Today marks 60 years since the 16th Street Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama. The bombing took place on Sept. 15, 1963, and took the lives of four little girls, Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Cynthia Wesley, and Carole Robertson.
The bombing was fueled by a racially motivated attack by members of the Ku Klux Klan. It took 45 years to charge the men responsible for their murders. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called the incident “one of the most vicious and tragic crimes ever perpetrated against humanity.”
Sarah Collins Rudolph was one of the people injured on that day and is also the sister of Addie Mae Collins. Mrs. Rudolph joined theGrio with Eboni K. Williams to discuss not receiving any type of compensation or restitution from the state of Alabama. Mrs. Rudolph explains the governor has said she deserves a heartfelt apology but was done through the media and hasn’t received an apology personally.
Mrs. Rudolph believes restitution should have already been given to her and the families of the victims merely because they were just Black people in church learning about God but ended up having family members and the people in their community killed.
Check out the full clip above and tune into “theGrio with Eboni K. Williams” at 6 p.m. ET every weeknight on theGrio cable channel.
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