While the World Watched: A Birmingham Bombing Survivor Comes of Age during the Civil Rights Movement

On Sunday, September 15, 1963, 14-year-old Carolyn Maull dressed for the Youth Sunday service at Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. She was excited about the service and looking forward to completing her responsibilities as one of the church’s secretaries. Sixteenth Street Baptist was “the center of [McKinstry’s] life” (19). It was also an important hub for Birmingham’s Black community, and civil rights leaders, including Martin Luther King Jr., met there. During the 1950s and 1960s, Birmingham was considered the most segregated city in the Southern United States and was an important battleground in the fight for civil rights.

McKinstry’s father, whom she called Daddy, was an “organized and efficient” man, while McKinstry’s mother was the opposite—a “laid-back” woman with an “unassuming personality” (26). Daddy had a master’s degree in applied science and taught physics and chemistry at the local all-Black high school. At night, Daddy waited tables at the all-white Country Club. It was “a lowly position,” but Daddy was determined to send all of his six children to college. Looking back, McKinstry imagines that her father must have overheard terrible conversations between the Club’s white members, many of who belonged to the Ku Klux Klan. Daddy never vocalized his fears, but he enforced strict rules, which grew more stringent as racial violence increased. As the family’s “girl-child,” Daddy insisted McKinstry’s brothers escort her whenever she left the house. The one exception was church, “a safe place” where McKinstry felt grown-up and independent. At the time, McKinstry was “aggravated” by her father’s inflexibility. However, she later learned that he meant to “protect [his children] from the evil possibilities of the mean-spirited world around [them]” (22).

On the day of the bombing, McKinstry’s older brother drove her and her brothers, Wendell and Kirk, to church. McKinstry was excited to see her best friend, Cynthia Wesley, who was part of a girls’ club called the Cavalettes. That afternoon, they planned a special meeting where each girl would receive a matching cap and shirt printed with her name. Cynthia lived with her parents in a part of Birmingham known as Dynamite Hill. Several Black families, including some important civil rights activists, had crossed the “color line” and moved into the neighborhood, enraging the Ku Klux Klan, who retaliated with bombings.

Upon arriving at church, McKinstry deposited her little brothers in their Sunday School classes and headed to the church office. There, the secretary complained about an unusual number of “threatening” phone calls warning about a bomb. However, the secretary was nervous, and McKinstry dismissed her worries.

McKinstry was the Sunday school secretary and took great pride in her job. She was responsible for completing the church’s Sunday school report and reading it to the congregation before the service. Around 10:20 am, she stopped in the bathroom, where four friends were chatting and primping in front of the mirror. McKinstry said hello to the other girls—11-year-old Denise McNair, “sweet, quiet” Addie Collins, “cute” and devout Carole Robertson, and McKinstry’s best friend, Cynthia Wesley. McKinstry was in a hurry to finish the report and left the bathroom quickly. She returned to the office, hurried along by the phone ringing. She picked up the receiver and heard a man’s voice say, “Three minutes.”

McKinstry describes growing up “halfway in and halfway out of the South’s violent Civil Rights era” (35). She lived through the nation’s strictest manifestations of segregation laws, saw these laws dismantled, and watched the county begin to heal. McKinstry describes her life as having two distinct periods separated by the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing: The bombing marked the moment that McKinstry became an adult and lost her trust in “the goodness of humanity” (36).

McKinstry was born in Clanton, Alabama, on January 13, 1948. She was the third Maull child and the family’s first girl. The Maulls moved to Birmingham when McKinstry was two years old. At the time, Jim Crow laws in Birmingham kept Black people and white people separated. Black people who dared to cross the “color line” risked losing their homes, jobs, and lives. However, McKinstry’s family shielded her from the worst of the racist violence, and she grew up feeling safe and loved. Her church was a “strong, seemingly impenetrable […] fortress” (39); it was the center of the Black community and the Maull family’s social life. It was the only place McKinstry could go unsupervised—the site of many of her “fondest memories.”

During McKinstry’s childhood, Black and white people “lived in separate worlds” (45), and she never questioned the segregation laws that governed Birmingham society. She describes being “much more aware” of her father’s strict rules than Birmingham’s segregation laws. However, her father’s rules often mimicked the city’s Jim Crow laws; for example, he forbade his children from riding the public bus or crossing the train tracks into a part of town where notorious Ku Klux Klan members lived. Even as McKinstry began to understand segregation, she didn’t comprehend “the depth of hatred” behind Jim Crow (47).

McKinstry’s grandfather was a preacher who taught her the importance of doing God’s work. He believed that names had important significance: Carolyn meant “strong one” and “little champion,” and McKinstry’s grandfather frequently reminded her that these attributes were at her core.

When McKinstry was just nine years old, her identity as the “strong one” was tested. Her grandmother, Mama Lessie, fell ill and was rushed to the hospital. The Birmingham hospital was segregated, so Mama Lessie was wheeled into the dank, uncomfortable basement, where she lay with many other sick Black people. The basement was dank and uncomfortable, and the patients received infrequent doctor and nurse visits. McKinstry was assigned to stay by her grandmother’s side while her mother worked during the day. She spent two weeks in the hospital, singing songs to pass the time while Mama Lessie died.

McKinstry’s grandfather was well respected because of his college degree and his role as a preacher, and Mama Lessie was a kind and gentle woman. Mama Lessie married McKinstry’s grandfather at 16 and had five daughters. After turning 30, she fulfilled her dream of completing her education. She graduated and sent all five of her daughters to college. However, Mama Lessie never spoke a word in the hospital. The doctors came periodically to check her vitals but did little to treat her illness, which the family later suspected was cancer. She died in late August 1957.

On September 15, 1963, McKinstry only had a few minutes left to finish her Sunday school summary. That day’s sermon, titled “A Love That Forgives,” was about to begin. She glanced at the clock as she walked into the sanctuary. It was 10:22 am.