now remains the only surviving member of a ruthless band of murderers and domestic terrorists. He too received a penalty of life in prison. KKK member Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. was indicted in April of 2001 and convicted of four counts of 1st degree murder. View 1963 church bombing article parolee.pdf from SPANISH 1B at College of DuPage. Edgar Hoover had blocked prosecution of Klansmen in the bombing.Ĭopyright 2023 The Associated Press. Justice Department concluded that former FBI Director J. The investigation remained quiet until 1997 when agents went to Texas to talk to Cherry.Ī decade earlier, the U.S. But I’m not responsible for it.”Ī 1993 meeting in Birmingham between FBI officials and black ministers led to the re-opening of the bombing case against Blanton and Cherry. Clair Correctional Facility in Springville, Alabama. “I think I was cleverly set up by the government … and that’s why I’m here,” Blanton told the television station from St. In a 2006 interview with Birmingham station WBRC-TV, he claimed the government used trumped-up evidence and lies to gain his conviction. senator, said in the trial.īlanton proclaimed his innocence years after being sent to prison. Browse Getty Images premium collection of high-quality, authentic Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr stock photos, royalty-free images and pictures. 15, 1963 bombing that killed four young black girls, won't be able to apply again for. “Tom Blanton saw change and didn’t like it,” Jones, now a Democratic U.S. Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr., an 86-year-old Ku Klux Klansman serving a life sentence for the Sept. The targeted church was a rallying point for protesters. Attorney Doug Jones, appointed as a special state prosecutor, said Blanton acted in response to months of civil rights demonstrations. “We were getting ready to be there to oppose it,” said Rudolph’s husband, George Rudolph.ĭuring the trial, then-U.S. Glass fragments remained in her chest, left eye and abdomen for decades after the explosion.Ī parole hearing was scheduled next year for Blanton. The bodies of Denise McNair, 11, and Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley and Carole Robertson, all 14, were found in the downstairs lounge.Ĭollins’ sister, Sarah Collins Rudolph, survived the blast but lost her right eye. 15, 1963, a bomb ripped through an exterior wall of the brick church, killing four girls who were inside preparing for a youth program. Read More FILE-This undated file photo shows Alabama inmate Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr., a one-time Ku Klux Klansman convicted in the 1963 church bombing that killed four black girls in Birmingham, Ala. Cherry was convicted in 2002 and died in prison in 2004. Chambliss was convicted in 1977 and died in prison in 1985. The investigation into the bombing was stalled early and left dormant for long stretches, but two other ex-Klansmen, Robert Chambliss and Bobby Frank Cherry, also were convicted in the bombing in separate trials. Moderates could no longer remain silent and the fight to topple segregation laws gained new momentum. The crowd will include Rudolph, who survived injuries including the loss of an eye and testified against Blanton at his trial.The church bombing, exposing the depths of hatred by white supremacists as Birmingham integrated its public schools, was a tipping point of the civil rights movement. 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. “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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