Of all the violence and bloodshed during America’s civil rights movement, the murder of four little girls at Birmingham’s Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in 1963 ranks among that period’s most heinous acts. But given Blanton’s crimes and the lives so irreparably affected, prison is the ideal place for this man to spend the final years of his life.
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Blanton was convicted 15 years ago of bombing the 16th Street Baptist Church that killed four little girls. The victim’s families vociferously argued against granting parole to Thomas Blanton Jr., who is serving four life sentences for killing Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley and Addie Mae Collins. He won’t be eligible again until 2021, the panel decided. “Justice is served”, McNair’s sister Lisa said after the decision.
The girls were inside the church preparing for worship when the bomb went off, sending stone and brick flying.
“He has never shown remorse, he has always blamed it on someone else”, former U.S. Attorney Doug Jones said.
“Fact of the matter is he bombed a house of God on Sunday morning and killed four children and needs to do the time for his crimes”, Jones said.
In 2008, during an interview on NPR, Chris McNair recalled seeing his daughter’s body on the day that shocked the nation.
“We drove over to a hospital, and we fumbled around, and we found somebody else who had been in the morgue”, he told reporter Michele Norris. “Thomas Blanton has not served his debt to society”.
Blanton and Cherry were indicted in 2000 after the FBI reopened an investigation of the bombing.
“It took (38) years for him to be brought to justice to begin with”, Jones said. Jones, the USA attorney for the Northern District of Alabama during the Clinton administration, made it a personal crusade. Two other convictions stemmed from the bombing, including the 1977 conviction of Robert Chambliss, and the 2002 conviction of Bobby Frank Cherry.
Here’s a look at the Birmingham, Alabama, church bombing that killed four African-American girls during church services in 1963. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2001 for being part of a group of Klansmen who planted a bomb outside the church during the civil rights movement.
76-year-old Thomas Blanton Jr. will stay behind bars. The announcement that his parole had been denied was met with applause at the hearing.
Relatives of all four victims were on hand, and the room was full of people opposing Blanton’s parole.
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“Would we let a terrorist out after 15 years?” “There are more people of good will then there are of ill will”, he said.
