If we are to be serious about the war on terror, we have to acknowledge that it began long before September 11, 2001. ~ G. Douglas Jones, former U.S. Attorney
[Update: Parole denied]
The Alabama parole board meets Wednesday August 3 to determine if convicted child murderer — and domestic terrorist in act but not label — Thomas Blanton is eligible for early parole after waltzing through life as a free man for 38 years after his crime.
This is his backstory.
On September 15, 1963, a bomb killed four African-American girls during services at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Killed: Denise McNair, 11, and Cynthia Wesley, Carole Rosamond Robertson and Addie Mae Collins, all 14. Injured but not killed, Sarah Collins, 12, the younger sister of Addie Mae. Killed during subsequent riots: Virgil Ware, 13, and Johnny Robinson, 16.
These children—unoffending, innocent, and beautiful—were the victims of one of the most vicious and tragic crimes ever perpetrated against humanity… The innocent blood of these little girls may well serve as a redemptive force that will bring new light to this dark city. ~ Martin Luther King
Two years later, authorities had identified four bombing suspects. Yet no one was charged. J. Edgar Hoover was FBI director, and a May 13, 1965 FBI memo confirmed three eyewitnesses and named names:
… it is apparent that the bombing was the handiwork of former Klansmen Robert E. Chambliss, Bobby Frank Cherry, Herman Frank Cash, Thomas E. Blanton Jr. and probably Troy Ingram …
J. Edgar ordered his “agents in Birmingham not to meet with state or Federal prosecutors.” He also “prevented the Justice Department from being informed about the breakthrough,” which stymied Presidents Kennedy and Johnson.
Almost immediately after taking office in 1971, Alabama Attorney General Bill Baxley re-opened the investigation into the bombings. In 1977, he successfully prosecuted Chambliss: a jury convicted him of first-degree murder. Chambliss died in prison in 1985.
Cash died in 1984, never having been charged.
In 1980, the Carter Department of Justice concluded that “Hoover had blocked prosecution of the Klansmen in 1965.”
In 2000, Blanton and Cherry were both charged with four counts of intentional murder and four of murder with universal malice. Both men were found guilty and sentenced to four consecutive life terms, Blanton in 2001 and Cherry in 2002.
In 2001, 38 years later, the FBI admitted that it had failed to deliver evidence to Alabama officials in the 1970s.
Cherry died in prison in 2004.
In Alabama, prisoners serving a life sentence for murder are first eligible for parole after 15 years. For Blanton, the last surviving bomber, that’s this week.
FBI culpability, reversal
In the number of people killed at a single stroke, the bombing was the most terrible incident of racial violence during the peak years of the Southern civil-rights movement. ~ Howell Raines, 1983
The bombing was the 21st in Birmingham in eight years, and the third in only 11 days.
FBI records “show that the bureau took police-Klan collusion as an accepted fact.” And civil rights leaders estimated that at least a third of Birmingham Police Department officers were KKK members or sympathizers at the time.
So, nothing happened.
But Alabama Attorney General Baxley was determined to seek justice.
Soon it became clear these men could not be prosecuted without assistance from the F.B.I.. For several years, I requested, demanded and begged the F.B.I. for evidence.
The FBI acquiesced, in part, to Baxley’s demand for access to files. And Baxley got the first conviction in 1977, after six years work.
The Alabama investigators used the FBI material to track down potential witnesses and secure a conviction against Chambliss. But his was the only conviction. And the FBI did not turn over everything.
Blanton’s case, on the other hand, grew out of footwork within the FBI and the Department of Justice.
In 1993, Robert Langford, the FBI agent in charge of the Birmingham office, began a new review after meeting with black ministers and families of the four girls.
Blanton’s wife was an FBI informant, and the FBI had planted a microphone in their kitchen wall (without trespassing) after the bombing. Jurors heard Blanton tell his then-wife that he had been at a meeting where “we planned the bomb.”
They ain’t gonna catch me when I bomb my next church.
Although the tapes were digitally enhanced for clarity, technology not available in the 1960s, the FBI had never admitted that they even existed. One possible reason: they were made without a warrant although “in 1963, there were no provisions for court approved electronic surveillance.” More probable: the recordings might “embarrass” the FBI.
Congressional honor
In 2013, almost 50 years after-the-fact, President Obama signed legislation awarding these four girls the Congressional Gold Medal, its highest civilian honor.
Parole hearing
Those opposing this week’s parole review for Blanton, now 78, include Doug Jones, the former US Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama who tried the case as a special state attorney general in 2001:
“He has shown no remorse. He’s shown no acceptance of responsibility,” Jones said. “He has not reached out to the families or the community to show acceptance of responsibility. I think that’s an important part of parole consideration and it’s completely lacking in this case.”
Dianne Braddock, Robertson’s older sister, has sent a letter to the parole board on behalf of her family:
It is incomprehensible and unfathomable that the State of Alabama is contemplating the release of the man who was convicted on four counts of murder for the lives of Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Denise McNair, and my baby sister, Carole Rosamond Robertson, when he has served a mere fifteen years toward his life sentence. … With all due respect for the gravity and momentousness of this decision, I submit that it would be a travesty of justice to release Blanton from prison and exonerate him from completing his sentence. Accordingly, I adamantly oppose his parole.
The Metro Birmingham NAACP “vehemently opposes” parole.
Featured image: Congress of Racial Equality and members of the All Souls Church march in memory of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing victims on September 22, 1963. Source: Wikipedia
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Known for gnawing at complex questions like a terrier with a bone. Digital evangelist, writer, teacher. Transplanted Southerner; teach newbies to ride motorcycles. @kegill (Twitter and Mastodon.social); wiredpen.com