Free While the World Watched by Carolyn McKinstry Page A

anything.
    * * *
    That Sunday evening Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wired President Kennedy from Atlanta, telling him he was going to Birmingham to plead with blacks to remain nonviolent. He added that unless “immediate Federal steps are taken,” there will be “in Birmingham and Alabama the worst racial holocaust this Nation has ever seen.” [8] President Kennedy was yachting off Newport, Rhode Island, and was notified of the bombing by radiotelephone. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy ordered his chief Civil Rights troubleshooter, Burke Marshall, to Birmingham, along with twenty-five FBI agents and bomb experts from Washington, D.C. [9]
    Dr. King also wired Governor George Wallace: “The blood of four little children . . . is on your hands,” he wrote. “Your irresponsible and misguided actions have created in Birmingham and Alabama the atmosphere that has induced continued violence and now murder.” [10]
    Twelve days later, on September 27, Time magazine placed on its front cover the steel-cold, angry face of Governor George Wallace with the inscription “Alabama: Civil Rights Battlefield.” In the background, the editors placed the photograph of the church’s stained-glass window with the kind face of Jesus blown clean away.
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    Before darkness fell on the night of September 15, the reverend and his deacons closed the front doors of the wonderful old Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. For the following eight months, the congregation met to worship in the nearby L. R. Hall Auditorium. Money and donations poured into the church from all over the world. Local contractor L. S. Gaillard worked hard to make the needed repairs to the church. He did everything he could to make it a sturdy building—a safe place for young black girls in white Sunday dresses to once again worship God.
    Jesus’ stained-glass face was also remade and set back in the window. I have no idea why only Christ’s face was blown away in the explosion—I have to wonder if perhaps that’s just the way God allowed it to happen. Now, thanks to careful restoration, Jesus again looks down upon his congregation with kind, loving eyes.
    But as a remembrance of that morning, the reverend and his deacons decided to leave two damaged things in the church untouched and unrepaired. One was the antique clock on the sanctuary wall. In the midst of the bombing, the old timepiece stayed attached to the wall, its glass case intact and undisturbed. But for some reason its faithful tick and accurate hands stopped dead at the exact moment of the blast—10:22. Nearly five decades later, the clock—in unmoving silence—tells the story to worshipers and to pilgrims who walk through the church doors.
    The girls’ restroom—the place where the bomb exploded—has also remained frozen in time. After the bombing it was simply sealed up. A wall was built in front of the restroom door as if to say, “Forget that it happened!”
    But some of us refuse to forget. We will forever worship on sacred and holy ground.
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    Slipping into bed that night, I felt sick. I was afraid to close my eyes. So I started to sing:
    All along this Christian journey,
    I want Jesus to walk with me.
    I want Jesus to walk with me.
    All along this Christian journey,
    I want Jesus to walk with me.
    In my troubles, walk with me.
    When I’m dying, walk with me.
    All along this Christian journey,
    I want Jesus to walk with me.
    I want Jesus to walk with me.
    Is this going to continue? I asked myself late that night as I scooted deeper under the blankets. Will this wave of killing and bombs ever end?
    The thought of death and bombs frightened me. I felt powerless to do anything about the hatred and violence in this city—my city.
    My inner voice spoke loud and clear to me: Carolyn, it’s not if you will get blown up and killed by a bomb, but when . It’s just a matter of time, and then it will be your turn. One day a bomb will explode, and you will not escape it. Like Denise, Addie,