diminished when the rights of one man are threatened ”. What was intended to sound Jeffersonian and to declare a reset to the supposed values of the Founding Fathers came across with bitter irony , given the later events of that day . Though Evers had died in Mississippi , hence Nina ’ s title , Kennedy had mentioned Alabama several times in his address , each time with an almost subliminal grimace , like an old preacher mentioning “ Gehenna ”. And it was in Alabama later that year that a second racially motivated atrocity took place . On the morning of September 15 1963 , four Klan members placed a dynamite bomb with a timer under the steps of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham . It wasn ’ t a firecracker device , intended to frighten . It consisted of almost a score of dynamite sticks , a demolition bomb and murder weapon . Its victims were four black girls who were in the basement of the church when the device went off shortly before half past ten . A phoned-in warning had suggested there might have been time to escape , but the bomb detonated seconds later , killing an eleven year old , three fourteen year olds , and blinding in one eye the younger sister of one of the victims . Another twenty people were injured and the church was substantially destroyed . Just in case anyone ran out of ironies the only stained glass window to survive the blast showed Jesus suffering the little children to come unto Him .
The incident inspired folksinger and poet Richard Fariña to write “ Birmingham Sunday ”, which was recorded by his sister in law Joan Baez . Saxophonist John Coltrane later wrote a theme called “ Alabama ” – it is to be found on his Live At Birdland recording – on which he mourns the deaths , using the speech cadences of Dr Martin Luther King jr in his solo . Movie and documentary versions tell the story in different ways ,
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