Were You There One September Morn?
1963 elicits a wave of memories. It was the year I turned “sweet 16.” Today, as I recall several significant events relating to Civil Rights of that year, I will share the utter isolation and lonely process of managing the aftermath of September 15th.
You see, in August, several weeks before the bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church, I accepted placement in the American Friends Service Committee’s program to finish high school in Connecticut.
I was the youth representative for my Sunday School at First Congregational Church on Center Street in Smithfield, 1.8 miles from the bombing. If I had been in Birmingham on September 15th, 1963, I would have been appointed to attend Youth Sunday at 16th Street Baptist Church. Four girls died in that bombing: Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley, and Addie Mae Collins. Of the four, I knew Denise and Carole, and was a close friend of Cynthia. On that Youth Day Sunday it is likely that I would have been in the bathroom with the four girls, chatting, giggling, and “primping” in the mirror, as they were doing when the bomb exploded.
Instead, I was 1,020 miles northward in Connecticut. However, the shock waves of the news were as real as if I had been in my hometown. I had so many questions and emotions. Long distance calls were expensive. Letters were not adequate for immediate relief from the trauma. I barely knew anyone in Connecticut, and none of the northern-born Black and white adults could understand and adequately discuss the impact. It caused me to feel homesick and conflicted while adjusting to New England and a new school.
Forty years later in 2003, I recall feeling guilty as the remembrance date approached. In 1963, I was not in Birmingham to support and mourn with “my people.” As a mezzo soprano, I often turn to music for strength and solace. I wrote a few stanzas to the melody of “Were You There When They Crucified My Lord.” Several times I gazed at a photograph of the cast of an operetta, “Behind Castle Walls,” where I stood with Carole, Denise, and Cynthia. From that photo, my picture with Guy Cole graces one of the permanent Civil Rights markers on Center Street, just outside the former Gaillard home.
Then in 2013, the 50th year, I realized I still had unresolved emotions. Denise was an only child. I did not know Addie. I contacted the sisters of Denise and Carole several months prior, late spring or early summer, to discuss upcoming events and legislation. I was inspired to continue my tribute in poetic song.
In September that year, I returned to the Magic City (a nickname for Birmingham) for the unveiling of the “Four Spirits” statue at Kelly Ingram Park, across from the church where the girls died. I asked my son to accompany me, because my sorrow caused me to feel vulnerable in a way I could not explain. He and his two sons joined me on this pilgrimage back to Alabama. When I attended the event, my eyes were fixated on a sculpted shoe of one of the girls, placed on the ground. I immediately had a flashback of a published photograph of a black patent leather shoe in the ash and rubble that I saw in 1963.
At that moment, I realized I had been carrying a burden, not just for the girls, the town, the culture…but specifically for the mothers, who identified their daughters’ bodies by shoes. Just short of a panic, I told my son that I needed to get to the car and sit alone to manage overwhelming emotions. Feeling physically weak and emotionally sabotaged, in prayer I found the resolve for the final verses of the song. In doing so, I was finally at peace, 50 years later. In 2024 when I published Become the Pebble, I included the nine-stanza poetic lyrical tribute with a title of inclusion, “Were You There?”
Bonnyeclaire Smith Stewart wrote this original piece for publication with Kids in Birmingham 1963, in November 2024.