"He should never set foot outside of that jail cell again," he said. Blanton belongs in prison, Henley said at the news conference.
The blast was "the loudest thing I ever heard," and it shook the ground like a small earthquake. Harvey Henley, 79, recalled being at home a few miles from the church the morning the bomb went off. Klansman Robert Chambliss, known as "Dynamite Bob," was convicted in 1977 and also died behind bars. Cherry was convicted in 2002 and died in prison. He and Bobby Frank Cherry were indicted in 2000 after the FBI reopened an investigation into the bombing, and jurors convicted Blanton the following year. It killed 11-year-old Denise McNair and 14-year-old Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Morris, also known as Cynthia Wesley.īlanton, who has denied involvement in the bombing, is among three one-time Klansmen convicted years after the explosion. 15, 1963, amid white opposition to desegregation of public schools. Prosecutors and members of the girls' families also are opposing Blanton's release, and some could speak to the parole board during the hearing scheduled in Montgomery.Ī powerful bomb went off outside the church on Sept. "It is our further position that it would be a travesty of justice," said Jackson. Alabama's parole board on Wednesday is set to consider Blanton for release.īut Hezekiah Jackson, president of the Birmingham chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said freeing Blanton now during nationwide protests over police treatment of black people would send the wrong message. Members of the Birmingham NAACP and other groups held a news conference across the street from the church to protest the possible early release of Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr., 78.īlanton is serving a life sentence for being part of a group of Klansmen who bombed the 16th Street Baptist Church, a gathering spot for demonstrators during the civil rights movement in Birmingham. The lone surviving Ku Klux Klan member convicted in an Alabama church bombing that killed four black girls in 1963 is up for parole after spending 15 years in prison for murder, but civil rights activists spoke out Friday against any early release. The board rejected parole for Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr., 78, who has served 15 years of a life term for being part of a group of Klansmen who planted a bomb outside Birminghams 16th Street Baptist. The crowd will include Rudolph, who survived injuries including the loss of an eye and testified against Blanton at his trial.BIRMINGHAM, Ala. Written by Charise Frazier Published on AugNewsOne Featured Video D uring a hearing that. Jones plans to attend the hearing in opposition to Blanton’s early release, and so do several relatives of the girls and the current pastor of 16th Street Baptist, the Rev. Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr., the last surviving convicted bomber, will remain in jail. “This was, as I said during the trial, an act of terrorism before the word ‘terrorism’ was part of our everyday lives,” Jones said. attorney who prosecuted Blanton on the state charge, said Blanton shouldn’t be released since he has never accepted responsibility for the bombing or expressed any remorse for a crime that was aimed at maintaining racial separation at a time Birmingham’s public schools were facing a court order to desegregate. Their deaths inside a church on a Sunday morning became a symbol worldwide of the depth of racial hatred in the segregated South.ĭoug Jones, a former U.S. The girls, who were inside the church preparing for worship, died instantly in a hail of bricks and stone that seriously injured Collins’ sister, Sarah Collins Rudolph.
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