It could have been me

Diane Smith Grych

Diane Smith Grych

Age 11 in 1963

It was not her church, but Diane Smith was deeply affected when Sixteenth Street Baptist was bombed.


I will never forget the morning of September 15th, 1963. My parents and I were getting ready to go to church when we received the news that Sixteenth Street Baptist Church had been bombed. We immediately tuned in to the radio to find out what happened, and I recall experiencing a mixture of horror, anger, and profound sadness. I could have been one of the girls that was killed. Although I attended a different church, still, it could have been me. . .

I was still touched by the horror. My elementary school principal lost his daughter, Cynthia. Many years later my and my husband’s wedding photographer was also the father of one of the victims, Denise McNair. It is almost unreal to me that it has been 50 years. . .These sweet souls are now frozen in time. May we never forget their sacrifice.

In September 2013, 50 years after the church bombing, Diane Smith Grych wrote this story to post on Kids in Birmingham 1963.