Cherry was convicted in 2002 and died in prison in 2004.
Chambliss was convicted in 1977 and died in prison in 1985. The investigation into the bombing was stalled early and left dormant for long stretches, but two other ex-Klansmen, Robert Chambliss and Bobby Frank Cherry, also were convicted in the bombing in separate trials. Moderates could no longer remain silent and the fight to topple segregation laws gained new momentum.
The church bombing, exposing the depths of hatred by white supremacists as Birmingham integrated its public schools, was a tipping point of the civil rights movement. “That he died at this moment, when the country is trying to reconcile the multi-generational failure to end systemic racism, seems fitting,” Jones said in a statement.
THOMAS EDWIN BLANTON JR FREE
Doug Jones, who prosecuted Blanton, said the fact that Blanton remained free for almost 40 years after the bombing “speaks to a broader systemic failure to hold him and his accomplices accountable.” When asked by the judge during sentencing if he had any comment, Blanton said: “I guess the good Lord will settle it on judgment day.” Ivey, in a statement, called the bombing “a dark day that will never be forgotten in both Alabama’s history and that of our nation.” In May 2001, Blanton was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison for the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. He was being held at Donaldson prison near Birmingham, prison officials said. Kay Ivey’s office said Blanton died of natural causes. Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr., the last of three one-time Ku Klux Klansmen convicted in a 1963 Alabama church bombing that killed four Black girls and was the deadliest single attack of the civil rights movement, died Friday in prison, officials said. The Associated Press contributed to this report.BIRMINGHAM, Ala. A fourth suspect in the bombing, Herman Cash, died in 1994 without ever being charged in the case. Frank Cherry, convicted the year after Blanton, died in 2004. Robert Chambliss, who was convicted in the bombing in 1977, died in prison in 1985. Clair Correctional Facility in Springville.
and that’s why I’m here,” Blanton told the television station from St. “I think I was cleverly set up by the government. In a 2006 interview with Birmingham station WBRC-TV, he claimed the government used trumped-up evidence and lies to gain his conviction. He was incarcerated at Donaldson Correctional Facility in Jefferson County at the time of his death, according to DOC.īlanton proclaimed his innocence years after being sent to prison. The jury did not buy the story and convicted Blanton after two and a half hours of deliberation.īlanton was sentenced to serve four consecutive life sentences. senator, presented evidence from a tape recording made off an FBI tap in 1964 that included Blanton saying “They ain’t going to catch me when I bomb my next church.” A former girlfriend of Blanton’s also testified that he tried to run down a Black pedestrian, saying “All I want is a chance to kill one of those Black bastards.”īlanton’s attorneys challenged the fidelity of the tape and argued he never explicitly said he bombed the church. But the case was cold until 1993 when Black clergy in Birmingham met with the FBI and the FBI reopened the case. But the FBI did not pursue prosecutions in the 1960s in 2007, the bureau said “witnesses were reluctant to talk and physical evidence was lacking. The FBI identified Blanton as a suspect in a 1965 memo as a suspect in the bombing.
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