04x17 - The Birmingham Church Bombing: The Long Arc of Justice Part 1

[bunniefuu]

[ominous music]

- It was probably the most
important case

that I've ever worked on.

- And we had the chance...

- [Bill and Ben]: To change
history.

[clock tick-tock]

[reporter]: As worshippers
gathered for church on a Sunday
morning...

[loud expl*si*n]

exploding dynamite shattered
Birmingham's 16th Street
Baptist Church.

- That church had really become
a symbol, as one of the largest,

most active black churches
in Birmingham.

[reporter]: The church had
served as a staging area for

the city's Civil Rights
Movement, led by Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr.

[Doug]: Birmingham was known
as "Bombingham"

because of bombings in
the black neighborhood.

- 41 since the end
of World w*r II.
[Doug]: Yeah.

[reporter]: Four young girls
dressing for the choir
were k*lled.

- The FBI flooded
Birmingham with agents.

They interviewed Klans
members, Klans members' wives.

[Kristy]: Individuals that we'd
already identified from previous
intelligence gathering.

[reporter]: The tragedy became
a symbol of the violent

and bitter Civil Rights
era in the South.

[suspenseful music]

- These were four innocent
little girls that died

because of the color
of their skin.

And that was something that
really shook the conscience
of the country.

[journalist]: In Washington,
the government has now ordered

a new look into the racially
motivated bombing

of a Black church in Birmingham,
Alabama, more than three decades
ago.

[reporter]: One man was
convicted, but police believe
several others got away.

- This is absolutely the last
time it can be investigated.

because we were losing too many
witnesses, too many suspects.

- The people that b*mb and k*ll
our innocent citizens and

children, we will
never give up.

[narrator]: In the FBI,
we make a lot of headlines.

Drug busts, mob stings,

t*rror1st takedowns.

[people shouting]

We understand why people
want to tell stories about us,

- Mark it!
- Freeze!

- FBI.

- FBI!
[man in the distance]: Action!

[narrator]: But they don't
know the half of it.

What really goes down?

We save that for each other whn
we're talking agent to agent.

This is FBI, True.

- 60 years ago,
September 15th, 1963.

[narrator]: Kristy Kottis
is a 24-year veteran of the FB.

She worked gangs, crimes againt
children as well as human

and drug trafficking.

- Ben, where were you?

- I was nine years old,
and I was at home.

It was a Sunday.

[narrator]: Birmingham,
Alabama, native Ben Herren

served on his hometown's police
department for nearly

two decades, before being
tapped to join the FBI's

reinvestigation of the 16th
street Baptist church bombing.

- Did your parents speak
of the bombing at all or...

- I was pretty much
shielded.

- Doug, how about you?
Where were you?

- It's really similar
to Ben because we actually

grew up not far from each other.

[narrator]: Doug Jones was
appointed as the United States

Attorney for the Northern
District of Alabama in 1997.


he was elected U.S. Senator

for Alabama, a role he held
until 2021.

- And when he says shielded,

I think that that
is the real key.

I mean, you got to understand,
in those days,

these were very
segregated neighborhoods.

[reporter]: Birmingham
is the largest segregated city
in the South.

Every phase of activity;
business, cultural and social
is segregated.

- And Bill, how about you?
Where were you on that day?

- Well, I wasn't living
in Birmingham at the time.

I was living in Albany, Georgia.

But attitudes were very similar
to the attitudes in Birmingham.

[narrator]: Bill Fleming is
a 33-year-veteran of the FBI.

Based in the Birmingham
field office,

he focused on civil rights cass
in the latter years

of his career.

[ominous music]

- The victims in this blast.

Who are they?

- There were four children.

They were dressed in their
finest dresses and

they were going down to
the restroom right before church

to spiffy up, to clean up
a little bit.

[stressful music]

Three of them were 14 years old.

You had Addie Mae Collins,

Carole Robinson,

Cynthia Wesley
and Denise McNair.

She was the youngest of them.

There was another girl that was
down there,

which was the sister
of Addie Mae.

She was actually at the sink
and she was not k*lled,

but one of her eyes
was actually blinded.

[sinister music]

- So how big was
this expl*si*n?

- The b*mb was pretty powerful.

I mean, it was placed underneath
the bottom step

of some concrete steps
that led on the outside
of the building.

[expl*si*n]

[riveting music]

- And on the other side
of the wall was the little
girl's bathroom.

And with the steps, it just made
the perfect expl*si*n

because all of it went sideways
into the church

and across the street
and into the cars.

And it went down.

There was a crater
at least five feet deep.

- What about the rest
of the church structure itself?

- There was...one interesting
scene was the...

it had a big glass...
- Stained glass.

- Stained glass of Jesus.

And the main damage was
the face of Jesus was blown out.

It was like, He couldn't
bear to see it.

- Yeah.
- Couldn't bear to witness it.

- Doug, so how did the families
find out about the victims?

- In different ways.

