Maxine McNair, who died today, was the final survivor of the parents of the

[tblue37]

four Black girls who were murdered in the Birmingham church bombing.

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Picture: Denise McNair, who was killed at age eleven in 1963 Birmingham church bombing, and her Mother, Maxine, a schoolteacher, who died today, the final survivor of the parents of the four Black girls who were murdered

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. May she rest in peace.

[sheshe2]

2. She is with Denise now.

Rest in Peace, Maxine.

[MLAA]

3. I don't have adequate words.

[Skittles]

9. any reference to those little girls

I always get tears in my eyes - it's just unimaginable how people can be so cruel

[tblue37]

11. I get the lump in the throat.

[COL Mustard]

12. And it happened in my lifetime.

I don't remember it, but it did. 1963 was a very big year for me (not when I was born....)

[Skittles]

13. it was in my lifetime, I was a kid

but I would have been overseas at the time, and have no firsthand memories of this or of the JFK assassination

[COL Mustard]

14. The JFK assassination I remember very clearly.

We got a day off from kindergarten. I tried to ask what a President was, but the grownups were too upset to give me an answer. I also took my first airplane ride that year, and went "water skiing" in my grandparents' bathtub. I was lucky I only ended up with a goose egg on my noggin.

Good times, except when they weren't.

[Rhiannon12866]

33. I was in elementary school and my reading group was allowed to go to the school library unaccompanied

The gym teacher ("Coach" ) had a free period so he turned on his radio and heard that the president had been shot. So he raced to the nearest classroom and told the 6th grade teacher who ran to the nearby library and told the librarian. That's how we heard and raced back to our classroom at the far end of the school and alerted our teacher - who then ran out to learn what had happened - and they sent us all home. I remember that everyone was in a panic, so we kids were as well as we sat in the school gym waiting for the school buses to arrive. And when I got home, my mother had already been told by a neighbor, so she was really upset as well, everyone was.

[The Unmitigated Gall]

39. I was born just a tad over nine months

After that god-awful day. My parents apparently dealt with the stress in time-honored fashion.

[MLAA]

16. I was 3 and don't remember it. Now every time I see or read about it it hits hard.

[LeftInTX]

35. I was overseas with no TV, but I remember John Glenn orbiting the earth

It was early in the morning in Tokyo and my mom told me that John Glenn was circling the earth in a spaceship.
I ran outside to look. Unbeknownst to me, he had probably landed about 5 hours earlier. I was in kindergarten.

I don't remember the church bombing, I was living the US at the time. I don't think our parents would have wanted us to know. Kennedy was a BIG deal. It was all day news type of thing way before there was all day news.

[MLAA]

17. What made 63 big for you, Col Mustard?

[COL Mustard]

24. Lots of things

Last edited Sun Jan 2, 2022, 10:45 PM - Edit history (1)

Moving
Taking my first airplane ride
Kindergarten
Baby sister
JFK assassination
Water skiing in the bathtub
Getting bitten by a dog/riding in an ambulance

I'm sure there were others but those were the highlights!

[MLAA]

25. Whoa, that was quite a year!

[Whatthe_Firetruck]

27. Mine and hubby's birthyear nt

[COL Mustard]

30. Youngsters!

😀

[Whatthe_Firetruck]

32. Tell that to...

...my grandchild in High School.

[smirkymonkey]

19. Same here.

it just crushes me.

[tblue37]

4. More:

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Maxine McNair passed away today at the age of 93.

Her daughter Denise was one of the 4 little girls killed in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963.

*Something else we weren’t taught in public school.


Rest In Peace, Maxine…
Khary Penebaker
@kharyp
55 years ago today, four beautiful little girls,
Carol Denise McNair, 11
Addie Mae Collins, 14
Carole Robertson, 14
Cynthia Wesley, 14
were killed in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing.

Rest in Power young Queens

[ancianita]

5. May she rest in peace.

[The Jungle 1]

6. But half of America does not want to teach this history.

Why I say????????

[tblue37]

8. +1. nt

[malaise]

7. I was a little girl in 1954 and that bombing of those kids

Left a lasting impression.

[Ohio Joe]

10. RIP

[badhair77]

15. I was Denise's age in 1963 and remember this shooting.

Horrible things were happening in 1963.

[pennylane100]

40. That was the year I came to this country.

I had met my future husband in England but our wedding was postponed because he was called back to the US. So I flew out there and we got married in San Antonio.

[badhair77]

45. This event was not a horrible thing in 1963.

Good for you. We loved our visit to San Antonio.

[Solly Mack]

18. K&R

[LoisB]

20. Rest in Peace, Maxine. I was in high school when the bombing took place. I thought surely this

will turn things around. This will shock America into doing something about civil rights. Boy, was I wrong. As wrong as I was about Sandy Hook.

[tblue37]

23. This.

[MyOwnPeace]

26. Excellent point......

Just when you think "THIS is the point.........."

We CAN NOT sit back and expect things to fix themselves.

We must act.
We must move.
We must make things happen.

We are Democrats - that's what we are about.

[LoisB]

34. Indeed. We must.

[LeftInTX]

37. I think it did, they passed the Civil Rights Act in 1964

However, laws don't change racist attitudes.

[Hekate]

21. Cross gently, Mrs McNair, to where all broken hearts are healed

[iluvtennis]

22. May She Rest in Peace and Her Memory Be a Blessing.

[AverageOldGuy]

28. I was a college student . . . .

. . . in a small Alabama college at the time. Sep 15, 1963. 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, Birmingham, AL.

The four little girls who were murdered -- all wearing their Sunday best -- were: Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, and Carol Denise McNair. Former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was friends with Denise McNair; Rice was 8 years old at the time, she was at her own church a few blocks away where the blast was felt.
https://www.al.com/spotnews/2013/09/condoleezza_rice_remembers_the.html

Four Klansmen -- all known to the FBI -- planted the bomb.
--- In 1977 one of them was found guilty, sentenced to life in prison, died there.
--- One died in 1994.
--- It was not until 2001 and 2002 that an Alabama prosecutor charged the surviving two Klansmen, putting both of them in jail for life where they died.

The Alabama prosecutor was Doug Jones, later to be the only Democrat elected to the Senate from Alabama in decades. He lost after one term to former Auburn football coach Tommy Tuberville, who is a candidate for the Dumbest US Senator ever.

[sprinkleeninow]

29. Blessed Be Her Memory Eternal.

[czarjak]

31. This, then JFK. Can remember both as a10 year old.

[duhneece]

38. Her name was Denise, born in 1951; I'm Denise, 1951 born, too

This grabbed me, made me aware in a personal, scary, rage-simmering way it hadn’t before. I’m white, in El Paso Texas at that time but had just moved there from northern Maine.
I’m so grateful that my mother wept, my father as an officer in the Air Force had been denied a drink in a bar in southern New Mexico because he looked too Indian in 1953 understood racism and bigotry. He got it.
I don’t remember her mother (I think I was too focused on the similarities of Denise McNair and myself to think about her mom. What a beautiful, elegant woman. Now I weep for her.

[70sEraVet]

41. If there IS a G-d,

there must must be a HELLACIOUS punishment for someone who murders children in a church!

[FailureToCommunicate]

42. I was eleven at the time and remember it like yesterday. In our church, we...

all sat in silence for four minutes for each child killed.

Those sixteen minutes seemed an eternity.

May you rest in peace, reunited with your daughter, Maxine McNair

Here is Richard Farina's song about that terrible day:

[Piasladic]

43. righteous- all the way through

gorgeous on top of that

[llashram]

44. may her soul

be free...

[Demovictory9]

46. Thank you for letting us know. RIP