It was a muggy Sunday in September 1963. I was ten years old, standing in the kitchen when the phone rang. It was Ethel, whom we called our “maid.” I don’t remember her last name. She was a domestic worker who cleaned our house and often took care of us. She called my parents, “Mr. and Mrs. Schaffer,” but she was only addressed by her first name. We lived in the all-white neighborhood of Mountain Brook, Alabama.
My father took the phone from me. Ethel was wailing and screaming. I knew something traumatic had happened, and I was terrified. My father tried to get Ethel to tell him what happened. After an hour or so, he got off the phone. He turned to me and said that Ethel’s daughter’s best friend, Denise*, had been murdered along with other children. A bomb had exploded at Ethel’s church. He said, “We’re next.”