Awarding Congressional Gold Medal to Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, and Cynthia Wesley

Floor Speech

Ms. WATERS. I rise today in support of H.R. 360.

The bill posthumously honors the lives of Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, and Cynthia Wesley who were tragically lost 50 years ago in the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. The horror of this senseless act of violence stunned the Nation and served as a catalyst for the civil rights movement.

I would like to thank my colleagues on the Financial Services Committee, especially Congresswoman Terri Sewell and Chairman Emeritus Spencer Bachus, for their work to ensure that these girls receive our highest civilian honor as we commemorate the 50th anniversary of their deaths.

The Sixteenth Street Baptist Church was not an accidental bombing target for the perpetrators. Rather, members of the Ku Klux Klan deliberately targeted the church, designing their attack to strike fear into the hearts of those seeking equal rights. The church was a known sanctuary for civil rights leaders, including Dr. Martin Luther King, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the Congress on Racial Equality which had become involved in a campaign to register African Americans to vote in Alabama.

On that fateful morning of September 13, 1963, roughly 1 month after the March on Washington, the girls went to Sunday school to hear a sermon entitled ``The Love that Forgives'' when the bomb exploded, killing them and injuring many others. The bombers had hidden under a set of cinder block steps on the side of the church, tunneled under the basement, and placed a bundle of dynamite under what turned out to be the girls restroom.

The cruelty and violence of this act shocked the Nation and drew international attention to the violent struggle for civil rights, inspiring a wave of legislative action in Congress. By 1964, Congress had passed the Civil Rights Act, a landmark achievement in the fight to outlaw discrimination. By 1965, Congress had passed the Voting Rights Act, which aimed to eliminate voting restrictions that unjustly disenfranchised qualified voters.

I thank you, Ms. Sewell, for your leadership on this issue and helping this Nation to remember what took place on that day.

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