On The Bus Uw Civil Rights Pilgrimage - The House Of Podcasts

Memorial to 16th Street Bombing victims. Photo by Troy Bonnes  The dynamite bomb that killed four young girls at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963 went off during Sunday services.  14 year old Carolyn McKinstry survived.  On the bus, Utah State Student Mo Vance set the scene for our visit to Birmingham.  Carolyn McKinstry met us at the church to talk about her life since the bombings. Carolyn McKinstry was secretary of her Sunday school class in 1963. She too was just 14.  She had been chatting with her four friends as she carried attendance records to the church office. The next moment, the bomb cratered the bathroom and blew up the back of the church, a center of civil rights activism and training.  White racists targeted the Church for its leadership.  Back then Birmingham was known as "Bombingham" with 21 explosions