 1963, killing four Black girls – Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair,
Carole Roberts, all 14, and 11-year-old Cynthia Wesley.
McKinstry, who was 14 at the time, remembers it was Youth Day at the church and
the lesson of the day was “A Love That Forgives”. She spent that Sunday morning
collecting attendance and financial records from classes. McKinstry answered
the church phone just seconds before the bomb went off in the church basement.
“I did not immediately think of it as a bomb. I didn’t know what it was,”
McKinstry said. “I heard a few people scream and then I heard somebody say,
‘Hit the floor’ – and I crawled under that very first pew where I was
standing.”
McKinstry remembered: “I waited a few minutes and I could hear feet. I then
heard shoes against the floor and I knew people were running out. So that’s
when I stood up to leave. I didn’t know until I got outside that a bomb had
exploded.”
The death of the four girls devastated the nation. But it was not the last
bombing in Birmingham. The lack of compassion was evident and signaled that
those determined to keep the system of Jim Crow were not moved by the death of
children.
In the city and throughout the deep south, as civil rights activists worked to
take down segregation, there were more deaths, more funerals, more marches and
more protests. For McKinstry, 77, and other civil rights foot soldiers who
fought on the frontlines for justice and equality during the civil rights
movement, the re-election of Donald Trump is an undoing of the sacrifices and
policy changes they toiled for."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
