Until Justice Rolls Down
The Birmingham Church Bombing Case
By Frank Sikora
University of Alabama Press, Fire Ant Books
It was a time when Martin Luther King Jr. and other leaders rallied black youth and adults to march for their civil rights, a time when the Ku Klux Klan was active in cities and throughout the countryside of the Deep South, employing 19th-century tactics to intimidate blacks to stay “in their place.” It was also the year that the worst act of terrorism in the entire civil rights movement occurred just as Birmingham, Alabama, was coming under close national scrutiny.
This book tells the story of one grim Sunday in September 1963 when an intentionally planted cache of dynamite ripped through the walls of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church and ended the dreams and the lives of four young black girls. Their deaths spurred the Kennedy administration to send an army of FBI agents to Alabama and led directly to the passage of the Civil Rights Act. When the Justice Department was unable to bring anyone to trial for this heinous crime, a young Alabama attorney general named Bill Baxley began his own investigation to find the perpetrators. In 1977, 14 years after the bombing, Baxley brought one Klansman to trial and, in a courtroom only blocks from the bombed church (now a memorial to the victims), persuaded a jury to return a guilty verdict. More than 20 years later two other perpetrators were tried for the bombing, found guilty, and remanded to prison.
Frank Sikora has used the court records, FBI reports, oral interviews, and newspaper accounts to weave a story of spellbinding proportions. A reporter by profession, Sikora tells this story compellingly, explaining why the civil rights movement had to be successful and how Birmingham had to change.
This book tells the story of one grim Sunday in September 1963 when an intentionally planted cache of dynamite ripped through the walls of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church and ended the dreams and the lives of four young black girls. Their deaths spurred the Kennedy administration to send an army of FBI agents to Alabama and led directly to the passage of the Civil Rights Act. When the Justice Department was unable to bring anyone to trial for this heinous crime, a young Alabama attorney general named Bill Baxley began his own investigation to find the perpetrators. In 1977, 14 years after the bombing, Baxley brought one Klansman to trial and, in a courtroom only blocks from the bombed church (now a memorial to the victims), persuaded a jury to return a guilty verdict. More than 20 years later two other perpetrators were tried for the bombing, found guilty, and remanded to prison.
Frank Sikora has used the court records, FBI reports, oral interviews, and newspaper accounts to weave a story of spellbinding proportions. A reporter by profession, Sikora tells this story compellingly, explaining why the civil rights movement had to be successful and how Birmingham had to change.
“A lyrically moving description of the victims' last hours. . . . Until Justice Rolls Down is a story about intrepid prosecutors in pursuit of evidence.”--Diane McWhorter, New York Times Book Review
Sikora captures the hatred of the Klan, the hope of the civil rights movement, the pain of the tragic bombing, and the courtroom drama that ultimately caused ‘justice to roll down like water.’ It is a fascinating read.”--Morris Dees, Southern Poverty Law Center
“Sikora tells a sad tale well. Until Justice Rolls Down details the frustration of the seemingly hopeless investigation. . . . Everyone interested in American history should buy this book.”--Tom Wagy, Florida Historical Quarterly
Frank Sikora is a career journalist who retired recently from the Birmingham News. He is author of The Judge: The Life and Opinions of Alabama’s Frank M. Johnson, Jr.,Let Us Now Praise Famous Women: A Memoir, and, with Sheyann Webb and Rachel West Nelson, Selma, Lord, Selma.
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