Leaders and community members gather at 16th Street Baptist Church ahead of commemoration to reflect and reconcile
There was dance and song at Birmingham's 16th Street Baptist Church Thursday as community members and leaders packed the pews 鈥� preparing to commemorate 60 years since a bomb tore through the church, killing four little Black girls 鈥� Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Denise McNair and Carole Robertson.
"Stories that have not only become Birmingham's legacy but a blueprint for change and progress throughout the world," Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin said.
It's a blueprint leaders like Woodfin believe was born in Birmingham through a tragedy birthed by racism and hatred that became a catalyst for change.
"The scars of the Magic City, the wounds that have been inflicted upon us and the healing has occurred in the years since are laid barren for the world to see," Woodfin said.
The remembrance, reflection and reconciliation was the topic of the community gathering held by the Ballard House Project with guest speaker Dr. Eddie Glaude Jr.
"It's important for us to acknowledge and recognize our debt to tend to our grief," Glaude said. "To understand the meaning of it all."
It was a meaning Emily Rushing said she only learned later in life.
"I was alive and lived here in the 60s and was totally oblivious," Rushing said. "Lived over the mountain, so I'm privileged to be able to continue to learn and be present with people who, like me, want these things not to be forgotten but be able to build on them."
For Tammy Means, who brought her daughter Kendall, she said teaching this history honors those whose shoulders her and her daughter both stand.
"Because of what happened 60 years ago, this is why we're able to do what we can do today, so it's important to remind ourselves constantly of the sacrifices that were made 60 years ago for Kendall and myself," Means said.
Sacrifices leaders said still matter today.
"The lesson of 16th Street Baptist Church is a lesson we must heed in this moment," Glaude said.
"Birmingham, Alabama, the world is still watching 60 years later," Woodfin said.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman on the nation鈥檚 highest court, will be the featured speaker at the 60th anniversary memorial service on Friday.