Free While the World Watched by Carolyn McKinstry Page B

Carole, and Cynthia.
    I finally drifted off into a troubled, restless sleep. Darkness engulfed Birmingham, Alabama, on that tragic day of sorrow and shame. And a heavy, incomprehensible dark cloud of depression and sadness settled over my own head and heart—a nightmarish web of memories that would hover over me for many years to come.
    The following week I went to Fred Singleton’s sporting-goods store. With my saved-up money, I bought Cynthia’s gold cap and shirt. Her name, “Cynthia,” was printed in black letters on the front of the shirt, and the letter C , for Cavalettes, was printed on the back. I gave the cap and shirt to Cynthia’s mother, Mrs. Wesley. I realize now it was a small token, but it was my way of saying how important Cynthia was to me—to all of us. Almost five decades later, I still have my gold cap. It hurts me to look at it.
    * * *
    We had had unsolved bombings for years in my city. Bombs exploded, and the city of Birmingham went on with business as usual. No arrests were made, so there were no convictions. We heard no public apologies, few empathetic speeches from the white community. No one sent letters of righteous indignation or sympathy. A bomb exploded, and it proved just another day in the life of Birmingham Negroes.
    We knew that on any day, at any time, a bomb might explode. After a blast the phone would ring, and the caller would tell us the bomb’s location. Our family would spend the rest of the evening quiet and somber, often in prayer, contemplating such a depth of hatred and depravity. Black people somehow adapted to the blasts—the destroyed homes, businesses, and churches. It was our way of life, a cross that each of us thought we had to bear.
    Lord, can we really bear this cross?
    It was one thing to turn our heads when a building had been smashed. But now four girls had died.
    This event proved a pivotal point in my life and in my church, and in the nation as well.
    On the day after the church bombing, a young, white Birmingham attorney, Charles Morgan Jr., publicly blamed the pillars of the city for the girls’ deaths. “Every person in this community who has in any way contributed during the past several years to the popularity of hatred is at least as guilty, or more so, than the demented fool who threw that bomb,” Mr. Morgan said.
    He blamed politicians who catered to racist votes, newspaper editors who fueled the racial tension, and church and business leaders who refused to take responsibility for the pervasive racial hatred in the city. “We all did it,” he said. “Every one of us is condemned for that crime and the bombing before it and for the one last month, last year, a decade ago. We all did it.”
    Then he added, “Birmingham is not a dying city; it is dead.”
    The speech destroyed his budding law practice, led to death threats against his family, and got him run out of town. [11]
    * * *
    Scripture tells us that life is but a vapor (see James 4:14, NKJV ). The morning of the bombing my friends and I had looked forward to a Sunday afternoon Cavalettes club meeting. Just that morning I had spoken with them face-to-face. But now they were gone. With a sudden explosion, like an invisible breath or vapor, four young girls simply vanished. I was overwhelmed with disbelief. This feeling would last a long time. I tried hard to process what happened at church on my own, attempting to put everything together, to make sense of it all. But it would get worse for me before it got better.

Chapter 6
    Four Little Coffins
    * * *
    The innocent blood of these little girls may well serve as a redemptive force that will bring new light to this dark city.
    Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
    And so this afternoon in a real sense [the four girls who died] have something to say to each of us in their death. They have something to say to every minister of the gospel who has remained silent behind the safe security of stained-glass windows. They have something to say to every