History Daily - The Final Conviction in Birmingham’s Baptist Church Bombing

Episode Date: May 22, 2025

May 22, 2002. A jury in Birmingham, Alabama convicts former Ku Klux Klan member Bobby Frank Cherry of bombing the 16th Street Baptist Church in 1963, resolving one of the most shocking cases of the civil rights era. This episode originally aired in 2023. Support the show! Join Into History for ad-free listening and more.History Daily is a co-production of Airship and Noiser.Go to HistoryDaily.com for more history, daily.

Let's E. Toilan, the luptublement is. Elisa, Etytynto, I know eduline on. Elisa, out, the phone and

other lighteat just over over mackso-a with corkoja and culloia. Puffelimia and all kinds of lighteat,

on etu-hinnat Elisan only edulisia. It's the morning of September 15th, 1963 in Birmingham, Alabama at the height of

the city's civil rights movement. Secretary Mabel shorter shuts her eyes in frustration as the phone starts to ring inside the main office of a Black Baptist church. All morning, the phone has been ringing periodically, but each time Mabel answers, no one says anything on the other end. And this time is no different. As Mabel lifts the receiver, she's met again with silence. She shakes her head in exasperation and slams the phone back down. Mabel doesn't understand what to make of this caller's odd behavior. She can't tell if it's a prank

caller, or something worse. Because for weeks the church has been receiving bomb threats from local members of the Ku Klux Klan. So far, their words have proved empty, and there have been no attacks, but Mabel worries that this morning's calls could be intended as another ominous, but silent threat. With a sigh, she gets up from her desk, paces for a moment, and slumps up against the nearby wall, anticipating the phone's next ring. But it doesn't come. Minutes pass, and there are no calls. Mabel's Saze splits into a soft smile because perhaps it is just a prank caller, and whatever nuisance has been tormenting her all morning is finally done with their game. Mabel happily walks back to her desk, relieved to be able to finally handle the work that

this morning's constant phone calls forced her to neglect. And with Sunday service about to begin, Mabel's ears filled with the chatter and laughter coming from the church's other two floors. But she savors the merciful absence of any shrill phone ringing. Mabel gets the work drawing up the Sunday school rosters. But before she can make any headway, a loud thud sounds through the church, followed by an enormous blast. The force of the explosion sends the walls caving in around Mabel

and brings the church to the ground. The bombing of Beringham's 16th Street Baptist Church will send shockways across the city and the nation. The explosive placed beneath the church's steps will destroy the building, injure over 20 of its occupants, and kill four young girls playing in its basement lounge. The tragedy will become one of the most heinous crimes of the civil rights movement and will launch a long hunt for its perpetrators.

Though it will be immediately clear to authorities that the Ku Klux Klan is behind the incident, it will take decades before its suspected culprits are tried and convicted, and the case is finally brought to a close on May 22, 2002. From Noisor and Airship, I'm Lindsay Graham, and this is History Daily. History is made every day. On this podcast, every day, we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world. Today is May 22, 2002, the final conviction in Birmingham's Baptist Church bombing. It's 10 after 2 in the morning on September 15, 1963, in Birmingham, Alabama, less than a block away from the 16th Street Baptist Church.

Curtis Glenn yawns as she turns onto 7th Avenue north between 15th and 16th streets. She's not usually up this late, but a friend needed a ride to the city's west end, and Curtis offered to help. She is relieved as she approaches home, tired and ready for bed, but a smudge of light in front of the nearby funeral chapel jolts were awake. Outside the chapel is a parked car whose interior light illuminates its three white male passengers. As Curthus pulls up to her apartment a few doors down, she cranes her neck to try to identify the men. But as soon as she parks, the mysterious car speeds off. As it races down the road, Kyrthus gets a better look at the vehicle, a turquoise

