BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WIAT) — Friday marks the 60th anniversary of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing that killed four Black girls in Birmingham during the height of the Civil Rights Movement.
A service will be held Friday morning at the church as part of a weeklong commemoration of Denise McNair, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, and Addie Mae Collins, who were killed in the blast.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman on the nation’s highest court, will deliver a keynote address at the remembrance Friday morning at the historic church.
The bombing took place the morning of Sept. 15, 1963, when dynamite planted by Ku Klux Klan members exploded at the church, killing the girls. The girls were gathered in a downstairs washroom prior to Sunday services when the blast erupted.
A fifth girl, Sarah Collins Rudolph, was severely injured in the blast but survived.
Lisa McNair, the sister of Denise McNair, has asked city churches to join in tolling their bells Friday morning to remember the four girls killed in the bombing.
