2/28/2024 0 Comments Thomas edwin blanton jrThe spilled blood of these innocent girls may cause the whole citizenry of Birmingham to transform the negative extremes of a dark past into the positive extremes of a bright future. These tragic deaths may lead our nation to substitute an aristocracy of character for an aristocracy of color. The holy Scripture says, “A little child shall lead them.” The death of these little children may lead our whole Southland from the low road of man’s inhumanity to man to the high road of peace and brotherhood. The innocent blood of these little girls may well serve as a redemptive force that will bring new light to this dark city. And history has proven over and over again that unmerited suffering is redemptive. God still has a way of wringing good out of evil. Their death says to us that we must work passionately and unrelentingly for the realization of the American dream.Īnd so my friends, they did not die in vain. They say to us that we must be concerned not merely about who murdered them, but about the system, the way of life, the philosophy which produced the murderers. They say to each of us, black and white alike, that we must substitute courage for caution. They have something to say to every Negro who has passively accepted the evil system of segregation and who has stood on the sidelines in a mighty struggle for justice. They have something to say to a federal government that has compromised with the undemocratic practices of southern Dixiecrats and the blatant hypocrisy of right-wing northern Republicans. They have something to say to every politician, who has fed his constituents with the stale bread of hatred and the spoiled meat of racism. They have something to say to every minister of the gospel who has remained silent behind the safe security of stained-glass windows. And so this afternoon in a real sense they have something to say to each of us in their death. They are the martyred heroines of a holy crusade for freedom and human dignity. Donaldson Correctional Facility from unspecified causes while serving his life sentence, six days after his 82nd birthday.These children- unoffending, innocent, and beautiful-were the victims of one of the most vicious and tragic crimes ever perpetrated against humanity.Īnd yet they died nobly. On June 26, 2020, Blanton died at William E. Parole was denied and deferred until 2021. Blanton went before the parole board on August 3, 2016. He was sent to Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama. He got four life sentences in state prison. Blanton, and Bobby Frank Cherry, were convicted in 2001 in a highly publicized cold case trial. to bring charges against him and three other men because Hoover thought a successful prosecution was unlikely.Īt the time of his arrest, Blanton was working at a Walmart store and living in a trailer with no running water. Edgar Hoover prevented attempts by the Birmingham office of the F.B.I. Blanton was a suspect from early in the investigation, but J. He was an accomplice in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama, on September 15, 1963, which killed four African American girls (Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley, Addie Mae Collins, and Denise McNair). Blanton had a tenth-grade education and served as an aircraft mechanic in the Navy from 1956 to 1959.īlanton was a member of the Ku Klux Klan in the early 1960s. The latter is described as a notorious racist in Birmingham, Alabama. He was the son of Thomas Edwin "Pops" Blanton Sr. He was a white-American terrorist and convicted felon.
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