Chevrolet sedan, maybe a 1955 or 56 model. Kyrthus makes a mental note of these specifications, along with the car's license plate number. It's weird for anyone to be out idling this late, but it's especially odd for a group of white men to be hanging around what's considered the black side of town. As she enters her home, Kirtis scrambles to retrieve a pen and record the car's description and plate number. She places the note next to her phone, and for a moment, Kirthus considers reporting this suspicious activity to the police, but she decides against it. What she saw was strange, but there's also a chance nothing nefarious was going on. She herself was out driving late, and Kirtis doesn't have any hard evidence that the men in the car

were up to something sinister, and even if she did, Birmingham's police have a history of turning a blind eye to any crimes and violence against the city's black community. So Carthus decides not to call it in. Instead, she heads back outside and sits on her porch, hoping that the car will pass by again, and she'll be able to gather more information about the passengers and their activities. But the car never reappears, and Carthus goes to bed with questions still swirling in her mind. She doesn't know it yet, but Curthus has just witnessed the making of what will be considered

one of the civil rights era's most horrific crimes. The car she spotted belongs to 25-year-old local Ku Klux Klan member Tommy Blanton. Inside the car were other Klansmen, all in cahoots to bomb the nearby 16th Street Baptist Church. Investigators will later suspect that the car waited at the funeral chapel while one of the men planted the bomb under the cover of darkness. Less than nine hours after Kyrthus spots the Klansman in their car, their explosive device destroys the church, killing four young black girls and horrifying the nation. Two weeks after the bombing, Kirtis' account of the Chevy sedan she saw on the morning of the attack, leads investigators to the vehicle's owner, Tommy Blanton. From there, they're able to identify

three more suspects, 35-year-old Bobby Cherry, 45-year-old Herman Cash, and 58-year-old Robert E. Chambliss. The men's suspected involvement in the bombing is unsurprising to much of their community. They make no secret of their hatred for black people, nor their association with clan. All four men are part of Birmingham's Cahaba Boys, a KKK splinter group, founded by renegade members who believe the clan was not radical enough and had grown too restrained in the civil rights era. Together, the Cahaba boys have terrorized Birmingham's black residents with brutal beatings and enough bombings to earn Robert Chambliss the nickname Dynamite Bob. But with their ties to local politicians and law enforcement, most of the group's acts of violence have only been

half-heartedly investigated, and the Klansmen have gone largely unpunished. But this time is different. The church bombing has attracted the eyes of the whole country, becoming a top priority for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and bringing more than 50 of its agents to Birmingham. For the next two years, an extensive investigation is underway. But FBI agents struggle to recover physical evidence from the crime scene and have to contend with the clans' refusal to cooperate. Still, by 1965, they have enough evidence against the four Klansmen to name Cherry, Blanton, and Cash as primary suspects in the attack, and Chambliss as their ringleader. When none of the men are convicted or even charged. Reluctant to try the case before a southern white jury with only

circumstantial evidence, FBI director Jay Edgar Hoover refuses to pursue it and forbids his field agents from meeting with federal and state prosecutors. In 1968, the FBI closes their investigation and seals all files related to it. After being shelved for years, the case will almost be forgotten. But a young and enterprising attorney will make it his mission to resurrect it, and almost 15 years after the attack, one of the culprits behind the bombing will finally be forced to answer for his crimes. strides into the Jefferson County Courthouse, eager to deliver his closing argument in the prosecution of Klansman and suspected ringleader of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, Robert E. Chambliss. Baxley has been waiting for this day for a long time. Seven years ago, at the age of 28, the lawyer

shocked Alabama by defeating the state's incumbent attorney general and becoming the youngest person to ever hold the position. Early into his tenure, the bright-eyed attorney reopened the investigation into the church bombing. Though it had been years since the state's. the attack, and the case had long been dormant, the incident weighed heavy on Baxley's mind. On the day of the bombing in 1963, Baxley was 60 miles away at his fraternity house at the University of Alabama. The white law student had long been repelled by his state's racial violence, but this tragedy shook him to his core. When Baxley heard the news of the bombing's four young casualties, he pledged himself to address the days and justices whenever he gained

enough power to make change. And when he became Attorney General, Baxley took the names of the bombings four victims, Denise, Carol, Cynthia, and Addie, and etched them on the corners of a small telephone calling card as a daily reminder of his vow and of the families still in need of justice. Though the FBI has refused to cooperate, keeping their files on the bombing sealed, Baxley promptly started his own seven-year investigation into the attack, and it's finally bearing fruit. In September, Robert Chambliss became the first of four suspects to be indicted in the case. Three days ago, his trial began, featuring bombshell testimonies from Chambliss's own family members. The most damaging came yesterday from his niece Elizabeth.

