16th Street Bombing Suspect Convicted

On this day in 1977 Robert Edward Chambliss was convicted of using dynamite to blow up the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963. The bombing was a watershed moment in that it killed 4 little girls and helped change public perception of the segregationists and Klan members like Chambliss. At the time of the bombing Chambliss was arrested with 122 sticks of dynamite and charged with the murder but acquitted by an all-white jury. The bombing case was closed as a federal matter in 1968 by FBI director J, Edgar Hoover even though agents had evidence from the local case that Chambliss and two other men had definitely participated in the act of terror, in fact Chambliss had the nickname ‘Dynamite Bob’ because he was well known by fellow Klan members for using the explosive to terrorize Blacks across Alabama.

In 1971 Alabama Attorney General Bill Baxley reopened the case using the evidence gathered by the FBI including recordings. Although it took six years Chambliss was eventually convicted and sent to prison in #OTD in 1977. He died in prison at age 81 in 1985. Two other men Bobby Frank Cherry and Thomas Blanton Jr. were also convicted in 2002 as accomplishes in the bombing and received life sentences.

Sources:

https://murderpedia.org/male.C/c/chambliss-robert.htm

https://www.apr.org/arts-life/2013-08-01/no-remorse-prison-letters-of-klansman-convicted-in-63-birmingham-church-bombing

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-11-02-fi-1334-story.html