While the World Watched: A Birmingham Bombing Survivor Comes of Age During the Civil Rights Movement by Carolyn Maull McKinstry & Denise George

Author:Carolyn Maull McKinstry & Denise George [McKinstry, Carolyn Maull & George, Denise]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781414336367
Google: Z8lpmAEACAAJ
Amazon: B004JZYB20
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers
Published: 2011-02-02T08:00:00+00:00

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As a teenager, I didn’t realize the gravity of what had happened at the children’s march in downtown Birmingham. It wasn’t until many years later that my eyes were opened to all that had been swirling around me at the time.

First, one of the firefighters who had aimed the water hoses at us on May 2, 1963, came to my church and apologized to the congregation for his part in the violence. He explained that he had been “under orders” and had no choice but to obey Bull Connor. He also told us that the pressure from the hoses had been known to break legs in the past. Thankfully no legs were reported broken throughout the marches. But his talk all those years later was a sobering reminder of how high the stakes had been that day, whether we knew it or not.

Second, I had the privilege of seeing photographs of the event taken by Civil Rights photographer Charles Moore. Several decades after the march, his photographs came out in a book titled Powerful Days: The Civil Rights Photography of Charles Moore. In 1996 Mr. Moore came to Birmingham and presented me with a personal copy of his book. Inside, he penned an inscription: “Carolyn, the photograph that I made, on page 99, will always remind me of your courage as a young woman in the front lines of the battle for freedom and justice in 1963 Birmingham. To have met you again in Birmingham in 1968, and in 1996, proved to me that you still have that same spirit and courage. This journalist is proud of all heroes and heroines of Dr. King’s Civil Rights movement. With much respect, Charles Moore.”

There has been much controversy about who’s who in those photos. But to those of us who marched, the pictures are symbolic of all of us and what we endured. The images are reflections of courage—and of our hope for a better Birmingham.

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