According to her, Chambliss was vocal about his role in the bombing. On the eve of the tragedy, she alleged that her uncle said that he had enough dynamite to flatten half of Birmingham, and that by the next morning, the city's black residents would be begging to let the them segregate. Now with a trial nearing its end, Baxley urges the jury to issue a guilty verdict. Today would have been bombing victim Denise McNair's 26th birthday. The Attorney General implores the jurors to give Denise a birthday present and finally put one of her murderers behind bars. After seven hours of deliberation, they oblige, returning the following day with a guilty verdict. With Chambliss sentenced to life in prison, Baxley turns his attention to the ringleader's

suspected co-conspirators. The same day the jury finds Chambliss guilty, Baxley subpoenas Tommy Blanton. For years, Blanton has been tight-lived about the church bombing and maintained his innocence, but Baxley hopes that Chambliss's conviction will instill enough fear to get Blanton talking, but he refuses. Baxley has no better luck with Bobby Cherry. Shortly after Chambliss's conviction, Baxley summons Cherry to the police station where he confronts him with an arrest warrant and investigators hammer him with questions.

But Cherry gives nothing up. prosecutors then travel to visit Chambliss in prison, trying to get him to talk about his accomplices. But this, too, is unsuccessful, and in 1985, Chambliss passes away without revealing his co-conspirators. By the time of his death, however, the state's investigation into the bombing has already come to a halt. After a failed gubernatorial campaign in 1978, Baxley loses his position and his power to pursue the case. For another 25 years, the case lays dormant. But in 1993, an FBI agent in the Birmingham office brings it back to life, exhuming more than 9,000 FBI documents and surveillance tapes from the agency's original investigation.

This newly unsealed evidence, coupled with witness testimony, convinces prosecutors to pursue the matter further. By the time the prosecution has built their case, one of the suspected conspirators, Herman Cash, has already passed away, having never faced any charges in the bombing. But two others still walk free. In 2001, the last living suspects, Bobby Cherry and Tommy Blanton are charged with four counts of murder. In May of that year, Blanton is convicted and sentenced to life in prison. But Cherry manages to delay his trial a little longer. Still the following year, the former Klansman will be forced to reckon with his past crimes.

And almost four decades after the bombing that took four innocent lives, the families of its victims will finally get to see the last suspected perpetrator put behind bars. It's our liveshint, always edulinen on. It's Mayolns and Moodlellan Eduptu-Eunt on Elisa's myumelowst and Osoitteesdae

Elisa. Pufferlimia and all kinds of latheets Elisan only edulisia. It's May 22nd, 2002, and Birmingham, Alabama.

Inside a courtroom, the relatives of victims Carol Robertson, Cynthia Wesley, Adi Mae Collins, and Denise McNair sit in anticipation as they wait for the jury to return. After 39 years, Bobby Cherry is on trial, charged with four counts of murder in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church. For the past two

weeks, the families have listened to the prosecution's argument and watch members of Cherry's own family give evidence against him, claiming he boasted of taking part in the bombing, and even confessed to lighting the fuse of the dynamite that exploded the church. Now, after six hours of deliberation, the jury is finally ready to deliver its verdict. Sitting beside the victim's families are white-haired veterans of the civil rights movement, some of whom have witnessed Cherry's past violence firsthand. As the jury returns a guilty verdict, they rejoice with tears in their eyes, grateful to finally see justice served in a crime that became a watershed in the fight against segregation. While the 71-year-old Cherry is led away in handcuffs, many of the victim's

family members openly weep with relief at seeing a just end to a tragedy that has haunted them for so long. Cherry is sentenced to life in prison and a later attempt to appeal his conviction will fail. Both he and Tommy Blanton will die behind bars. And with the last remaining suspects convicted and incarcerated, the case of the 16th Street Baptist church bombing will finally be closed. But the tragedy will be remembered long after, its horror cited as a catalyst for the National Civil Rights Movement. In 2013, President Barack Obama will award a posthumous congressional gold medal to the four girls killed in the attack. Though no verdicts or accolades will bring back the young lives lost in the bombing, it will give some comfort to the victim's families, who will

hail as a beginning of a new chapter in their healing, the conviction of Bobby Cherry on May 22, 2002. Next on History Daily, May 23rd, 1934, notorious American outlaws Bonnie and Clyde are killed in a police shootout in Louisiana. From Noisor and Airship, this is History Daily, hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham, audio editing by Mohamed Shazir, sound design by Molly Bach, music by Lindsay Graham. This episode written and produced by Alexander Curry Buckner, Executive producers are Stephen Walters for Airship and Pascal Hughes for Noiser.