Junie Collins Williams was standing in the 16th Street Baptist Church when it exploded on Sept. 15, 1963 in Birmingham, Ala. Her sister, Addie Mae, died that morning and her sister Sarah lost an eye.
Williams shared her story of terror, redemption and forgiveness with a nearly full auditorium of young and old and white and black people in Dallas Hall on Thursday night.
Williams told her story from that morning as she remembers standing in the lobby of the church just moments before the bomb went off. She was told by an adult to get to class upstairs and to this day, she’s convinced that is what saved her life.
Her struggle since then has been to overcome a terror that at times was unbearable.
“Normally you feel safe in a church,” Williams said.
Williams was called to identify her sister’s body after the devastating explosion.
“I couldn’t tell by her face….the only way I knew [it was her] was by looking at her shoes.
It took many years for Williams to find closure and overcome depression and panic attacks. Her strength comes from a deep faith.
“We black people didn’t have anything else, but we did have Jesus,” she said.
Williams shared bible verse after bible verse preaching a message of forgiveness and hope to an audience that received her with cheers and “amen’s.”
“Our main story should be focused on what our ancestors went through for this generation,” Williams said.
William Smith, a member of Omega Psi Phi, brought his 6-year-old son to the event. Smith feels it is important for his son to “see …and hear [Williams’s] story…they were little kids just like him.”
Birmingham was a hotbed of unaddressed racism during the 1960s. The 16th Street Baptist Church was a stage for civil rights activism. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke at the church on several occasions and it was the site of many demonstrations.
For white supremacists it was a target. That Sunday morning in 1963, members of the Ku Klux Klan killed Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, Addie Mae Collins and Denise McNair with a bomb placed near the church basement. Three of the girls were 14 years old and one was only 11. Twenty other people were injured.
The bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala. remains one of the most horrific events in civil rights history. At the time of the bombing there were four suspects but J. Edgar Hoover refused to prosecute. It took over 40 years to prosecute the members of the Ku Klux Klan responsible for their murders.
SMU Embrey Human Rights Program Director, Rick Halperin, invited bomb survivor Junie Collins Williams to share her story and recount the history she witnessed in Alabama during the 60s.
Halperin grew up in Alabama, and the hatred he witnessed is responsible for his lifelong dedication to human rights.
“[Williams] serves as a living reminder that … [it] takes a lot of time, effort and political will to confront our past crimes, admit our pain and apologize,” Halperin said.
