By Tracye Hutchins
Decatur, GA (WGCL) — Many people from metro Atlanta will head to Selma, Ala. this weekend to mark the 50th anniversary of the marches for equal voting rights in the south.
It was a painful time in U.S. history marked by blood and tears.
One of the events that ignited the Civil Rights Movement was the bombing of an Alabama church. Four young girls were killed in the blast.
A survivor of the bombing currently lives in Decatur, Ga. and decided to share her story with CBS46.
“I’m determined to share the story, to share the pain,” said Barbara Cross. “They were in a place of safety, and that day when the dynamite went off, that became their tomb.”
Cross remembers the worst day of her life vividly. He farther was pastor of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham on that Sunday in Sept. 1963.
Four girls went down to the church’s basement after Sunday school.
“They were all beautiful girls, beautiful spirited girls,” Cross said.
“Denise McNair was the youngest victim,” Cross said. “She was an only child and always had a smile real playful. Cynthia was adopted and she always had a beautiful smile. And Carole Robertson, she was quiet, but always had a pretty smile.”
“Addy and I were closer,” Cross added. “You know you can’t pick your friends, but we gravitated toward each other.”
Cross was only 13 at the time and acknowledged that she could have been with the girls.
“Addy Mae came by the classroom and wanted me to go to the bathroom with her,” Cross said. “My teacher stopped me and gave me an assignment that literally spared my life, and I gave her my wallet, not knowing I would never see her again.”
A bomb exploded 15 minutes later blasting a hole in the church’s basement.
“I just remember the light fixture,” Cross said. “I was hit in the head with a light fixture and you could hear kids screaming and people running, trying to get to a place of safety, not knowing at the time we were victims of a terroristic attack.”
But, Cross says her father knew. The church had already received bomb threats because Pastor Cross allowed Martin Luther King, Jr. to speak at the church.
“When they started digging, they found all four of the girls on top of each other,” Cross said. “They heard one voice, and that was the only survivor. She was calling out for her sisters. ‘Addy, Addy,’ because she knew she had heard noise before, and then the voices were silenced.”
Today, Barbara Cross speaks to schools across metro Atlanta, sharing her story and teaching students the history of hate and how it can be overcome.