Birmingham lawyer, former US Attorney Doug Jones recounts 16th Street bombing case at luncheon

Birmingham lawyer Doug Jones had a strong message to share with the gathered audience at Vestavia Country Club today, Tuesday Nov. 9.

“Birmingham is better than its past,” said Jones, perhaps best known for his work as United States Attorney in the case of the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church.

During the monthly luncheon hosted by the Vestavia Hills Chamber of Commerce, Jones shared the details of the investigation and 2001 trial through evidence pictures marked “State Exhibit” and crackling voice recordings of those involved.

“This is a part of you,” he said about the bombing. “It will always be part of the history of Birmingham.”

Jones said it is important to visit the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and the 16th Street Church, to look at the pictures of the children with the hoses and dogs—all to help us remember.

“We don’t like to look at those images,” he said, “but we need to.”

As if speaking in court to a jury, Jones pieced together the evidence that led to the bombers who killed 11-year-old Denise McNair, Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley, all 14. Despite running over the allotted time, the audience sat transfixed throughout the remainder of Jones’ talk.

“When you became a symbol of the 1963 movement in Birmingham, you became a target,” said Jones about why Thomas Blanton and Bobby Frank Cherry—the men he prosecuted—targeted the church and children.

The men, he said, concocted the sinister plan in the cover of night under the Cahaba River bridge along Highway 280.

“I always think of them as trolls under the bridge,” said Jones.

The men’s evil intentions, he said, made time stand still in Birmingham on Sept. 15, 1963.

“A picture taken from inside a shop across the street from the bombing shows a clock frozen in time at the time of the blast,” said Jones, describing a black and white photograph on his PowerPoint. “10:24 a.m.”

In describing the toll the bombings took on the girls’ families, Jones shared the story of Christopher McNair, father of Denise, who had held on the piece of mortar that had been lodged inside his young-daughter’s head. When Jones finally worked up the nerve to ask the father why he had done that, he never questioned his resolve again.

“He told me that it is difficult for people to understand what happened until they see the size of the piece of mortar that was lodged in Denise’s skull,” said Jones. “It speaks to what people can do in the name of hate.”

Jones warned against that very same type of hatred that continues to exist, and has now spread to include hatred against Hispanics across the country. That hate, he said, is reminiscent of the hate that filled the nation during the Civil Rights movement.

“We need to be careful,” he said.

Birmingham, with its history, said Jones, is positioned to be a leader in the case for equality.

“This is our story,” he said. “We need to tell the world we have overcome it. We are better than that. That is the lesson of the 16th Street bombing.”