There's always more

I got a lot of thoughts from watching the two documentaries. I'm glad I did. It wasn't just a coincidence.

When I was reading March Book 3 there was a reference to two other deaths in the aftermath of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. I had never heard about Virgil Ware and Johnny Robinson.

https://thegrio.com/2013/09/13/virgil-ware-and-johnny-robinson-2-black-youths-killed-in-1963-often-overshadowed-but-not-forgotten/

The article is worth reading, but perhaps the key is to remember that this incident that looks horrible to us now was a matter of celebration then, at least for white people. So when some white Eagle Scouts were on their way back from a segregationist rally and they saw two Black boys riding a bike - and had a gun with them - they fired shots "to scare" and killed 13-year old Virgil Ware. And when some other white teens drove by a demonstration hurling slurs while wrapped in a Confederate flag and the protesters threw some rocks in response, police showed up and shot Johnny Robinson in the back. No one was charged for Robinson's death, and the Eagle scouts got probation only.

I have written previously (2015) about how the movie Selma  changed my mental picture of the bombing, including realizing that there were many more injuries. I still didn't know that there were more deaths.

That was why I needed to watch 4 Little Girls. Honestly I think it only mentioned one of the boys - probably Robinson, but I don't remember for sure. Still, it filled in other things.

I suddenly understood something I had read earlier about one of the names being wrong. Cynthia Wesley had been adopted, but the adoption was never formalized. Her birth siblings think she should be remembered as Cynthia Morris.

I don't doubt that the grief of the Wesleys was real. I also suspect some feelings of "what if?" for the Morris family. There could have been some complications from that if she had lived, but the death just leaves a hole.

https://abc3340.com/archive/family-of-16th-st-bombing-victim-says-a-name-has-been-wrong-for-decades

I also don't remember the documentary covering much about the survivor, Sarah Collins Rudolph, but I believe that was in respect to her wishes.

https://www.birminghamtimes.com/2017/09/fifth-little-girl-gives-first-hand-account-of-horrific-church-bombing/

Those were all things that I had kind of known or recently learned, that I was looking for when I watched the documentary. There was still a lot there that I was not prepared for, but that totally made sense. Of course there are grieving families, but there are also grieving friends. There were people who could have easily been killed and weren't; living is good but there are times when it can feel wrong.

And there is PTSD. Specifically I remember a sister having to identify her sister's body. Other people remember the parents doing the identification, and maybe there were multiple identifications. Maybe some people had some things happen and heard other things and their memory became not quite accurate but still all too real.

When I use the present tense, that is completely accurate. Some of the survivors have died now, but it really isn't that long ago: September 15th, 1963. 55 years. There is still pain being carried.

One of the books I read was called The Half Has Never Been Told. That title has a specific source, and has specific meaning to that book, but it was still a phrase that reverberated because there is always so much more.

Yes, the movie is 4 Little Girls, and that's the phrase in the song, "Birmingham Sunday". Four little girls are a reasonable focal point, but there is always more. It is four dead little girls, and two dead boys, and 22 injured physically, and countless others hurt mentally and wounded with grief.

There can be a broader lesson there, that you need to be careful with your actions because you can't know the full impact. That should be reason enough to be kind and generous, and let those things echo instead.

But it is very important to remember not just the pain, and not just that there were people who deliberately caused it, but also that there were people who celebrated that pain. There were people who used it as an excuse to cause more pain.

They're still around too.