The Archives

摘要

Summer in Birmingham was "a sweaty season of tension," Newsweek reported. An Alabaman city in the throes of desegregation, the powder-keg burst on Birmingham's "Bloody Sunday" when dynamite was planted and an explosion rocked the "well-attended" 16th Street Baptist Church. It resulted in the deaths of four black girls attending Sunday school, and the city erupted. "Blood-splattered kindergarten leaflets" strewn across the ground read: "Dear God, we are sorry for the times when we were unkind." Amid lingering racial tension, history reminds us of the kindness we still need.