Survivor of 1963 church bombing talks about faith, racism

By Tanya Connor
The Catholic Free Press

PAXTON – God was the main focus of a woman who lost an eye – and a sister – in Civil Rights era violence.

Sarah Collins Rudolph’s Black History Month talk at Anna Maria College Monday also provided an occasion for critiquing today’s society in light of history, and considering future action.

Mrs. Rudolph started by saying she gives honor to God – “God spared my life.”
She was 12 years old on Sept. 15, 1963, when Ku Klux Klan members bombed 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. The other four girls with her in the church ladies’ room – her sister Addie Mae Collins, age 14; Denise McNair, 11; Cynthia Wesley, 14; and Carole Robertson, 14 – were killed in the dynamite explosion. People elsewhere in the church were injured.

She heard someone say the church had been bombed, and a deacon took her to a waiting ambulance.

She’d been blinded in one eye and was hospitalized about a month, she said. Upon learning of the others’ deaths, she wondered, “Why did they kill those girls?”

This wasn’t Mrs. Rudolph’s only experience of racism.

“I remember when I was a child ... they didn’t allow blacks to try the shoes on” when shoe shopping, she said. “If they [caught] you drinking water out of the white fountain, they would put you in jail. ... We couldn’t sit with the white people.”

But the church bombing made her more aware of acts of violence, she said, in answer to an audience member’s question.

And the bombing left its mark on her personally.

“I went through life [with a] nervous condition,” she said in her talk; because of that she was drinking, smoking and medicating herself.

Nevertheless, she continued practicing her Christian faith, she told The Catholic Free Press.

“I just couldn’t go back to that church” that was bombed, she said. She attended its services in a hall while it was being rebuilt, and later “I went to many [Baptist] churches” around Birmingham, but didn’t join one.

She told listeners that God uses his prophets to heal people. She responded to an invitation to go to a church where she heard about “getting my life right with God.” She figured, “I tried everything,” and might as well “try Jesus.” She got baptized and joined the Pentecostal church, but didn’t feel any different.

Then one night a church leader whom she called a prophet told her: “You suffered a lot of fear. Tonight is your night.” He laid his hands on her and she experienced emotional healing and began living a new life, she said.

She said she goes around the United States giving testimony about what God has done for her.

For a long time she was angry at the men who bombed the church in 1963, and it took years to bring them to justice, she said.

“I know in my heart I had to forgive them,” she said.

Birmingham owed her restitution, but didn’t give it to her, she said. Racial segregation was promoted, and those seeking civil and voting rights were attacked with billy sticks, high-powered water and German shepherds. Young people today take for granted rights that others fought and died for, she said.

How can her experience – and sharing it – help?

She responded that she hopes it helps; in her younger days people were humiliated and beaten.

“I hope they [people leading the nation today] realize that was wrong,” she said, “because we was all made in God’s image and we shouldn’t be treated different from the white people. We should be unified ... love one another.” It’s time for everyone to know God; “he loved all of us.”

She expressed hope that young people continue to protest against things that aren’t going right.

“I feel like there’s a serious lack of education” about history, especially racism, Spencer Carpenter, a 22-year-old Anna Maria sophomore, told The Catholic Free Press. “Today it still lingers all too much. I just want to take personal responsibility – stop it when I hear it.”

“I think ... part of the reason I decided to initiate this common hour (the weekly period during which Mrs. Rudolph spoke) was to make sure that we had an opportunity to come together as a community for moments like this,” said Professor Chioma Ugochukwu, senior vice president for academic affairs.

“Today’s event ... was educational, impactful, and helped our students understand history and see a historic figure in front of them, talking to them about things they may have read about,” she said. “We have a responsibility to help our students make these kinds of connections. ...

“I think her topic was timely and relevant to the conversations being had today in our larger community and country, and we ought to be part of those conversations,” such as what history lessons can be taught in classrooms. “This talk helps us understand why it’s important for students to learn about the past, so that history will not repeat itself. ... We’re hoping that these kinds of talks will also inform [faculty members’] teaching.”

“I feel moved,” Mary Mba, assistant dean for academic affairs, said, explaining that she used to take students to Montgomery, Alabama, when teaching at another college. They visited a lynching memorial and a museum tracking a path from slavery to incarceration, she said. She said she would love to take Anna Maria students on such trips, so they can see “these are not just stories.”