On Sept. 15, 1963, hate blew-up the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Al.
The massive explosion wounded nearly two dozen and took the lives of Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, and Denise McNair.
It was Birmingham’s fourth bombing in four weeks.
Four little girls were murdered in a terrorist attack; attacks that continue daily.
Birmingham Sunday
(September 15, 1963)
Four little girls
Who went to Sunday School that day
And never came back home at all–
But left instead
Their blood upon the wall
With spattered flesh
And bloodied Sunday dresses
Scorched by dynamite that
China made eons ago
Did not know what China made
Before China was ever Red at all
Would ever redden with their blood
This Birmingham-on-Sunday wall.
Four tiny little girls
Who left their blood upon that wall,
In little graves today await:
The dynamite that might ignite
The ancient fuse of Dragon Kings
Whose tomorrow sings a hymn
The missionaries never taught
In Christian Sunday School
To implement the Golden Rule.
Four little girls
Might be awakened someday soon
By songs upon the breeze
As yet unfelt among
Magnolia trees.
It’s too easy to simply blame the Ku Klux Klan, shake our head sadly, and overlook the reality of the racism that ignited the fuse.
The deaths aren’t history, they are current events. Wounded victims are still alive. One of the murders remains in prison, today. Racism rampant in 1963 is still alive and well today.
Racist-in-Chief Donald Trump was 17-years-old when the explosion shattered so many innocent lives.
Ten years later, “in October 1973, the Civil Rights Division filed a lawsuit against Trump Management Company, Donald Trump and his father Fred Trump, alleging that African-Americans and Puerto Ricans were systematically excluded from apartments…
“The Trumps and their company entered into a consent decree settling the litigation in 1975. The agreement contained no admission of wrongdoing, but required the Trump firm to institute a series of safeguards to make sure apartments were rented without regard to race, color, religion, sex or national origin.”
The United States has always fallen short of its ideals, and has always paid too little attention to the shortcomings and failures. The United States is built on the shattered lives of victims of racism.
When we minimize the deaths of thousands or overlook the death of children, we victimize them anew in a shower of bigotry.
The Racist-in-Chief is normalizing and legitimizing racism today, just as he did in the 1970s.
This is wrong.
Bigotry was wrong in 1963, it was wrong in 1973, and it is wrong today.
The President of the United States is a racist bigot, he always has been. Redefining the definition of bigotry doesn’t diminish the bigotry. Legitimizing racism doesn’t make racism legitimate.
Children die when racists are empowered. Remember that.
And let us remember the victims of American Bigotry.
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Here’s an award winning book to help children understand the Birmingham bombing.
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