![]() ![]() “I think about it every time I walk on the floor of the Senate and into my office.”Īn audience of congressional interns barely moved as Jones described the details of the crime and how it shaped his understanding of racism in America. “This case is something I live with every day, in a very good way,” the Democrat said Monday. Years later, Doug Jones was the prosecutor who finally went after two of the bombers. Ku Klux Klan members killed four young girls when they blew a hole in the side of the 16th Street Baptist Church, a meeting place for civil rights leaders. It is appalling,” she said.History can repeat itself if we forget that “words matter,” Alabama’s junior senator warned as he reflected on a white supremacist attack that shook Birmingham in 1963. ![]() “After 15 years we are talking about parole. Evidence against Blanton included secret recordings that were made using FBI bugs at his home and in the car of a fellow Klansman turned informant.ĭianne Robertson Braddock, a sister of victim Carole Robertson, said relatives of the girls are still trying to put the bombing behind them all these years later, yet Blanton spent most of his life free. Robert Chambliss, convicted in 1977, and Bobby Frank Cherry, convicted in in 2002, have both died in prison.īlanton and Cherry were indicted in 2000 after the FBI reopened an investigation of the bombing. Long a suspect in the case, Blanton was the second of three people convicted in the bombing. They decided against parole after hearing the opposition and conferring briefly. While the board normally consists of three people, one seat is vacant and only members Eddie Cook Jr. Blanton perpetrated in 1963, the message is we have to stop the hate and we will punish those who kill or maim in the name of hate,” Jones said. “Whether it’s racial issues, whether it’s gender issues, whether it is terrorist activity similar to what Mr. ![]() Jones said freeing Blanton would both compound the “insurmountable pain” endured by the girls’ families and set a bad precedent. attorney who prosecuted Blanton on the state charge, said Blanton shouldn’t be released since he has neither accepted responsibility for the bombing nor expressed any remorse. Opponents took up seats normally reserved for inmates’ relatives, and members of the Birmingham NAACP chapter rode to Montgomery on a bus to be there.ĭoug Jones, a former U.S. Inmates do not attend parole hearings under Alabama law, and no one showed up to speak on Blanton’s behalf. “We were at that church learning about love and forgiveness when someone was outside doing hateful things,” she said. The blast killed the 11-year-old McNair and 14-year-olds Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Morris, also known as Cynthia Wesley. The automatic review was the first for Blanton.īlanton was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison for his role in the Sept. ![]() Clair prison, will again be eligible for parole consideration in five years, the board said. Lisa McNair, a sister of bombing victim Denise McNair, was relieved by the decision.īlanton, who lives in a one-person cell and rarely has contact with other inmates at St. The board rejected parole for Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr., 78, who has served 15 years of a life term for being part of a group of Klansmen who planted a bomb outside Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church during the civil rights movement. – The lone surviving Ku Klux Klansman imprisoned for killing four black girls in a church bombing in 1963 will remain behind bars after Alabama’s parole board heeded the victims’ families Wednesday and refused an early release. ![]()
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