Born in Danger

The Black girls who died in Alabama didn’t know me, but they forever impacted my life

Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, Addie Mae Collins and Cynthia Wesley died in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama on September 15, 1963. Their murders galvanized the Civil Rights Movement, and my mother pinned their photos to my shirt when we marched.

“Can’t you see she’s scared?” my great-grandmother got right in my mother’s face and yelled. “Leave her here with me!” Nana grabbed my six-year-old elbow and pulled hard, dragging me into her room with the fragrant snuffbox, the bottle of Canadian Club, and Jack Brickhouse shouting “Hey! Hey!” for the Cubs on a tiny TV.

I stumbled along, pretending to acquiesce. I was leaving with Mother. I knew it. Nana knew it. Hell, Jack Brickhouse probably knew it.

“Kiki. Get over here.” Mother’s voice was a whip. I would be deep into my teens before I ever disobeyed it.

Nana’s smooth face promptly folded into tears. “Don’t take her, honey. It’s too dangerous.”

My mother bent, engulfing me in a cloud of Esteé Lauder, and brushed her soft hands along my cheeks as she checked for actual tears. There were only a few. “She’s a colored girl,” Mother said. “She was born in danger. She’ll be in danger every minute of her life.” She straightened up and so did I.

We marched that day, like we did almost every Saturday in 1966: for freedom. For open housing and fair employment and desegregated schools. We sang and cried and laughed and prayed and sang some more. If the…