A KKK Church Bombing in Birmingham | History Traveler Episode 33 

No lie I started tearing up with this video, it is terrible how we humans can be cruel to one another. Thank you for showing the compassion in telling of their story.

I will NEVER understand this level of hatred, nor do I want to. 😥

Sad. How great you ran into this gentleman. Kudos to him for not being camera shy and able to help with your tour. RIP girls.

The 4 spirits sculpture is beautiful. It was very thoughtful of the designer to include Addie Mae Collins sister Sarah in the inscription. Most folks forget about Sarah simply because she survived but she was right there with her sister and their 3 friends, getting ready to go upstairs for church service.

Stopped by the Church today to pay my respects for such a sacrifice.... my heart was heavy. We will never forget!

Great episode. So neat that you ran into someone that was there then and remembers. Have to remember the people and events, that's very important.

I was just here on my way to Florida and saw all this on a civil rights tour. It was the most thought provoking tour I ever have been on. Your segment brought me right back here. This is such a must see for everyone. Thank you

Isn't it crazy that people are passing laws that make it illegal to even say "kkk" in schools? Thus stories/history like the incident in this video can't truly be discussed. Thanks for the video.

To commit such an act of terror a person must have a great deal of hate in them. Thanks for all your excellent vids. We need to learn such important history. Looking forward to more from you.

That gentleman well educated in his cities history. Kudos to him.

I saw Spike Lee’s documentary and I must admit I had nightmares. I wanted to know more about this event so I’ve been watching as many videos as possible. Thank you for sharing. Rip Birmingham 4 🙏🏽

That man should be a tour guide and speaker, passion and knowledge is a mighty powerful combination.

I've been to America many times and yours is a young country by comparison to mine, the UK, but I have always been struck by how much history is being recorded and displayed and like your RU-vid channel it will be invaluable in years to come. We have vast amounts of history in the UK, we're trippong over it to be honest, but through no fault of our own we have also lost so much to the raviges of time, but doing what you're doing now is history for the future. PS Loved the episodes on the Normandy beaches

An educational and touching story. We learn something new from every one of your videos. Thank you for that.

I wanna go there now, so much history. Shout out to Birmingham Alabama from Baltimore ❤🙏🏽

Thanks for sharing and educating. This is something that should never be forgotten!

I knew the son of one of the 16th Street Baptist Church Bombers. He was so disgusted with his father's Klan affiliation and subsequent behavior that when his Dad bragged about killing those girls the 14 yo son hitchhiked to his older sister's house in CA and was busking in the street with his guitar to feed himself. By the 70's he ended up in Austin where he played in the bands of both Blaze Foley and Townes Van Zant. I played with him until his death 3 years ago. He didn't talk about it much but when he did it was astounding to me that he survived it at all.

Sadly, Americans have still not learned what hate and ignorance can do.

Thank you, I learned a lot

I absolutely love when you are able to hear from witnesses and those who “lived the history”.

Still catching up. You do such a great job! Thank you!

Really tragic event, thank you for shining a light on this. The story of how the doves symbolize the six souls ascending heaven made me tear up.

A friend and I are planning a trip to Alabama in a little over a month. We are going to be visiting the 16th Street Baptist Church, the Freedom Riders monument, and the Selma to Montgomery trail, among others.

My grandmother grow up in 16th street baptist church and is was because of this bombing my great grandfather and great grandmother made the decision to move their family to the Midwest. My grandmother moved to Detroit when she was 10 years old.

Thank you for educating people about this

Love, love, love this channel and your videos. This video and the Malmedy Massacre are by far the 2 most fascinating. I'm still making my way thru all your videos. Keep em coming.

I cry all over for the four little girls. It's like I know them, or saw them somewhere. I am so dissatisfied with life when it comes to them. Great video. Please keep up the good work.

I really enjoyed this episode! Once again it impressed upon me the inhumanity with which we treat people! Great job!

Awesome video

Thank you for sharing it, I didn’t even know about that horrible episode !!! Hard to believe how evil can be the human being !

Im so annoyed that I'm just now finding this channel. Binge all your videos. Very well done sir.

I love American history and I am an Aussie, but then I also love our military history.

Thanks for sharing this heartfelt video.

Awesome to walk in the steps of history and to meet a man who has such an in depth love of the history is amazing. You can't get that from a book, you have to be there with someone who knows it intimately. Thank you for posting this video.

Beautiful and so very sad! What a wonderful man to help us understand this history, thank you!

