1963 Birmingham church bombing survivor still waiting for restitution from Alabama

by Anna Barrett, Alabama Reflector
March 7, 2025

Sarah Collins Rudolph, a survivor of the 1963 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, said Friday she is still waiting on something more than an apology from the state.

“I’ve been trying for so many years to get restitution from the state of Alabama,” Rudolph said Friday at the Martin Luther King reflections breakfast at Auburn University at Montgomery. “Our governor said ‘Well Sarah, you do deserve an apology, but I wasn’t in office at that time.’”

Rudolph was 12 years old on the morning of Sept. 15, 1963. She was in the basement lounge of the 16th Street Baptist Church. As her sister Addie Mae Collins, 14, tied a sash on Denise McNair, 14, an explosion ripped through the building.

“The bomb went off, and all I could do was holler ‘Jesus! Addie! Addie!’” Rudolph said. “But Addie didn’t answer.”

The explosion killed Addie Collins; McNair; Carole Robertson, 14 and Cynthia Wesley, 11. Rudolph suffered injuries that led to blindness in her right eye. She said she still has glass from the terrorist attack in her left eye.

“The doctors don’t want to remove it yet, because, you know, I’ll just go blind if something goes wrong,” Rudolph said in an interview.

Rudolph later testified in the 1977 trial of Robert Chambliss, a KKK member who was convicted of the bombing and sentenced to life in prison. She said her mother never got to see justice served for her 14-year-old daughter.

“My mother, she was angry, and she felt like they did her wrong, because they kept talking about doing something, but they never did,” Rudolph said. “So when she died, she died waiting.”

KKK members Thomas E. Blanton, Jr. and Bobby Frank Cherry were convicted for their roles in the bombing in 2001 and 2002, respectively. Both were sentenced to life in prison. Blanton died at Donaldson Correctional Facility in Bessemer in 2020. Cherry died at Kilby Correctional Facility outside Montgomery in 2004. A fourth man suspected of participating in the bombing, Herman Frank Cash, died in 1994, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Ivey sent Rudolph’s attorney a letter in 2020 that apologized for the bombing, and said the governor’s attorney would begin discussion on restitution. 

“It would seem to me that beginning these conversations – without prejudice for what any final outcome might produce but with a goal of finding mutual accord – would be a natural extension of my administration’s ongoing efforts to foster fruitful conversations about the all-too-difficult- and sometimes painful-topic of race,” Ivey’s letter read.

In response to a request for an update on those discussions, the governor’s office sent a copy of the 2020 letter with no other comment.

Glenn Person, a graduate student at AUM, sang at the event, repeating a stanza about waiting for change.

“It’s been a long time coming, but I know a change is gonna come,” he sang.

Rudolph said she is putting her trust in God. 

“So I’m still waiting, still hoping,” she said in an interview. “I’m leaving it in God’s hands.”

The event was rescheduled due to snowy weather that impacted Montgomery in January, but Chancellor Carl Stockton said he was glad the event happened Friday ahead of the 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday and Jubilee celebrations in Selma.

“It’s important to learn from history,” he said. 

Alabama Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alabama Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Brian Lyman for questions: info@alabamareflector.com.

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