Maxine McNair had taken Denise
that morning and Maxine

was in her Sunday-school class,
which was right above

where the b*mb exploded.

So when she heard the b*mb,
they really weren't sure

if it was a b*mb.

She said that it might
have been a plane crash.

But all she knew was
it was coming from below there.

And she just screamed out:
"My baby! My baby!"

Denise's father went to
the church only to be told

he needed to go to the hospital,
the makeshift morgue.

That's where he identified
Denise, his only daughter.

Ms. Robertson was at home,
they lived a few blocks away,

and Carole had come earlier.

So Ms. Robertson was getting
dressed for the church service

when she heard the blast.

And she said that it sounded
like the whole world was
shaking.

It did.

- There was one b*mb
technician from headquarters

that was put on a military plane
flown to Birmingham,

and he was there within
two hours after the b*mb
went off

so that he could start
the investigation
of the bombing.

[violin sad music]

- And in fact the State
swooped in

and tried to investigate.

But they spend all their time
trying to prove that members

of the Black community bombed
that church to try to get

sympathy for the civil rights
movement.

- So instead of investigating
the facts

as they were laying out,
they instead tried to build

an inculpatory case for,
basically the Klan?

- Exactly.
- What's the federal response?

- Mr. Hoover sent 50 agents
in Birmingham.

- It's a full on
investigative endeavor.
- Oh, yes.

- Big time.
- Major.

Major, probably the biggest
one the bureau had worked.

Even though we didn't, per se,
have a direct connection

to that crime because it was
a state offense at that time.

[sad music]

- As we're leading up into
the bombing, the significance

of 1963 cannot be
overemphasized.

You know, it was in
the spring of 1963

that the Children's Marches
occurred...

[dramatic music]

and they would meet
inside the church and literally

go into the intersection
outside...

before Bull Connor hit them
with fire hoses and dogs.

Bull Connor was
the police commissioner.

He was an old, r*cist public
servant and he literally

is the one who set the fire
hoses and dogs on the kids.

And then in the summer,

in August,
the "I Have a Dream" speech,

Dr. King's speech on the Mall.

- One day right down in Alabama,
little Black boys

and Black girls will be able to
join hands with little white

boys and white girls as sisters
and brothers.

I have a dream today.

- And there was a lot of hope
in the air for civil rights
at the time.

But in Birmingham, the lawsuit
that had been filed

to desegregate the schools was
finished and the Birmingham

city schools were desegregated
five days before this bombing.

It's a cliche to say it,
but with what happened,

but Birmingham literally was
like a powder keg

because of school desegregation
at that point.

- And I say segregation now,
segregation tomorrow, and
segregation forever.

[crowd chanting]: Two, four,
six, eight, we don't want
to integrate.

- And it was on that Sunday,
the 15th where that powder keg
got lit.

[expl*si*n]

- Bill, give me a little
idea of what the FBI agents

and all the assets that the FBI
sent to Birmingham,

what are they doing
at this time?

- They are going through
talking to the Klan.

They're talking to people
that we had cases on already

just because they were members
of the Klan.

- You know, Birmingham had like


which were Klan chapters.

They quickly developed suspects.

I mean, there was
a group that was pretty violent.

They were known as
the Cahaba River Bridge Boys

and they would meet under
a bridge in Birmingham.

People like Bobby Frank Cherry.

[slow music]

Tommy Blanton...

and that ringleader was a guy
named Robert Chambliss.

He was known as "Dynamite Bob".

He was thought to be involved
in a number of the bombings
in Birmingham.

[suspenseful music]

And they would interview these
guys and they would talk

to each other and they would
be inconsistent.

And so they really were able
to focus on

the Cahaba River Bridge boys
as the prime suspects
in the bombing.

- This investigation started
in 1963.

Do we get any convictions
at this point?

- No.
- What happens?

- The bureau spent an incredible
amount of resources,

but in those days, there was
really only a five-year statute

of limitations for civil rights
deaths.

And so in 1968, there
had been no indictments,

and J. Edgar Hoover closes
the case.

I think everybody had a really
good idea who committed

this bombing, but there was just
not enough that could be used

in a court of law.

[sad music]

And you had an all-white jury,
all male white jury,

and they would have never
convicted those guys.

- And one of them would have
been a Klansman in all
likelihood.

- Now, I know there was
a lot of controversy

when the FBI did close
that case.

A lot of people may have felt
the bureau's not interested

and Mr. Hoover's just closing
this case.

- And that's really unfair.

It really is.

I'm no defender of Hoover.

But the fact of the matter
is that the bureau put forth
a lot of effort.

There was this, this code
of silence among the Klansmen.

And you didn't have any
DNA type stuff.

You didn't really have anything
that could connect anybody,

per se.

- When does this case
get brought back up again?

- The first time it gets brought
back up again is by

the Alabama Attorney General,
Bill Baxley.

He reopened the case
in 1971 when he was sworn in.

- The FBI is not
involved at this point?

- No.
- We might have given them
some documents

or let them review files.
Something like that.