Once again another fine job. What's really great about your videos is that not only are you taking me on location and giving me information, that your typical fact collector would be interested in, but what's most important is the human side of it. Real people were affected by this event. There is one thing to bear in mind ... this is history, yes, but it's also about what real people went through a short time ago.... there are many people still alive who have this still within their living memory. We must always treat these events with respect. You do a great job with that. Without any doubt the greatest respect any of us can show, which is what you do with every video, is to find out more about it and understand that this happened to people just like you and I. Thanks again JD. See you later!

If you are still in the Central Alabama area I am located about an hour outside of Birmingham and I'd love to show you some more local history. I can also bring my drone along and shoot some aerial footage if that'll help your program. Either way, I love what you're doing and always look forward to the next video

This guy needs to keep these videos coming forever.

Very good documentary on such a horrific event.

Watching from Canada. What a great video!

Favorite channel! Great video!

Another excellent vlog....Thanks...

An amazing video.

What an awesome video!

The church bombing happened on my dad's 15th birthday and 5 days after my grandfather passed away from cancer. RIP to them all 🙏

Well done. I didn't know about the two young boys. Had never heard about them.

Great video. I love watching your videos. I’m a history fan myself. My real name is Tom Nixon. I found out 10 years ago when my dad died that we were related to Reverend E.D. Nixon. Now you may not have heard of him, but you know if his work. He was actually the organizer of the Montgomery bus boycott. He groomed Rosa Parks to do what she did, she was actually the 4th choice to do this. The legend is Rosa was tired from a long days work and refused to give up her seat, but it was all planned. Rosa parks was actually the secretary for my distant relative. It’s a very interesting story, maybe one day you’ll cover it on your channel. I don’t have much contact with my dads dude if the family because he was the only Nixon born to my grandma before she got married to another person. And both my dad and grandma have passed away. So I’m still researching when I can to find out more info. Just thought you may find that story interesting. Have a good day brother.

Just so sad 😞 God Bless these little Angels 😇 ❤

Me and my family went to visit the church today and Anthony gave us a detailed explanation of the history in Birmingham

I grew up during this era. Was in Memphis when Martin Luther King was shot. We were all asked to stay inside. The military were marching down the street. A very sad time. He represented peace through Jesus.

Saw the church,civil rights museum and park so moving

The world needs more Anthonys!

Well done.

interesting vlog ... tyvm

Heartbreaking.

Outstanding, I was stationed at Ft McClellan in 1993

A truly moving story, it's tragic that we haven't come much further, especially when you see the dogs ordered to attack the peaceful protestors.

Can you talk about what is now in the basement that they prohibited you from filming? (Great job as always by the way!)

Well done video I'm still in Alabama been here for 55 yr if you come back I know some history of Alabama you might be interested in

I went there back in 2014 when I was in AmeriCorp NCCC. I didn't go into the church because it was closed but did go through the park and the civil rights institute. I was impressed about the institute and the memorial of the girls. It is sad what horrible people can do

I read a book about this church bombing. It was very sad what happened to those girls

A view from the UK. For those that do not know the word "Fodder" is a generic word used by livestock farmers here in the UK to describe the feed - either hay, silage or straw - given to their herds.

Great lesson. You mentioned the 2 boys who were shot but didn't mention the details. Who shot them and why? Thanks again for a great lesson.

Love the vids man !!! Jesus loves you ! ❤️🙏🏻

Sad.

Whoa, the stories Mr. Anthony could tell. You can read history but to hear a first hand account adds a whole different element.

I wasn't even born yet when this happened!

60 years gone next Friday, 9/15/2023. RIP to the girls: may we know peace in our lifetime .

At 8:18, there is an audio tour number on the board with the picture of the police dog. Its not the same as actually being there but it is interesting to call it and listen.

What a treasure you meet your new friend..amazing!!

Wish there was a "LOVE" icon to press instead of just a "LIKE".

It's shames me to say that my great grandpa was a KKK higher up. 3 generations later I have taught my children that there is so much hate in the world with race, gender and orientation that we don't need to be a part of that hate.

Ballad of Birmingham...heard it as a child in the 60's...heartbreaking

Born and raised in East Lake as a poor white boy. Shout out to Robinson Elementary 1990

Thomas Blanton Jr., the last living perpetrator of the bombing, finally died in prison today (6/26/20). Good riddance to him and I hope he rots in hell!

