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WEDNESDAY • AUGUST 28 • 2013
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A newspaper in education supplement TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES
They called him Dynamite Bob. Robert Edward
Chambliss, a Birmingham truck driver, was a member of
the Alabama Ku Klux Klan. He stood outside the Sixteenth
Street Church on September 15, 1963. The church had been
the rallying point against Bull Connors police dogs and fire
hoses.
It was only 18 days after the euphoric March on Wash-
ington and four hundred worshipers were at the church.
There were four children in the basement changing their
clothes.
At about 10:20 AM, fifteen sticks dynamite blew apart
the basement, instantly killing Carole Robertson, Addie
Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley (ages 14), and Denise McNair
(age 11), and injuring 20 others.
It took several years before Chambliss was convicted of
participating in the bombing.
Addie was standing by the window. Denise McNair asked
Addie to tie the sash on her dress. I started to look toward
them just to see them, but by the time I went to turn my head
that way there was a loud noise. I didn't know what it was.
I called out Addie's name about three or four times, but she
didn't answer. All of a sudden, I heard a man outside holler,
“Someone just bombed the 16th Street church.” He came in,
picked me up in his arms, and carried me out of the church.
They took me over to the hospital…The doctor told me after
they operated on my face that I had about 22 shards of glass
in my face. When it was all over with, they took the patches
off my eye and I had lost my right eye, and I could barely see
out of my left eye. I stayed in the hospital about two and a half
months.
— Sarah J. Rudolph, older sister of Addie Mae Collins
Sixteenth Street Church Bombing
The 24th Amendment
Poll taxes, fees that had to be paid in order to vote, were used in the South to discourage
blacks from voting. In 1964, five states still retained a poll tax: Virginia, Alabama, Texas,
Arkansas, and Mississippi. The 24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution ratified January
23, 1964, states: The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other
election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for
Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States
or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax. Unfortunately southern poll
taxes continued to be used to limit the black vote in elections for state and local officials.
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964, signed
into law by President Johnson on July
2, 1964, was a revolutionary piece of
legislation in the United States that
effectively outlawed egregious forms of
discrimination against African Americans
and women, including all forms of
segregation. The Civil Rights Act of
1964 terminated unequal application
in regards to voter registration
requirements and all forms of racial
segregation in schools, in the workplace
and by facilities that offered services to
the general public.
Title provisions of the Act
Title I:
Barred unequal application of voter
registration requirements and required that
all voting rules and procedures be uniform
regardless of race. Literacy tests were still
allowed.
Title II:
Outlawed discrimination based
on race, color, religion or national origin
in hotels, motels, restaurants, theaters,
and all other public accommodations
engaged in interstate commerce;
exempted private clubs without defining
the term "private."
Title III:
Prohibited state and municipal
governments from denying access to
public facilities on grounds of race, color,
religion or national origin.
Title IV:
Encouraged the desegregation
of public schools and authorized the U.S.
Attorney General to file suits to enforce
said act.
Title V:
Expanded the Civil Rights
Commission established by the earlier Civil
Rights Act of 1957 with additional powers,
rules and procedures.
Title VI:
Prevents discrimination by
government agencies that receive federal
funds. If an agency is found in violation of
Title VI, that agency may lose its federal
funding.
Title VII:
Prohibited discrimination by
employers on the basis of color, race, sex,
national origin, or religion.
Full text of Civil Rights Act of 1964 at:
php?flash=true&doc=97
President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and
hands the pen to Martin Luther King, Jr.
