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

In 1963, George Wallace was inaugurated as the governor of Alabama and proudly declared to support “segregation today…segregation tomorrow…segregation forever” (110). McKinstry believed that segregation would never end. She never thought to question why Black and white people were separated. Martin Luther King Jr. helped McKinstry understand the injustice of segregation. Inspired by King’s message, McKinstry dared to sit in the front of the public bus for the first time. The Supreme Court had ordered buses to be desegregated, but the signs designating where Black people could sit were still displayed and followed. One day, 15-year-old McKinstry nervously took a seat in the first row. The bus driver said nothing to her, and she felt she “had won a small battle” (114).

In the early 1960s, Sixteenth Street Baptist Church was an important meeting place for civil rights leaders, and McKinstry met King there. During a meeting of young activists, she was immediately inspired by their energy and wanted to be part of the movement. She was “spellbound” by King as he spoke about the needed changes and God’s role in creating and celebrating diversity. She was also struck by King’s talk of nonviolence and his insistence that God wanted them to love “all [their] neighbors, whatever their walks in life” (120). The other preachers, along with Dr. King, also spoke about the need for equality, arguing that Black people should be able to attend the same public institutions as white people. This idea “resonated” with McKinstry; she had always wanted to go to Kiddieland, the local amusement park, but couldn’t because it was only for white people. Her parents had told her they didn’t have the money to visit Kiddieland, and McKinstry accepted this answer because it was easier than confronting the reality of racial discrimination. However, after listening to Dr. King, she could no longer deny the reality.

King and his associates planned a march, and McKinstry wanted to participate. The police were expected to incite violence, but King insisted that the marchers would not reciprocate under any circumstances. After explaining the rules and risks, the adults in the church were hesitant to march. However, the congregation’s young people eagerly “offered themselves as ‘living sacrifices’” (123). In private, King experienced doubts; most of the marchers were children, and he was criticized for placing young people in harm's way. However, the other ministers and the marchers themselves were eager to proceed. On May 2, 1963, McKinstry finally heard the radio DJ speak the code that meant the day of the march had arrived. Her family had no idea she planned to participate, and she went to school with her heart pounding.

McKinstry joined thousands of students on May 2, 1963, to march for civil rights. The march began at Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, where McKinstry was shocked to see white army tanks, making the city “look like a war zone” (129). She felt afraid but took courage from her classmates marching around her. There were also firefighters holding large firehoses. The police shouted at the marchers to disperse. When they did not, they blasted the children with the firehoses. The water pressure was intense enough to break bones, and children cowered under the jets. They were sent out of the church in groups of 50. The first 50 children were arrested, but another group of students quickly replaced them.

Frustrated by the never-ending stream of children, Bull Connor, Birmingham’s commissioner of public safety, instructed the police to let their attack dogs loose on the student protesters. McKinstry was “terrified” by the vicious German shepherds, who snapped at the closest children, drawing “significant blood.” As she “watched in horror,” McKinstry was caught by a jet from a firehose. The water forced her against a building, blew a hole in her sweater, bruised her face, and tore out a chunk of her hair. When the jet of water finally abated, McKinstry ran out of the crowd and took refuge in the church basement, shaking with fear and rage. She wanted to return and continue the march, but she was afraid, mostly of what her father would say if she were discovered.

She returned home bruised and soaking wet. Her father opened the door, and McKinstry told him the truth. He grounded her “for good,” but McKinstry hoped the march would lead to change. Watching the news, she learned that nearly 1,000 students were arrested, some as young as four. Journalists nationwide captured images from the march; the time had come “to end the silence.” (134).

Following the children’s march, Martin Luther King Jr. held a meeting at Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, where he spoke about how the march inspired him. The next day, students marched again, while McKinstry stayed in school. Again, the police retaliated with dogs and firehoses, and many children were arrested. The city’s jails were already full, so the children were bussed to the fairgrounds, where they were locked in hog pens and fed one peanut butter sandwich per day. Many were kept locked up for two weeks while their “horrified parents” waited outside and passed food to their caged children.

