Birmingham church bombing survivor reflects on 60 years since the attack

Sixty years after the KKK bombed the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, Sarah Collins Rudolph said she still feels the scars.

Rudolph, who was 12 at the time, was one of 22 people injured in the blast that killed her sister, Addie Mae, 14, and three other girls.

Looking back on the somber anniversary, Rudolph told ABC News he wants people to remember not only those lost in the terror attack, but also how the community came together to fight hate.

“I truly believe my life was spared to tell the story,” she said.

MORE: Victims of Birmingham Church bombings honored on 50th anniversary

On September 15, 1963, the KKK bombed the church just as services were in progress.

The explosion destroyed much of the building and killed four girls who were in the building’s ladies lounge — Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, 14, Carole Robertson, 14, and Carol Denise McNair, 11.

Rudolph said she remembers being in the lounge with the other girls when the dynamite went off.

“When I heard a loud noise, boom, and I didn’t know what it was. I just yelled, ‘Addie, Addie,’ but she didn’t answer,” Rudolph said.

Rudolph lost sight in one eye and eventually had to get a glass eye. She said her life was taken.

“It was taken from me because when I was young,” Rudolph said, “Oh, I wanted to go to school to be a nurse. So I couldn’t do the things I used to do.”

MORE: Joe Biden slams white supremacy at 56th Birmingham church bombing memorial

The bombing sparked an outcry from Birmingham’s black community and civil rights leaders across the country.

Pastor Martin Luther King Jr., who eulogized three of the victims at their funerals, called the attack “one of the most vicious and tragic crimes ever committed against humanity.”

Although the bombing helped spur Congress to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and other amendments, it took nearly 40 years for justice to be served.

Between 1977 and 2002, four KKK members, Herman Frank Cash, Robert Edward Chambliss, Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr., and Bobby Frank Cherry, were convicted for their role in the bombings.

Former Sen. Doug Jones, who led the 1990s and early 2000s prosecutions of Blanton and Cherry when he was U.S. attorney, told ABC News it’s important to make sure those responsible are held accountable.

MORE: How it was 50 years ago today: The Civil Rights Act was signed

“It was one of those moments where you realize how important your work is and how you can do things for a community that will help heal wounds,” he said.

Rudolph said she wants the world to remember her sister and her friends who were killed, but more importantly, how their tragedy helped spur decades of action.

“I want people to know that these girls did not die in vain,” she said.

Birmingham church bombing survivor reflects on 60 years since attack originally appeared on abcnews.go.com