Sarah Collins Rudolph lost an eye and her sister was killed when Ku Klux Klan members bombed 16th Street Baptist Church in 1963. Since that day, she’s felt forgotten by officials who never offered her payment or support, let alone their condolences.
Collins Rudolph’s lawyers are now pressing Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey to offer her restitution for the losses she suffered and the burdens of the bombing she’s carried with her throughout her life.
The bombing in Birmingham, which killed four Black girls ages 11 to 14, lent new urgency to the civil rights movement. Less than a year after the bombing, President Lyndon B. Johnson would sign the Civil Rights Act, which barred discrimination based on race and segregated facilities, among other racist practices.
But Collins Rudolph said she was never offered payment for her experience, nor medical care or an official apology. Now that the country is again confronting anti-Black racism and the systems that perpetuate it, Rudolph’s lawyers say, the timing is right.
“Given recent events,” her lawyers wrote in a letter to Ivey, “now is the time for Ms. Collins Rudolph to receive long overdue justice.”
Ivey’s press secretary, Gina Maiola, told CNN the governor’s office has received the letter and is reviewing it.
She was the only girl who survived the 1963 bombing
Collins Rudolph was seriously injured in the blast that killed her sister, Addie Mae Collins, along with Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley — all 14 years old — and Denise McNair, who was 11.
Photos: Photos: 1963 Birmingham church bombing
1963 Birmingham church bombing – A grieving relative is led away from the site of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama, on September 15, 1963. Four black girls were killed and at least 14 others were injured, sparking riots and a national outcry.
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Photos: Photos: 1963 Birmingham church bombing
1963 Birmingham church bombing – From left, 11-year-old Denise McNair and 14-year-olds Carole Robertson, Addie Mae Collins and Cynthia Wesley were killed while attending Sunday services. Three Ku Klux Klan members were later convicted of murder.
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Photos: Photos: 1963 Birmingham church bombing
1963 Birmingham church bombing – Firefighters and ambulance attendants remove a body from the church.
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Photos: Photos: 1963 Birmingham church bombing
1963 Birmingham church bombing – Cars parked beside the church were damaged by the blast.
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Photos: Photos: 1963 Birmingham church bombing
1963 Birmingham church bombing – The 16th Street Baptist Church served as a rallying point during the civil rights movement. It was declared a national historic landmark in 2006.
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Photos: Photos: 1963 Birmingham church bombing
1963 Birmingham church bombing – Sarah Jean Collins, 12, lost an eye in the blast. Her sister was one of the girls who died.
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Photos: Photos: 1963 Birmingham church bombing
1963 Birmingham church bombing – Martin Luther King Jr. holds a press conference in Birmingham the day after the attack. He said the U.S. Army “ought to come to Birmingham and take over this city and run it.”
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Photos: Photos: 1963 Birmingham church bombing
1963 Birmingham church bombing – Family and friends of Carole Robertson attend graveside services for her in Birmingham on September 17, 1963.
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Photos: Photos: 1963 Birmingham church bombing
1963 Birmingham church bombing – A man digs a grave for one of the girls.
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Photos: Photos: 1963 Birmingham church bombing
1963 Birmingham church bombing – A coffin is loaded into a hearse at a funeral for the girls. An estimated 8,000 people attended the service.
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Photos: Photos: 1963 Birmingham church bombing
1963 Birmingham church bombing – Mourners embrace at the funeral. In his eulogy, Dr. King said, “These children — unoffending, innocent and beautiful — were the victims of one of the most vicious and tragic crimes ever perpetrated against humanity.”
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The five girls were in the church basement restroom on a Sunday morning when the bomb, planted by local Klan members, exploded.
Collins, Robertson, Wesley and McNair were referred to as Birmingham’s “four little girls.” Collins Rudolph is the fifth — the one who survived.
Rudolph, who was 12 at the time, told CNN in 2013 — the 50th anniversary of the bombing — that glass from the blast flew into her eye, face and chest, blinding her in one eye. She stayed in a hospital for two months after her older sister had died.
Rudolph Collins told CNN then that she felt overlooked — by her family who mourned her sister, by strangers who were taken aback by the scars the glass shards had left on her face and chest and, years later, by state and federal officials who had never offered her restitution.
“I was feeling like I was dead on the inside because of how I was treated,” she said.
Victims’ families and survivors of large-scale acts of terrorism like the September 11 attacks or the Boston Marathon bombing have received compensation, but victims and descendants of victims of historic acts of racial violence, including the 1921 Tulsa race massacre and the 1963 Birmingham church bombing, haven’t been offered the same.
Three Klansmen were ultimately convicted of the bombing (though two of them were not prosecuted until the 2000s). Upon the death of the surviving bomber in June, Ivey said the “dark day … will never be forgotten in both Alabama’s history and that of our nation.”
“Although his passing will never fully take away the pain or restore the loss of life, I pray on behalf of the loved ones of all involved that our entire state can continue taking steps forward to create a better Alabama for future generations,” she said in a statement.
The state wasn’t responsible for planting the bomb, Collins Rudolph’s lawyers wrote, but they perpetuated racism within the city that emboldened the men who bombed the church. For those and more reasons, they wrote, Collins Rudolph deserves restitution.
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