It was terror that shook the nation. On Sunday, Sept. 15, 1963, a bomb exploded in the basement of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala. Four little girls, all dressed in white — 14-year-olds Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley, and 11-year-old Denise McNair — died in the explosion, and are remembered in history.
Congress now is considering offering them posthumously a Congressional Gold Medal.
But there was a fifth little girl caught in the blast — 10-year-old Sarah Collins Rudolph — the younger sister of Addie Mae. Partly blinded, she staggered from the basement bleeding from the nose and ears from a concussion. She spent two months in the hospital, but she survived. To this day, she bears her injuries, and the traumatic stress that does not go away. She doesn’t want a medal; she wants justice.
Now she is speaking out, witness to that horrible crime in those mean days. She’s angry because her sister’s body has been lost. When they went to exhume the body, the grave contained someone else’s remains. She wonders why there was no compensation for her injuries, no help for the families.
