FBI TRUE

- It was probably the most important case

that I've ever worked on.

And we had the chance...

- : To change history.

: As worshippers gathered for church on a Sunday morning...

exploding dynamite shattered Birmingham's 16th Street Baptist Church.

- That church had really become a symbol, as one of the largest,

most active black churches in Birmingham.

: The church had served as a staging area for

the city's Civil Rights Movement, led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

: Birmingham was known as "Bombingham"

because of bombings in the black neighborhood.

- 41 since the end of World War II. : Yeah.

: Four young girls dressing for the choir were killed.

- The FBI flooded Birmingham with agents.

They interviewed Klans members, Klans members' wives.

: Individuals that we'd already identified from previous intelligence gathering.

: The tragedy became a symbol of the violent

and bitter Civil Rights era in the South.

- These were four innocent little girls that died

because of the color of their skin.

And that was something that really shook the conscience of the country.

: In Washington, the government has now ordered

a new look into the racially motivated bombing

of a Black church in Birmingham, Alabama, more than three decades ago.

: One man was convicted, but police believe several others got away.

- This is absolutely the last time it can be investigated.

because we were losing too many witnesses, too many suspects.

- The people that bomb and kill our innocent citizens and

children, we will never give up.

: In the FBI, we make a lot of headlines.

Drug busts, mob stings,

terrorist takedowns.

We understand why people want to tell stories about us,

- Mark it! - Freeze!

FBI.

- FBI! : Action!

: But they don't know the half of it.

What really goes down?

We save that for each other whn we're talking agent to agent.

This is FBI, True.

- 60 years ago, September 15th, 1963.

: Kristy Kottis is a 24-year veteran of the FB.

She worked gangs, crimes againt children as well as human

and drug trafficking.

Ben, where were you?

- I was nine years old, and I was at home.

It was a Sunday.

: Birmingham, Alabama, native Ben Herren

served on his hometown's police department for nearly

two decades, before being tapped to join the FBI's

reinvestigation of the 16th street Baptist church bombing.

- Did your parents speak of the bombing at all or...

- I was pretty much shielded.

- Doug, how about you? Where were you?

- It's really similar to Ben because we actually

grew up not far from each other.

: Doug Jones was appointed as the United States

Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama in 1997.

20 years later, he was elected U.S. Senator

for Alabama, a role he held until 2021.

And when he says shielded,

I think that that is the real key.

I mean, you got to understand, in those days,

these were very segregated neighborhoods.

: Birmingham is the largest segregated city in the South.

Every phase of activity; business, cultural and social is segregated.

- And Bill, how about you? Where were you on that day?

- Well, I wasn't living in Birmingham at the time.

I was living in Albany, Georgia.

But attitudes were very similar to the attitudes in Birmingham.

: Bill Fleming is a 33-year-veteran of the FBI.

Based in the Birmingham field office,

he focused on civil rights cass in the latter years

of his career.

The victims in this blast.

Who are they?

There were four children.

They were dressed in their finest dresses and

they were going down to the restroom right before church

to spiffy up, to clean up a little bit.

Three of them were 14 years old.

You had Addie Mae Collins,

Carole Robinson,

Cynthia Wesley and Denise McNair.

She was the youngest of them.

There was another girl that was down there,

which was the sister of Addie Mae.

She was actually at the sink and she was not killed,

but one of her eyes was actually blinded.

- So how big was this explosion?

The bomb was pretty powerful.

I mean, it was placed underneath the bottom step

of some concrete steps that led on the outside of the building.

- And on the other side of the wall was the little girl's bathroom.

And with the steps, it just made the perfect explosion

because all of it went sideways into the church

and across the street and into the cars.

And it went down.

There was a crater at least five feet deep.

- What about the rest of the church structure itself?

- There was...one interesting scene was the...

it had a big glass... - Stained glass.

Stained glass of Jesus.

And the main damage was the face of Jesus was blown out.

It was like, He couldn't bear to see it.

- Yeah. - Couldn't bear to witness it.

- Doug, so how did the families find out about the victims?

In different ways.

Maxine McNair had taken Denise that morning and Maxine

was in her Sunday-school class, which was right above

where the bomb exploded.

So when she heard the bomb, they really weren't sure

if it was a bomb.

She said that it might have been a plane crash.

But all she knew was it was coming from below there.

And she just screamed out: "My baby! My baby!"

Denise's father went to the church only to be told

he needed to go to the hospital, the makeshift morgue.

That's where he identified Denise, his only daughter.

Ms. Robertson was at home, they lived a few blocks away,

and Carole had come earlier.

So Ms. Robertson was getting dressed for the church service

when she heard the blast.

And she said that it sounded like the whole world was shaking.

It did.

- There was one bomb technician from headquarters

that was put on a military plane flown to Birmingham,

and he was there within two hours after the bomb went off

so that he could start the investigation of the bombing.

- And in fact the State swooped in

and tried to investigate.

But they spend all their time trying to prove that members

of the Black community bombed that church to try to get

sympathy for the civil rights movement.

- So instead of investigating the facts

as they were laying out, they instead tried to build

an inculpatory case for, basically the Klan?

- Exactly. - What's the federal response?

- Mr. Hoover sent 50 agents in Birmingham.

- It's a full on investigative endeavor. - Oh, yes.

- Big time. - Major.

Major, probably the biggest one the bureau had worked.

Even though we didn't, per se, have a direct connection

to that crime because it was a state offense at that time.

- As we're leading up into the bombing, the significance

of 1963 cannot be overemphasized.

You know, it was in the spring of 1963

that the Children's Marches occurred...

and they would meet inside the church and literally

go into the intersection outside...

before Bull Connor hit them with fire hoses and dogs.

Bull Connor was the police commissioner.

He was an old, racist public servant and he literally

is the one who set the fire hoses and dogs on the kids.

And then in the summer,

in August, the "I Have a Dream" speech,

Dr. King's speech on the Mall.

- One day right down in Alabama, little Black boys

and Black girls will be able to join hands with little white

boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

- And there was a lot of hope in the air for civil rights at the time.

But in Birmingham, the lawsuit that had been filed

to desegregate the schools was finished and the Birmingham

city schools were desegregated five days before this bombing.

It's a cliche to say it, but with what happened,

but Birmingham literally was like a powder keg

because of school desegregation at that point.

- And I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever.

: Two, four, six, eight, we don't want to integrate.

- And it was on that Sunday, the 15th where that powder keg got lit.

- Bill, give me a little idea of what the FBI agents

and all the assets that the FBI sent to Birmingham,

what are they doing at this time?

- They are going through talking to the Klan.

They're talking to people that we had cases on already

just because they were members of the Klan.