‘Fifth Girl’ In 1963 KKK Church Bombing Seeks Apology, Restitution

Sarah Collins Rudolph, a survivor of the church bombing that killed four Black girls 57 years ago in Birmingham, Alabama has never received an apology or any compensation for the lifelong trauma she suffered from the attack, her lawyers said on Wednesday.

She blames then Gov. George Wallace‘s violent rhetoric for the racial hatred that led to the bombing.

After years of contacting local and state officials, seeking some form of restitution for the injuries and decades of trauma she endured, Rudolph’s lawyers wrote a letter to Gov. Kay Ivy of Alabama, calling on the state to issue a formal apology to Rudolph and monetary compensation to “right the wrongs that its past leaders encouraged and incited.”

The letter continued, “The actions of the bombers, affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan and inspired and motivated by then-Governor Wallace’s racist rhetoric, left Ms. Rudolph hospitalized for months and scarred, both physically and mentally, to this day.”

The Washington Post reported that Gina Maiola, spokeswoman for the Alabama governor, wrote in an email that the office received the letter and was reviewing it.

Rudolph was 12 years old at the time of the terrorist attack on the 16th Street Baptist Church that took the lives of her sister, Addie Mae Collins, 14, Carol McNair, 11, Carole Robertson, 14, and Cynthia Wesley, 14.