- Let's be candid.

At that time, the FBI
didn't cooperate with Baxley.

- You know, you've got to
remember, though, George Wallace

was still the governor
of Alabama.

- Right.
- And you had a young attorney
general who was pretty

progressive wanting to do this,
but the FBI didn't trust

the state of Alabama and they
didn't like giving out their
files.

This was mainly a state case
with some FBI assistance,

but very little.

- Attorney General Bill Baxley
acknowledged today

that the investigation
of the 1963 Birmingham church
bombing has been reopened.

But in the Attorney General's
words: "there are some people

in Jefferson County who ought to
be pretty nervous right now."

- It took several years
for Bill Baxley's team

to really get the evidence
to indict one individual,
Robert Chambliss.

[suspenseful music]

And they only had enough
evidence based on the testimony

of a niece of Robert
Chambliss's, the girlfriend
of one

of the other Klansmen, and
a couple of other people.

[reporter]: Mrs. Cobbs related
a conversation she said

she had with Chambliss the day
before the bombing

of the 16th Street
Baptist Church.

[reporter]: Mrs. Cobbs said
she was watching television

with Chambliss a week later,
when a news report

on the church bombing
investigation came on.

She described his reaction
as he watched the report.

- They tried the case
in Birmingham.

Baxley personally tried the case
along with a couple of others.

At the time, in 1977, I was
a second-year law student

in Birmingham, and I wanted to
be a trial lawyer.

And so I cut classes and
went and watched that trial.

Baxley elected to only charge on
the m*rder of Denise McNair.

They believed at the time
that if they only charged

one death and he was acquitted,
that they might,

could then go back
and charge the others.

And ultimately,
Chambliss was convicted.

- We've been talking about
the past generations

of investigative teams.

Tell me about your generation
of FBI and how it gets involved.

- In the early nineties,
the Bureau and

the Black community
in Birmingham

had gotten a little bit
at odds.

And SAC Rob Langford started
going to some of the black
churches.

And at one meeting with some
of these black leaders,

they said: "we'd like for you
to take a look"

at the 16th street Baptist
church bombing.

We know that more than
Robert Chambliss was involved.

- And Mr. Langford, he called me
and he said, told me

he was considering reopening
the 16th Street Church Bombing.

- Okay.
- And he said:

"I would like you to, to be
in charge of it."

And of course, I was not exactly
excited...

- Why not?
- Because I looked at it

as a 33-year-old case with
nobody coming forward,

with no new evidence being
discovered,

with no smoking g*n, nothing.

- Ben, tell me about when
you become involved in this
case directly.

- Well, in 1995 I was
the detective sergeant

in the burglary unit.

My beeper goes off at the time
and it tells me

to report to the chief's office.

And he tells me, says:

"Ben, I want you to go over
and meet with the FBI.

And they're talking about
reopening the 16th Street
Church case

and just see if it's feasible".

And the chief ask me:
"What do you think about it"

I said: "well?
I really don't think we have

a lot of chance to convict
somebody, but this is absolutely

the last time it can be
investigated because we were
losing too many witnesses,

too many suspects, and if we're
going to do it, let's do
it right."

And I go over to that meeting
and I look around

and it's Bill and I,
we are the task force.

[Bill laughs]
- Oh!

- And that's how
we got started in it.

- As you're going through
the file,

what do you decide is
the first or next step?

- Well, the first thing
that we wanted to do

is familiarize yourself with
the old investigation.

All the files, probably 10,000
documents we had to go through.

- What do you learn about
Bobby Frank Cherry

in those original case files?

- Cherry is all over
the board, but he's making

certain admissions about being
at the Modern Sign Shop

where they were all gathered
the night before this bombing

and that Blanton was there,
that Robert Chambliss

and others were there.

- And I thought the best
opportunity at the time

would be interview Cherry first.

And we had to keep it a secret
from the press,

from other police departments,
from everybody else.

So we could hit Cherry cold.

[reporter]: Flanked by his
attorney, and followed by

cameras, Bobby Frank Cherry,
a former Klansman,

came here to answer questions
about his past.

- He is saying: "the FBI
is bothering me again.

It's been 30 years and they have
been harassing me all my life".

- When Bob Cherry called that
press conference

that's when the phone
started ringing.

- The phone rings and I answer
it, and it's Cherry's
granddaughter.

She related that on numerous
family events

that Cherry would brag about
blowing up the church.

- In 1963, there was electronic
surveillance everywhere.

The FBI was monitoring Blanton
and we knew that there was

some significant information
in these tapes.

We just didn't know where
the hell the tapes were.

- I see this box by the corner,
like it's fixing to be thrown

in the trash and there's eight
tapes, in there.

- And as I start saying:
"Doug on the tape...",

He says "Stop, stop, stop.
Don't tell me."

- We may not be able to use
the tapes.

And because you've heard them,
you may get tainted

for the rest
of the investigation.

I'm thinking:
"I'm out of the case now".