More than 2,500 people were arrested on May 2 and 3, 1963, and most were children. The shocking images from the marches quickly spread worldwide, and Bull Connor was removed from his position as commissioner of public safety. This was a significant victory for the civil rights movement, and McKinstry felt proud to say the pledge of allegiance in church.

The children arrested for marching had criminal records that followed them throughout their lives. In 2009, Birmingham finally issued official pardons to those who had participated in the children’s march and refunded any fines, ranging from one to 50 dollars. While this was meant to be an act of “racial reconciliation,” the pardons “surprised” McKinstry. She argues that a pardon implies forgiving wrongdoing, but she and the other children hadn’t committed a crime.

At the time, McKinstry didn’t understand “the gravity” of the children’s march. She and the other children were in significant danger, something McKinstry only realized later in life when a firefighter who had turned the hoses on the children came forward to apologize. Revisiting the photographs taken that day also impressed McKinstry with the intensity of what she had done.

Martin Luther King Jr. was heavily criticized for putting children in harm’s way, but in the days following the march in Birmingham, changes began to occur, and the city began to desegregate slowly. However, Governor Wallace was determined to uphold his promise of “segregation forever.” Wallace stood in the doorway of the University of Alabama to prevent two Black students from enrolling. He claimed that it was the state’s right to run the public schools and decide whether or not to desegregate them. President Kennedy was forced to federalize the Alabama National Guard to make Wallace step aside. That night, McKinstry watched President Kennedy address the nation and speak about the importance of equal rights. It was the first time McKinstry had seen “a powerful white man” standing up for Black people’s rights (143), and she felt a surge of “excitement and hope.” She felt that President Kennedy understood the discrimination that Black people faced and thought he could “do something about all this mess” (144).

Slowly, things began to change. One day in July, McKinstry visited the Pizitz department store and climbed the staircase to the mezzanine cafe. She sat down in the formally all-white establishment and ate lunch. She reflects that it might not seem important, but it was “a big deal” for her.

Two Black students were finally admitted to the University of Alabama, but Governor Wallace retaliated with an executive order claiming that integration was “detrimental to the public interest” and ordered schools to cease efforts at desegregation. President Kennedy promised that the US government would intervene if Wallace continued to oppose desegregation efforts. Wallace responded in an interview with The New York Times, arguing that Alabama needed “a few first-class funerals” (149) to stop school integration. McKinstry points out that these funerals came just a few months later with the death of her four friends in the Sixteenth Baptist Church bombing.

Opposition to integration accelerated racial violence in Birmingham. The day after Governor Wallace blocked the door to the University of Alabama, a Ku Klux Klan member shot and killed Medgar Evers, a key civil rights activist. The murderer was acquitted and set free. McKinstry was deeply affected by the murder. She was beginning “to grasp how little value black people had” (152), and she worried for her family’s safety.

As the debate over school desegregation raged on, McKinstry thought about where she wanted to attend college. She was a good student with a gift for spelling. She won a regional spelling bee for Black students and wonders if she might have won the National Spelling Bee if she had been permitted to compete. McKinstry wonders what other opportunities she might have had if “society’s doors [had] been more open to [her]” (154). Her parents urged her to attend Fisk University, an all-Black institution in Nashville, claiming it would “be easier” than attending a white college.

However, her “sense of well-being was shattered” when the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church was bombed (158). McKinstry writes that “some moments in history and in our lives go away” (159); we come to terms with what has happened and move on. Other moments “become a part of our ‘forever’ thoughts” (159), resurfacing over a lifetime. While these memories might be painful, they hold important lessons.

After the bombing, McKinstry writes, “My heart built a barrier that sealed off my hope, my happiness, and my very soul” (159). She lived under a “dark cloud” and lost her hope in the future and her “white fellow human beings” (159).