Birmingham's Sixteenth Street Baptist Church dedicates marker to bombing that killed 4 girls

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- Sixteenth Street Baptist Church Pastor Arthur Price and Bishop Calvin Woods this morning carried a wreath to the site where a bomb went off 48 years ago, killing four girls in the church.

(The Birmingham News/Joe Songer)

"It seems as though it took tragedy to bring us together, to see how silly this thing called segregation was," Price said during a memorial service in the church attended by more than 100 people. Afterward, dozens gathered outside the church to see the wreath-laying at a new marker placed at the spot where the bomb exploded.
The church bells tolled at 10:22 a.m., the time of the bombing. The marker lists the names of the the four girls killed in the church: Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley.
  "Carole was precise, mannerly, she earned all her Girl Scout badges," said Carolyn McKinstry, a survivor of the bombing and friend of the girls who were killed. "I think she would have been a national leader. She had that kind of vision." McKinstry, standing by the new marker, recalled her friendship with the girls and how their promise of a bright future was denied by a violent act of racial hatred.
"Denise, I think she would have been a teacher, a social and economic justice activist," McKinstry said. "I think Cynthia would have been a teacher. Addie was a very kind person, always kind and soft-spoken. Her future was yet to be written."
Maxine McNair, mother of Denise, attended the service in a wheelchair. Her daughter Kim Brock wheeled her mother up to the new marker for a close look after the service.
Woods, president of the Birmingham chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, prayed over them. "We have been called to stand up against bigotry, hatred and injustice," he said.