BISHOP COMMEMORATES LEGACY OF 1963 BOMBING AT 16TH STREET BAPTIST CHURCH IN BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA
Today, Congressman Sanford D. Bishop, Jr. (GA-02) spoke on the floor of the House of Representatives in support of H.R. 360, a bill to posthumously award a Congressional Gold Medal to Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, and Cynthia Wesley, in recognition of the 50th commemoration of the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church where the four little black girls lost their lives. The bombing on September 15, 1963 is often cited as a catalyst for the Civil Rights Movement. Congressman Bishop was an original co-sponsor of H.R. 360. H.R. 360 passed 420 to 0.
Please click here to view Congressman Bishop speaking on the House floor.
Congressman Sanford D. Bishop, Jr.’s remarks are as follows:
“I thank the Gentlelady for yielding. Alabama named me, but Georgia claimed me. I remember vividly the Sunday of the bombing as a young boy in Mobile, Alabama. I’m reminded of the words of James Weldon Johnson.
‘Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chastening rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet,
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come, over a way that with tears has been watered,
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
‘Till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.’
Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley. Four little girls are bright stars in the constellation shining down now as beacons of light for freedom and justice. And so today, 50 years after the senseless bombing in Birmingham, it’s all together fitting and proper that we should look back, commemorate the significance the sacrifice of these young girls, these four young lives.
Truly it was a turning point—the murder of these youngsters whose only crime was going to the bathroom in church, that had sparked a nation, not only to mourn the death of innocents but to act to quell the turmoil and to move us toward freedom. I’m happy to join my colleague Congresswoman Sewell, Congressman Bachus, and all of the colleagues here in this House to appropriately pass legislation to award the Congressional Gold Medal to these four young martyrs in the fight for freedom.”