ATLANTA — Friday marks 60 years since the bombing of a Baptist church in Birmingham, a crowd could be seen gathering around a display in Atlanta's National Center for Civil and Human Rights.
An exhibit honoring the four little girls who were killed on Sept. 15, 1963, sits on the bottom floor of the Atlanta museum featuring stained glass panels and the eulogy that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave three of the four girls at their funeral.
The Manager of Education and Museum Content at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, Nicole Moore described that date as a dark time in Civil Rights history.
"Early Sunday morning in Birmingham, the Ku Klux Klan set bombs and dynamite outside of the 16th Street Baptist Church and ended up blowing a hole in the church. Not only did they blow a hole into the side of the church, they killed four girls. Addie Mae, Cynthia, Carole and Denise," Moore said.
A fifth girl was also in that room, the sister of Addie Mae, Sarah Collins Rudolph. She was injured but ultimately survived. 11Alive got a chance to interview Rudolph back in 2020 when she visited Atlanta.
“A lot of glass in my face, my eyes, and my chest… you go to church and think you’re safe in church and your sister is killed and your friends are killed," Rudolph explained.
The act of terror served as a turning point for many during that time. Today, there remains a heaviness around that date, but a sense of urgency to remember it.
"We need to understand why it’s important to acknowledge the history," Moore said. "It's hard... but so we can think 'How do we continue to fight for justice? How do we ensure to the best of our abilities that incidents like that 16th Street bombing don’t happen again?'" Moore added.
The exhibit can be seen at the center during business hours Tuesday – Friday & Sunday from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m., and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.