Oddbean new post about login | logout Even as people gathered to pull the girls' bodies from the rubble white teens with a Confederate flag and a sign saying "Go Back to Africa" stood taunting those moving the rubble. Black teens nearby threw rocks at the white teens. Police on the scene then turned against the Black teens — not the white ones — and shot one of them in the back. #Birmingham #Alabama #bombing #racism #violence /2
And this happened the same day: "At the same time, across town, another pair of white boys pulled up alongside two young black boys who were riding their bikes. One of the white boys pulled out a pistol, put two bullets into a thirteen-year-old's head and chest, and drove away." #Birmingham #Alabama #bombing #racism #violence /3
As Joyce Vance notes, when the Birmingham church bombing occurred, the FBI soon determined that four Klansmen planted the bomb: Thomas Blanton, Robert Chambliss, Bobby Frank Cherry, and Herman Cash. But they were not indicted even after their names were given in a memo to FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. 14 years after the bombing, Chambliss was prosecuted. Blanton and Cherry were convicted in 2001 and 2002. Cash died unconvicted. #Birmingham #Alabama #violence /4 https://joycevance.substack.com/p/60-years
And why, all these years down the road, keep remembering? This is why, Vance proposes: "We have obviously not learned the lessons of that history. Today, acts of domestic terrorism committed by white supremacists are not uncommon in our country. ... In some cases, justice is a long time coming. It should not be, but it is. The delay does not make it any less important, when it finally is done. Justice moves our communities and our country forward." #Birmingham #Alabama #violence /5