Several Birmingham-area churches rang bells four times at 10:22 a.m. today in commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing.
Lisa McNair, the sister of one of the victims, made this request. According to McNair, churches who don’t have bell towers were going to use hand bells in front of the church to mark the moment of the bombing and a Jewish temple will blow the shofar.
“I’ve been trying to get this project off for several years,” McNair told AL.com. “It looks like it’s finally taking place.”
The annual memorial service at 16th Street Baptist Church at 9:30 a.m. featured Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
The livestream of today’s ceremony can be found here.
On September 15, 1963 at 10:22 a.m. the Ku Klux Klan planted a bomb that exploded in the church’s basement and killed Lisa’s sister Denise, 11, and 14-year-olds Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, and Addie Mae Collins and injured several others.
See more from AL.com’s “Season of Change: 1963″ series.
5 places in Birmingham to learn more about civil rights history.
16th Street Baptist Church is celebrating its 150th anniversary.
Birmingham Children’s Crusade foot soldiers are still fighting for equity.
First Black students attended Birmingham, Mobile, Huntsville public schools 60 years ago.