How do you live with yourself after finding out you’ve taken the lives of four young innocent girls? A church is suppose to be a safe haven, to this day safe havens like that in America are being disrupted by violence. I’ve prayed myself many times that these acts of violence will stop, but I lose my fate in prayer unfortunately when the next day I find out another heart of evil has carried out another attack on innocent people who by any means didn’t deserve to have there life taken like that. One important thing we can do to try to end these violent attacks is teach the history, educate each other so maybe history won’t repeat itself anymore and love will win.

The guy name is I think is Walter Gasden who was being held while the dog appeared to be biting him. What really happened is that Gasden kneed the dog in the jaw fracturing the dog’s jaw. Gasden was not part of the March but was a passerbyer.

I met this great man when I visited family in Alabama and gave me a great tour.

May their souls rest in peace May the guys that killed him go to hell

You and the gentleman that you interviewed about the 1963 Birmingham Bombing are both the "real McCoy" I had to do some background internet surfing to fully appreciate your video as being a native of California, only know a little about the bombings. I do know about both the Rodney King Riots of 92 and the Watts Riots of 65, but the evil that you portrayed about here surpasses both of those. I was involved with protecting a business in 92. Good video and thanks for making me learn something more then I knew yesterday!

imagine the children of Wales donating their pennies. I am proud that my mother in Canada gave some money to the church.

THE KLAN DON'T PLAY!!!!

If you pardon the slight pun here, you’d think a church would be Sacred enough when people claiming themselves to be christian(which they aren’t) to be bombed.

The amount of cruelty and suffering all those cowards inflicted upon all those innocent people during that time is absolutely disgusting and sickening and a disgrace to humanity absolutely no one deserves to be ostracized,singled out,and punished because of their race.. racism is such a disgusting disease it’s so heartbreaking to know that so many innocent people had so much suffering and cruelty wrongly inflicted on them for nothing !! Can we please stop hating on one another and put an end to racism because there isn’t a separate line to wait in to get into heaven and there isn’t a separate section within heaven

Please tell me you got his info so he can show us around lol

Another great episode that almost brought me to tears. I can't imagine someone planting a bomb to purposely hurt children. Scripture is very clear that "children are a heritage from the Lord," - Psalm 127:3. Another great but difficult episode!

How people can hurt the innocent is beyond me. May those little girls rest in the Lord's grace for all of eternity and may those that were responsible forever be in hell.

Deep into the minds of minalta

This was so hard to watch!

...and the choir kept singing of freedom

Why all this evil i dont get it😢 the world would be a much better place if people just loved one another❤ love your videos m8 started to Watch them all again ❤️ the world just keeps making the same mistakes again and again, what a Nice and friendly man in the video ❤️

Sad how skin can lead to so much hate ! And till this day African Americans will never be the same constant fear constant anxiety not feeling good enough so much damaged was done that now we hurt and hate each other i wish someone who was pro racism can explain why was Black so bad ? Sweet little baby girls how can skin be enough for that they say Blacks are aggressive but how can we not be !! Of course whites are more chill they didn't experience decades of torture its just skin rest up beautiful girls

This video made me wanna cry so bsf i was tearing up😢😢😢😢

Rome is a far stickier subject, but nevertheless, something the Christian church has exaggerated. Rome was ripe with new religious cults popping up literally by the day. Rome did not mind accepting new Gods into its Empire. The idea of a new or non-Roman God was not, in itself, automatically rejected. In fact, when Rome conquered an area, one of their acts would be to invite the God of those people into the Roman State. While some may have been at odds with one another sometimes violently, even the Jews eventually excommunicated the Christians from their community in 90 CE. But the 313 Edict of Milan gave everyone freedom of religion, including Christians. However, the problem was that the Christians did not want religious freedom. They wanted religious dominance, and refused to allow Jesus to be worshiped alongside other Gods, they also burned ancient Greek and even Jewish texts. The refusal of Christians to recognize the rights and properties of others is probably what led to their "persecution" more than anything else.

Today is September 15 2020. 57 years ago today this tragic moment took place. On my podcast Relationshipstuff101 @spotify I am going to talk about this. Thank you for your amazing video.

All i want to do is cry thinking about those poor girls makes me angry at the same time it's just not right we are all human we need to treat each other like human but that's asking to much for certain people and especially seeing what's going on in todays age.

I sure hope you keep doing this cause our younger generation needs to know and changes to happen stop repeating over and over and over again by dumb people who don't know any better cause I don't see any changes I see us going backwards they don't want our younger generation to get educated nor do they want to have job's or gun's are getting worse hunger is to God Bless everyone

Love the black man telling the story ❤💪🏾

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟👍

Please don’t refer to blacks as African Americans the majority of us are offended by it.