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14 Leaders of Tomorrow! MARCH 1998 MBC Wolverine OBSERVER
“/ don’t think the white
community really under
stood the depths of the pro
blem and the depths of the
hate of the Klan and its
friends in the south, and in
the north too for that mat
ter, until that incredibly
mean, perverted terrible
crime of blowing up kids in
a Sunday school basement.
...At that moment that
bomb went off and those 4
little girls were blasted and
buried in the debris of the
church, America under
stood the real nature of the
hate that was preventing
integration, particularly in
the south, but also through
out America. This was the
awakening.”
-- Walter Cronkite
On a Birmingham Sunday
morning, September 15, 1963, while
attending Sunday school, four little
girls were brutally murdered when a
bomb ripped through the basement
of the Sixteenth Street Baptist
Church in Alabama. Dead were
Addie Mae Collins (14), Carol Denise
McNair (11), Cynthia Wesley (14)
and Carole Rosamond Robertson
(14). A terrorist attack, orchestrated
by Robert “Dynamite Bob” Cham
bliss, the bombing was one in a
series of racial attacks against Black
people across the country, but one
that had a tremendous impact on
America.
In a candid portrait, producer/
director Spike Lee with his first
feature length documentary, brings
to the screen a riveting account of a
dawning in America. Told through
the eyes of people who were there -
survivors, witnesses, defenders and
prosecutors, 4 LITTLE GIRLS
records a senseless act whose sup
porters once thought would put an
end to integration in Birmingham.
Instead, it fueled the movement
further when it robbed 4 innocent
children of their lives and their place
in our world. This moving testa
ment reminds us that the current
wave of African American church
burnings has as its precursor the
racist violence which confronted the
civil rights movement of the 1950’s
and 60’s.
4 LITTLE GIRLS features Bill
Baxley (former Attorney General of
Alabama), Diane Braddock (Carole’s
sister), Taylor Branch, Bill Cosby,
Walter Cronkite, Reverend Jesse
Jackson, Coretta Scott King, Shirley
Wesley King (Cynthia’s sister),
Christopher and Maxine McNair
(Denise’s parents), Howell Raines
(New York Times), Mrs. Alpha
Robertson (Carole’s mother), David
Vann (former Mayor of Birming
ham), Reverend Wyatt T. Walker
(SCLC), Reverend Andrew Young,
and many others who shared their
memories to tell this story.
An HBO documentary film in
association with 40 Acres and a
Mule Filmworks. Directed by Spike
Lee, 4 LITTLE GIRLS is produced
by Lee and Sam Pollard. For air
date, check your cable (HBO)
listings.
Coretta Scott King
Shirley Wesley King, sister of Cynthia Wesley
Mrs. Robertson, mother of Carole Robertson
Spike Lee with Christopher McNair, father of Denise McNair