Sarah Collins Rudolph reflects on journey to healing at AUM’s MLK breakfast
Decades after surviving the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham as a little girl, Sarah Collins Rudolph found herself sitting in a church pew when she heard a voice from the pulpit asking congregants if they wanted to be baptized.
“I ran up the steps, and when I got to the top, someone prayed me in,” Rudolph said. “All [I had] to do is tell God to forgive [me] and say [I’m] sorry for [my] sins. And I did that. I got baptized in the name of Jesus.”
Rudolph shared this moment at Auburn University at Montgomery’s 15th Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Reflections Breakfast as part of her story as history’s “fifth little girl” and the sole survivor in the basement of Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church on the day of the 1963 KKK bombing. The blast killed four other little girls, including Rudolph’s 14-year-old sister, Addie Mae, at the height of the Civil Rights Movement.
Burdened by survivor’s guilt, the trauma of losing her right eye in the bombing, and a nervous condition exacerbated by loud noises, Rudolph found her road to healing that Sunday night and later the courage to become a speaker, activist, and author.
Her deepest healing, however, took place on a Sunday when Rudolph was directly called out from the church congregation.
“The prophet came and looked at me and said, ‘You, come here.’ I walked up, and he just looked at me hard. He said, ‘You know what I see? God is showing me you have a nervous condition and a lot of fear.’ I said, Yes, sir. He laid his hands on me, and he got to praying for me, and I just hit the floor. Boom. When I got up that Sunday, I was walking and living in a new light,” Rudolph said as the audience applauded.
Rudolph also shared the painful details of the day she lost her sister and how the bombing shaped the Civil Rights Movement, ultimately bringing four KKK members responsible for the attack to justice.
“I was born in Birmingham during segregation and at the time of [Governor] George Wallace and [Police Commissioner] Bull Connor, who wanted to keep Birmingham segregated,” she said. “They said we were separate but equal, but we didn’t feel that way because of the way we were treated.”
Growing up, Rudolph said she saw the harsh realities of “separate but equal” first hand. Blacks were prohibited from playing games with whites, drinking from the same water fountains (fountains for whites poured cold water, while those for blacks dispensed warm water), sitting in the white sections of theaters, or trying on shoes in department stores.
The cruel nature of protests during the Civil Rights Movement included the use of high-powered water hoses and dogs to attack Black protesters, Rudolph said. The actions of Wallace, who is known for the phrase “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever,” and Connor, who encouraged the use of violence against protesters, prompted Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to visit Alabama to organize peaceful protests against segregation and the treatment of Blacks. Dr. King’s mass meetings at the 16th Street Baptist Church attracted civil rights activists like Fred Shuttlesworth, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and Harry Belafonte. Rudolph still remembers her mother attending one of the 7 p.m. mass meetings, which led up to the 1963 bombing.
The bombing took place on a Sunday set to be Youth Day, with youth singing in the choir, taking up offerings, and saying prayer, Rudolph recalled.
“We were so excited that Sunday morning,” she said. “My sister Addie and my sister Janie and I were walking to church. Janie had a little purse, and we were tossing it back and forth as we walked. We walked about two miles to church that morning, so happy. When we arrived, we went down to the basement to freshen up. Janie said she was going upstairs.”
Rudolph and her sister Addie stayed in the basement in the ladies’ lounge, where they were joined by Denise McNair, Cynthia Wesley, and Carol Robertson. The girls spoke before heading to the bathroom stalls. As McNair emerged, she asked “Addie to tie her sash. When Addie reached out to help, the bomb exploded,” Rudolph said.
“The bomb went off. All I could say was, ‘Jesus, Addie, Addie,’ but she didn’t answer. I thought the girls had gone to another area for Sunday School, but then I heard someone shout, ‘Someone has bombed the 16th Street Church.’ His voice was so clear,” Rudolph said.
Rudolph later learned that the person who carried her from the bombing site and whose voice she heard was a deacon who had responded to the explosion by making his way through the partially destroyed church stairway to rescue her from the basement.
Rudolph was rushed to then University Hospital, where she underwent surgery on her right eye, which had been pierced by 26 pieces of glass. Her eye had to be removed, replaced by a glass eye today.
“They asked me if I could see anything, and I couldn’t in my right eye,” she said. “I was blind.”
Three of the victims of the bombing were eulogized by Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. at their funeral. While the bombing was a catalyst for the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, justice would not come for nearly 40 more years.
As Rudolph grew up, she struggled with returning to school with only one eye and a nervous condition.
“They didn’t counsel me,” she said. “They didn’t do anything. I went back to school with a nervous condition, fearful.”
By high school, she met her now husband and, at that time, she made it clear to him she didn’t want people to know she had been in the bombing.
“When we finished school together, I asked him one day, ‘Did the people know I was in the bombing?’ He said, ‘Everybody did.’” Rudolph said, as the audience laughed. “I thought I had gotten away with it, but everyone knew. They didn’t treat me any differently, though; they treated me the same and were nice to me.”
But trouble didn’t entirely escape Rudolph as a student. She faced trouble with a sewing teacher.
“I couldn’t stitch right,” she said. “She hit me in my back because I couldn’t get the stitches right and said, ‘You’re just spoiled.’ The way she treated me made me walk off school grounds and bring my mother back. I don’t know what my mother told her, but she was nice to everyone after that.”
Attendees shared a moment of laughter, but the room grew quiet as Rudolph continued sharing how she navigated life while taking various jobs that allowed her to hide her limited vision.
She recalled visiting the 16th Street Baptist Church for the first time after it was rebuilt.
“I went back when they rebuilt it,” she said. “I was so afraid to be there because I thought another bomb might go off.”
It took years to bring the four Klansmen responsible for the bombing to justice — a burden that weighed heavily on Rudolph’s mother.
“They kept promising they would do something, and she died waiting,” Rudolph said.
From 1977 to 2002, KKK members Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr., Bobby Frank Cherry, Herman Frank Cash, and Robert Edward Chambliss were convicted for their roles in the bombing.
Rudolph testified at Chambliss’s 1977 trial, which resulted in him being sentenced to life in prison.
“They waited 39 years before they came to court. I’m thankful we had someone to bring these guys to justice,” she said, noting former U.S. Senator Doug Jones’ impactful role as a U.S. Attorney in prosecuting the Klansmen. “I had to forgive what those guys did because I couldn’t hold anger in my heart. I give praise to God for healing me and allowing me to tell my story.”
Rudolph encouraged students, faculty and community members to make a difference in their communities by voting — a right that was fought for and four little girls died behind.
“Get out and vote, because during my time, people were killed, ridiculed, and talked about for this right,” she said. “The other thing — trust in God. He will always be on time.”
