Carolyn Maull McKinstry - While the World Watched: A Birmingham Bombing Survivor Comes of Age During the Civil Rights Movement

While the World Watched

A Birmingham Bombing Survivor Comes of Age during the Civil Rights Movement

by

Carolyn Maull McKinstry

Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

Carol Stream, Illinois

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While the World Watched: A Birmingham Bombing Survivor Comes of Age during the Civil Rights Movement

Copyright 2011 by Carolyn McKinstry. All rights reserved.

Cover photograph of author and interior photograph of author in church by Stephen Vosloo copyright Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.

Cover and interior photograph of Birmingham street used with the permission of the Birmingham, Alabama, Public Library Archives, Cat. #85.1.9.

Cover and interior photographs of four girls; caskets; mourners on street; grieving mother; civil rights leaders; Justice Department demonstration; policemen outside church; and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. copyright AP Images. All rights reserved.

Photograph of demonstrators being hosed copyright Charles Moore/Black Star. All rights reserved.

Photograph of police dogs attacking young man copyright Bill Hudson/AP Images. All rights reserved.

All other photographs are from the personal collection of the author and used with permission.

Background texture pattern copyright Morgan Lane Photography/Shutterstock. All rights reserved.

The following speech excerpts are reprinted by arrangement with The Heirs to the Estate of Martin Luther King Jr., c/o Writers House as agent for the proprietor New York, NY:

Letter from a Birmingham Jail, copyright 1963 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; copyright renewed 1991 Coretta Scott King

Where Do We Go from Here? copyright 1967 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; copyright renewed 1995 Coretta Scott King

I Have a Dream, copyright 1963 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; copyright renewed 1991 Coretta Scott King

Ive Been to the Mountaintop, copyright 1968 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; copyright renewed 1996 Coretta Scott King

Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech, copyright 1964 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; copyright renewed 1992 Coretta Scott King

Funeral speech for the slain girls, copyright 1963 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; copyright renewed 1991 Coretta Scott King

Designed by Jessie McGrath

Edited by Stephanie Voiland

Published in association with the literary agency of WordServe Literary Group, Ltd., 10152 S. Knoll Circle, Highlands Ranch, CO 80130.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version , NIV . Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the Holy Bible , King James Version.

Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. NKJV is a trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

McKinstry, Carolyn Maull, date.

While the world watched : a Birmingham bombing survivor comes of age during the civil rights

movement / Carolyn Maull McKinstry with Denise George.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-1-4143-3636-7 (hc)

1. McKinstry, Carolyn Maull, date. 2.16th Street Baptist Church Bombing, Birmingham, Ala., 1963.

3.Civil rights movementsAlabamaBirminghamHistory20th century. 4.African AmericansAlabamaBirminghamBiography. 5.Birmingham (Ala.)Social conditions. 6.Birmingham (Ala.)Biography. I.George, Denise. II.Title.

F334.B653M356 2011

976.1'781063dc22 2010047575

This book is dedicated to my grandparents, Reverend Ernest Walter and Lessie V. Burt, whose prayers sustained us and whose wisdom and love still live within me and my family;

my parents, Samuel and Ernestine Burt Maull, who gave us their absolute best and prepared us in such a loving way for the rough road that lay ahead;

my husband, Jerome McKinstry, whom God sent in the midst of all my pain and confusion and who still stands today as a cornerstone for me; and

my childrenLeigh, Joya, and Brandonwho are the fruit and the joys of my life and who have made this struggle worth every day.

Finally and especially, this book is dedicated to the memory of my friends Addie Mae Collins, Carol Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, and Cynthia Wesley, killed September 15, 1963, when Sixteenth Street Baptist Church was bombed, and to the memory of Johnny Robinson and Virgil Ware, also killed September 15, 1963, who now laugh and walk with Addie, Denise, Carole, and Cynthia.

May they all rest in peace and in the knowledge that their story and their witness live on in the hearts of people of goodwill all over the world.

C. M. M.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Almost half a century has passed since the Klan bombed Sixteenth Street Baptist Church at 10:22 on Sunday morning, September 15, 1963, and my four young friends died agonizing deaths. And its been almost half a century since, as a young teen, I marched under the leadership of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and got a handful of hair torn from my scalp by Bull Connors powerful water hoses.

For twenty years after these experiences, I tried hard to forget the senseless deaths, the inhumane injustices, the vicious German shepherds, and children getting arrested right on the streets of downtown Birmingham. In fact, we were encouraged by our parents, other church members, and our black community to forget what had happened. For almost five decades, I had not been able to muster the courage, nor the composure, to publicly record the stories that have become such a dark part of our nations past. I had struggled to forget these stories, to rid them from my head and heart. They proved too horrible, too painful, to dredge up to memory. But now, as I see new generations coming and old generations passing, I feel compelled to remember, to write down in permanent ink my eyewitness account of just what happened while the world watched... lest I forget. Lest we all forget.

I hope this story will challenge you to reexamine your life; your daily living; your values; and your relationship with God, our Creator. As you consider the events on these pages, may you choose to love, and may you commit yourself to live a life of reconciliationfirst with God and then ultimately with those who share this world with you.

Carolyn Maull McKinstry

Spring 2011

The Civil Rights Movement... Through the Eyes of Carolyn Maull McKinstry

1948

January 13, 1948: Carolyn Maull is born in Clanton, Alabama.

1954

May 17, 1954: Supreme Court bans segregation in schools in the Brown v. Board of Education decision.

1955

August 28, 1955: Fourteen-year-old Emmett Till is kidnapped and murdered in Mississippi.

December 1, 1955: Rosa Parks is arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white in Montgomery, Alabama.

December 5, 1955: Montgomery bus boycott begins.

1956

November 13, 1956: Supreme Court affirms ban on segregated seating on Alabama buses.

December 25, 1956: Reverend Fred Shuttlesworths house in Birmingham is bombed.

1957

September 2, 1957: Klan members kidnap and castrate Edward Aaron in Birmingham.

September 24, 1957: The Little Rock Nine enter Central High under the protection of the United States Armys 101st Airborne Division.