Folks,

On this day in 1963, 19 sticks of dynamite planted by Ku Klux Klan members exploded inside the 16th Street Baptist Church as parishioners prepared for Sunday service. Though most of the over 100 churchgoers escaped before the church collapsed, under the debris lay the bodies of Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, and Cynthia Morris Wesley, as well Sarah Collins Rudolph who was injured but ultimately survived.

The violence did not end on September 15, 1963. In the days that followed, as Black communities across Alabama took to the streets to demand justice, 16-year-old Johnny Robinson and 13-year-old Virgil Ware were also tragically killed in confrontations with police.

While we will never recover the lives lost or the injuries suffered, we know that their sacrifice was not in vain. We must never forget the price they paid for the freedoms we enjoy today.

My very first bill in Congress posthumously awarded the Four Little Girls the Congressional Gold Medal, our nation’s highest civilian honor, so that their lives and legacy would never be forgotten. 60 years after their passing, I get to walk the halls of Congress as Alabama’s first Black Congresswoman. I do so because of their sacrifice and because they cannot.

Their premature and senseless death serves as a constant reminder that every gain in the fight for civil rights has come at a high cost, paid for by the sacrifice of others.

Today, as extremists seek to rewrite our history and roll back our progress, it has never been more crucial to ensure that the legacy of the Four Little Girls lives on in American history.

After all, those who don’t learn from their history are doomed to repeat it.

I hope that you will pause today and remember and reflect and recommit yourselves to the causes which our ancestors fought for: civil rights, voting rights, and civil liberties.

In solidarity,

Rep. Terri Sewell