1. On September 9, President John F. Kennedy further enraged white segregationists by ordering armed troops of the Alabama National Guard to oversee the racial integration of all Birmingham public schools. While the children’s protest was peaceful, the city’s response was not. Public outrage over the bombing and often brutal treatment of protesters by police directly contributed to the enactment of two of the most important civil rights laws in the nation’s history, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. During the 1960s, the church regularly hosted civil rights movement organizational meetings and rallies. While the World Watched by Carolyn Maull McKinstry (Tyndale House, 2011), Four Little Girls, a documentary by Spike Lee (1997). On November 18, 1977, Klan leader Robert Chambliss was convicted of first-degree murder in the bombing and sentenced to life in prison. Cherry died in prison in 2004. Resulting in the injury of 14 people and the death of four girls, … On the first day of the march, police arrested hundreds of children. Here are eight other facts you need to know about the 16th Street Baptist Church bomb attack. BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WBRC) - Tuesday marked the 57th anniversary of the 16th Street Church bombing, a hate crime that killed 4 Black girls who were attending Sunday school. The dynamite bomb detonated at 10:22 am, while the service was in progress. She wouldn’t find out the devastating news until the next day. Fifty years ago on Sunday, September 15, 1963, a bomb exploded at 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. As press coverage of the violent treatment of the peacefully protesting Birmingham children spread, public opinion turned heavily in their favor. Robert Chambliss was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Denise McNair, while Thomas Blanton and Frank Cherry were sentenced to life in prison in 2001 and 2002, respectively. During the 1960s, the church regularly hosted civil rights movement meetings and rallies, such as the Birmingham “Children’s Crusade” anti-segregation march of May 1963. On September 15, 1963, a bomb planted in the girls’ restrooms in 16th Street Baptist Church detonated during a Sunday service, killing four African American young girls. Is America Still an Option for Christians Fleeing Persecution? He died with all that on the inside of him,” Rudolph explained. The stained-glass window of the Good Shepherd survived intact, except for the face of Jesus, which was blown out. The 16th Street Baptist Church was a centre for civil rights activists in the city. The action angered segregationists, and more dangerously, white supremacists. 5. No one was indicted for the murders until 1977, when Chambliss was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. It was founded in 1873, just 10 years after Abraham Lincoln declared the Emancipation Proclamation.