Hundreds of people black and white, many holding hands, have filled an Alabama church that was bombed by the Ku Klux Klan 50 years ago, marking the anniversary of the blast that killed four little girls and became a landmark moment in the civil rights struggle.
The bombing became a powerful symbol of the depth of racial hatred in the South and helped build momentum for later laws, including the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
The Reverend Arthur Price taught the same Sunday school lesson that members of the 16th Street Baptist Church heard on the morning of the bombing - "A Love That Forgives". Then, the rusty old church bell was tolled four times as the girls' names were read.
Bombing survivor Sarah Collins Rudolph, who lost her right eye and sister Addie Mae Collins in the blast, stood by as members laid a wreath at the spot where the dynamite device was placed along an outside wall.
Rudolph was 12 at the time, and her family left the church after the bombing. She said it was important to return in memory of her sister, who was 14, and the three other girls who died: Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley Morris, both 14, and Denise McNair, 11.
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"God spared me to live and tell just what happened on that day," said Rudolph, who testified against the Klansmen convicted years later in the bombing.
The bomb went off outside the church on September 15, 1963. Of the Klansmen convicted years later, one remains imprisoned. Two others who were convicted have died in prison.
