— Birmingham Public Library Archives
by Michael Coard
On Sept. 15, it will be exactly 60 years to the very day that white Americans murdered four Black children.
Although that date is nearly two weeks from today, I’m writing about it now because- just like Chuck D of Public Enemy said- “When I get mad, I put it down on a pad.” And based on what happened only a few days ago to three innocent Black customers in Jacksonville, Florida Dollar General, I’m livid right now.
I’ll explain why later in this article. But first, here’s the background.
At 10:24 a.m. on Sept. 15, 1963, four sweet, innocent and defenseless little Black girls were murdered by white domestic terrorists. While in Sunday School with many other Black children at Birmingham, Alabama’s 16th Street Baptist Church, those four, 11-year-old Denise McNair along with 14-year-olds Addie Mae Collins, Carol Robertson and Cynthia Wesley, were in the basement dressing room preparing for the 11:00 sermon entitled “A Love That Forgives.”
During the children’s preparation, at least 15 sticks of dynamite attached to a timing device detonated under the church steps near the basement. That powerful explosion not only killed the four girls but also seriously injured more than 20 others, including Addie Mae’s 12-year-old sister Sarah who lost an eye when 21 pieces of glass shards were embedded into her pretty little brown face.
As stated by one survivor, the bomb’s effect shook the entire building and threw the girls’ bodies through the air “like rag dolls.” In fact, the bomb was so powerful that it crushed two nearby cars and blew out building windows blocks away.
Before concluding this portion of the article regarding the “Four Little Girls,” I must mention 13-year-old Virgil Ware and 16-year-old Johnny Robinson, both of whom also were murdered by white racists on that same Sept. 15, 1963 date in that same Birmingham area. As documented by Advance Local Media, “Robinson was killed by a police officer’s shotgun [blast to the back] in North Birmingham that afternoon. An hour or so later, Ware was… was shot and killed… by a white teenager [with a conspirator] on a road in Jefferson County… [when Ware was] riding on the handlebars of a bike while his 16-year-old brother… pedaled.”
None of that was an aberration. It instead was racist white America and racist white Americans doing what they do. It’s also what they have done and will do.
Clearly, racist white America’s and racist white Americans’ mass murders of innocent Black people- including innocent Black babies- didn’t begin on Sept. 15, 1963. It didn’t end on that day either. They’ve been murdering us from day one and it continues up to today and, most assuredly, will continue tomorrow and throughout the future.
Let’s start at the beginning, which is August of 1619 when Europeans- after having kidnapped 350 Black men, women and children in Angola and while brutally transporting to the land that would become America and then to Bermuda- murdered many of them. Historians know that because only approximately 30 of that 350 actually arrived at the Virginia Colony and the remainder who weren’t killed or who didn’t otherwise die in transit were shipped to Bermuda.
As I mentioned, America and Americans have been murdering us from the very beginning.
Here’s a short part of a very long list of those racist murders from just the early 1900s through just a few days ago:
Aug. 26, 2023- Three at Dollar General in Jacksonville, Florida.
May 14, 2022- Ten at Tops Friendly Supermarket in Buffalo, New York.
June 17, 2015- Nine during Bible study at the Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, South Carolina.
January 1 through 7, 1923- An estimated 150 in Rosewood, Florida.
May 31 through June 1, 1921- Approximately 300 were murdered and 800 severely injured along with 35 blocks consisting of 1,250 homes and 200 businesses being looted and incinerated in Tulsa, Oklahoma’s “Black Wall Street” district.
November 2 through 3, 1920- At least 35 in Ocoee, Florida. At the time, as documented by author Paul Ortiz, it was considered the “single bloodiest day in modern American political history.”
Red Summer of 1919- Approximately 250 in nearly 40 cities throughout the United States. Preeminent historian, scholar and professor John Hope Franklin described this as “the greatest period of interracial strife the nation has ever witnessed” since slavery.
Late May through early July, 1917- An estimated 150 along with approximately 6,000 who were forcibly rendered homeless in East St. Louis, Illinois.
July 24 through 30, 1917- Seven in Chester, Pennsylvania.
July 29 through 30, 1910- An estimated 100 in Slocum, Texas.
Aug. 14 through 16, 1908- Nine along with approximately 2,000 who were forcibly rendered homeless in Springfield, Illinois.
Sept. 22 through 24, 1906- Twenty-five in Atlanta, Georgia
July 6 through 10, 1903- Twelve in Evanston, Indiana.
This has got to stop. And we have got to make it stop. By any means necessary!
As I always say, “Never forget. Always avenge.”