![]() ![]() Tommy Blanton may be gone, but we still have work to do.”Ĭopyright 2020 WSFA via Gray Media Group, Inc. At this moment in our nation when we have all come to realize that the journey to racial justice has taken far too long, we must come together. “However, what the families of those girls, and the entire community of Birmingham, do know today is that when we come together and demand justice, we can achieve it. That he died at this moment, when the country is trying to reconcile the multi-generational failure to end systemic racism, seems fitting.” The fact that after the bombing, he went on to remain a free man for nearly four decades speaks to a broader systemic failure to hold him and his accomplices accountable. May 1967: The Appalachian Regional Commission awarded UAB. “Tommy Blanton is responsible for one of the darkest days in Alabama’s history, and he will go to his resting place without ever having atoned for his actions or apologizing to the countless people he hurt. Hunt delivered the fourth Distinguished Faculty Lecture, The Tricky Business of Teaching. senator, also reacted the man’s death saying: 306, WORTHEM MICHAEL THOMAS JR, F, 20020511, SSGT, 32, 1C151, LONGMONT, CO, ACCIDENT. Although his passing will never fully take away the pain or restore the loss of life, I pray on behalf of the loved ones of all involved that our entire state can continue taking steps forward to create a better Alabama for future generations.ĭoug Jones, who prosecuted Blanton’s case prior to becoming a U.S. That was a dark day that will never be forgotten in both Alabama’s history and that of our nation. His role in the hateful act on September 15, 1963, stole the lives of four innocent girls and injured many others. Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr., the last of three one-time Ku Klux Klansmen convicted of a 1963 Alabama church bombing that killed four Black girls and was the deadliest single attack of the civil rights movement, has died in prison, the governors office said Friday. “While serving a life sentence, Thomas Edwin Blanton, Jr., the last surviving 16th Street Baptist Church bomber, has passed away from natural causes. Ivey released a statement on Blanton’s death. ![]() died of natural causes while serving a life sentence for the 1963 crime that killed four African-American girls and injured others. Relatives of three of the slain girls spoke against Blantons release during the hearing. ![]() Ivey’s office said Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr. The decision to keep Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr., 76, imprisoned was met with applause at the hearing. (WSFA) - The last surviving bomber of Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church has died in prison, Alabama Gov. Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr., a former member of the Ku Klux Klan and one of three men convicted of murdering four Black girls in Alabama by bombing a church in 1963, has died in prison at 84. ![]()
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