Torn+Little+Girl's+Dress+from+the+Sixteenth+Street+Baptist+Church

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II. Image
[]

III. Event Represented by the Artifact/Significance
//HABS/HAER Photograph// || //On Sunday morning, September 15, 1963, the Ku Klux Klan bombed the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing four girls. This murderous act shocked the nation and galvanized the civil rights movement.// Source: []
 * || [[image:http://www.nps.gov/history/nr/travel/civilrights/buildings/16st1.jpg width="250" height="200" caption="Sixteenth Street Babtist Church"]]
 * Sixteenth Street Baptist Church**

=Survivor honored on anniversary of bombing= Tuesday, September 16, 2008

In an emotional ceremony 45 years to the day after a bomb blast killed her sister and three friends, Sarah Collins Rudolph stepped into the pulpit at Sixteenth Street Baptist Church and accepted an award on behalf of the girls who died beside her.

Former U.S. Attorney Doug Jones, who prosecuted two of the church bombers in 2001 and 2002, presented the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Birmingham Pledge Foundation on Monday night.

"There were five little girls in that lounge," Jones said. "Sarah is truly an inspiration." Rudolph, who was 12 years old in 1963 when her right eye was put out by shattered glass from the bomb, accepted the award for herself and on behalf of those who died: her sister,

Addie Mae Collins; Denise McNair; Carole Robertson; and Cynthia Wesley. "I give honor to God - He is the reason I'm here today," she said. She also thanked Samuel Rutledge, who she said carried her out of the crater and the rubble of the bomb.

Before the service, Collins said she has returned to Sixteenth Street Baptist Church only about four times since 1963. Her family started attending church services elsewhere after the bombing. "It was upsetting," she said. "It was too many bad memories." Then glass exploded throughout the room. "It blinded me," Rudolph said. "I called out to Addie. I called her name but she never did answer." Sarah was in the hospital recuperating for two and a half months. "I didn't go to counseling," she said. "I stayed home for a week, then went back to school."...
 * Collins, who still lives in Birmingham, said the moment before the bomb exploded at 10:22 a.m., she heard Denise speaking to Addie. "Denise asked Addie to tie the sash on her dress," she said. "I didn't remember her finishing tying the sash."**

GREG GARRISON, News staff writer Source: []

IV. Date and Place
September 15, 1963; Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama

V. Multimedia Found on the Internet
[]media type="youtube" key="kI9EXuTNB2o" height="344" width="425"

VII. Map
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VIII. Curators
Beth L., Tina W., Jeanne D., Dan T.

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