![]() Evidence against Blanton included secret recordings that were made using FBI bugs at his home and in the car of a fellow Klansman turned informant. Robert Chambliss, convicted in 1977, and Bobby Frank Cherry, who was convicted in the bombing in 2002, both died in prison.īlanton and Cherry were indicted in 2000 after the FBI reopened an investigation of the bombing. Long a suspect in the case, Blanton was the second of three people convicted in the bombing. I’m not saying what I will say until then,” said Rudolph. The crowd will include Rudolph, who survived injuries including the loss of an eye and testified against Blanton at his trial. 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. The blast killed 11-year-old Denise McNair and 14-year-olds Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Morris, also known as Cynthia Wesley. “It would be a slap in the face to those young ladies and their families to release him,” Simelton said.īlanton was convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment in 2001 for being part of a group of Klansmen who planted a dynamite bomb that exploded outside 16th Street Baptist on Sept. NAACP chapters statewide are sending letters in opposition to Blanton’s release, and the Birmingham chapter is sending a busload of people to oppose parole, he said. The president of the Alabama NAACP, Bernard Simelton, said releasing Blanton at a time when protests are occurring nationwide over police killings of black people would send a horrible message. Inmates are not allowed to attend parole hearings in Alabama, but opponents of Blanton’s release are expected to address the three-person board when it meets in Montgomery. The board has scheduled a hearing for Wednesday to consider parole for the 78-year-old Blanton. Soon, Alabama’s parole board will decide whether Blanton deserves to be free after serving 15 years of a life term for murder. Today, Blanton is old and imprisoned, the last survivor among three one-time KKK members convicted of murder in the bombing. was a young Ku Klux Klansman with a reputation for hating blacks in 1963, when a bomb ripped a hole in the side of 16th Street Baptist Church, killing four black girls during the civil rights movement. Cherry was convicted in 2002 and died in prison in 2004.BIRMINGHAM, Ala. 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 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. ![]() Kay Ivey’s office said Blanton died of natural causes. ![]() When asked by the judge if he had any comment, Blanton said: “I guess the good Lord will settle it on judgment day.” In May 2001, Blanton was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison for the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. ![]() (AP) - Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr., the last of three one-time Ku Klux Klansmen convicted of a 1963 Alabama church bombing that killed four black girls and was the deadliest single attack of the civil rights movement, has died in prison, the governor’s office said Friday. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |