While the World Watched: A Birmingham Bombing Survivor Comes of Age during the Civil Rights Movement

At the start of 1964, McKinstry wondered if things would ever change in Birmingham. The bombings and violence of the previous year continued. Many nights, McKinstry and her family heard a bomb explode and waited anxiously by the phone to learn what the target had been. The assassination of President Kennedy also contributed to the “state of unrest” that plagued the nation. McKinstry was “miserable and depressed.” She struggled to sleep and was tormented by thoughts of death. Late one night, the Maull’s neighbor’s house was hit by a bomb. The blast was so strong that it knocked her little brothers out of their bunkbed and shattered McKinstry’s bedroom window. She was sure “that sooner or later a bomb would go off that [she] wouldn’t live to talk about” (171).

After the bombing, Governor Wallace visited McKinstry’s neighborhood. The governor “[strove] to show some sense of sympathy” (173), but McKinstry could only remember his inaugural promise to uphold segregation laws in the state of Alabama. The bombers were never caught, and the bombings continued.

McKinstry and her brothers, Kirk and Wendell, had lived through the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing and the bombing of their neighbor’s house. Kirk was especially affected by these traumas, becoming more withdrawn. He was a good student, but quiet and unable to speak up for himself. He earned an MBA and worked for Atlanta’s Department of Transportation for 20 years. He never married or had children. McKinstry believes her brother forgave those who caused his childhood trauma, but they never discussed their shared experiences.

After the second bombing, McKinstry’s pastor asked her to prepare a church program based on Psalm 23. She read the psalm, which begins, “The Lord is my shepherd.” She took strength in the passage, but she also continued to struggle with the concept of death and its proximity to her. The violence continued to cast a “shadow” over McKinstry and her community, even as they avoided discussing it.

Throughout the summer of 1964, the violence continued, escalating when three civil rights workers were killed in Mississippi. Two of the victims were white, a fact that “struck terror” into McKinstry’s heart: Even white people weren’t safe if they stood up for civil rights.

On July 2, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, outlawing segregation in public places like schools and the workplace. This was a victory for the civil rights movement; however, there was significant opposition to the bill. Several Southern Democratic senators organized a filibuster to prevent its passage, and a poll in Newsweek magazine showed that most of the country still believed in some aspects of segregation. McKinstry remarks that “things were changing […] But slowly” (179).

In the fall of 1964, Martin Luther King Jr. was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in the civil rights movement. King accepted the prize on behalf of the movement but said they had “not won the very peace and brotherhood which is the essence of the Nobel Prize” (181). He discussed how the “humble children of God” continued to “suffer for righteousness’ sake” (181). McKinstry listened to King’s speech and thought of all those who had died and continued to die in the fight for freedom and equality. She worried that other civil rights leaders would be martyred, possibly even Dr. King.

In August 1965, President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, which ended discriminatory practices that prevented Black Americans from registering to vote. More than 450,000 Black people across the South registered to vote. That fall, McKinstry moved to Nashville to attend Fisk University. She enjoyed her new classes, but she continued to struggle with depression. Sleep brought her some relief, and so did writing, which allowed her to express some of her dark, intrusive thoughts. In college, McKinstry “discovered that a glass or two of wine took the edge off [her] inner pain” (185). She kept the trauma of her childhood relatively secret, and slowly, alcohol became her “artificial comforter.” In time, she would realize that drinking was “not a permanent fix” (185), but then, she was desperate for temporary relief. One day, in a moment of darkness, McKinstry wrote a letter to God, asking why he had taken her friends but not her. In her mind, God responded that he needed her to stay; he had “something special for [her] to do” (185). God wanted McKinstry to be his “ambassador” and spread a message of love and forgiveness. It would still take her some time to accept this mission, but she knew God would be patient “until [she] could find [her] way” (186).

Meanwhile, McKinsey spent her college years drinking more and more, moving on to stronger and stronger drinks to numb her pain. She wrote increasingly darker thoughts in her journal and felt constantly “on the periphery of life” (186).

McKinstry opens the chapter by describing a 1982 article in Down Home magazine, calling for a memorial for the girls murdered in the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing. Nearly 20 years had passed without commemorating the tragedy, and more decades would pass as McKinstry waited for a memorial to her lost friends.

By the late 1960s, many “visible changes” had occurred across the South. Segregation was now outlawed, schools were integrated, and many Black Americans had freely registered to vote. However, McKinstry notes that “invisible changes” in people’s hearts and minds were much slower.

On April 4, 1968, McKinstry learned of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. A friend pounded on her dormitory door with the news and shouted that riots were breaking out across the country. McKinstry was immediately terrified that a racial war had finally come. The girls ran out of their rooms and crouched in the hall as they had practiced during security drills. They spent hours there, and McKinstry thought of Dr. King and all he had done for the civil rights movement. She quietly sang some of the songs she had learned while marching in Birmingham and thought King encouraged them to sing because the songs lent them strength and courage to face death.

McKinstry and her friends spent the night crouched in their hallway, whispering rumors about what was happening outside. The next day, McKinstry learned that King had been assassinated on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. He was shot by James Earl Ray, who fled the crime scene and set off a manhunt that took place over months and crossed national borders. In the aftermath of King’s death, riots broke out across the country, and the National Guard was deployed to restore the peace. McKinstry worried that the dream of the civil rights movement might die with Dr. King, but she soon realized that “King had planted the vision in people’s hearts” (196), and the movement would continue on without him.

Two months after King’s death, the country was hit by more tragic news when presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in California. McKinstry was devastated. She had admired Kennedy for his support of civil rights and now added his death to the long list of tragedies she had experienced before her 21st birthday.

While McKinstry was in her “darkest days” in college, she met Jerome, who would become her husband. Even if she didn’t initially realize it, Jerome was a gift from God, a “reflection of God’s love” (199). When they met her freshman year, McKinstry was initially unimpressed. Jerome introduced himself as “Je-Romeo,” making McKinstry uninterested. However, she kept seeing Jerome around campus and finally agreed to a date. They quickly became “a steady twosome,” but McKinstry never told him about her experience with the church bombing. The couple married in January 1968, and McKinstry became pregnant with their first child about a year later.

After graduation, Jerome was drafted into the Air Force, so McKinstry moved back to Birmingham to give birth to her daughter. She lived with her parents until Jerome returned from service, and then the couple moved with their new daughter to Orlando, Florida, where Jerome worked as a manager for Sears. In 1973, McKinstry gave birth to a second daughter. Her children were healthy, and her husband was loving, but McKinstry still struggled with depression. She tried “keeping the pain buried inside” (201), but Jerome often saw through her facade and asked what was wrong. She never confided in him. Instead, she drank more heavily. McKinstry hid bottles of gin and vodka all over the house and began drinking in the morning after Jerome left for work. It was hard for her to understand her “bleak emotions,” and she was afraid of sharing her depression with Jerome. She was easily frightened by loud noises and became afraid when she had to stay at home alone. She also struggled with sleep. However, McKinstry did not connect her depression to the trauma she had experienced in the church bombing.

In 1973, Sears transferred Jerome, and the family moved to Atlanta. In the new city, McKinstry “grew even more despondent” (202). She stayed home to care for her daughters and finished one drink after another. One day, she saw an ad on the television for a suicide hotline. She called, thinking she “just wanted someone to talk to” (203). While she chatted with the counselor, Jerome unexpectedly returned home. It was still morning, and he had forgotten some papers. He noticed the drink in McKinstry’s hand and seemed to understand for the first time the “tremendous struggle […] going on inside” his wife (204). He urged her to talk to a doctor, and McKinstry agreed. The doctor helped McKinstry understand that the was “self-destructing.” She needed to accept God’s plan for her and “decide that the life God had given [her] was worth living” (204).

During her years in Alabama, McKinstry thought a lot about her grandfather, who died in 1971. She missed her grandfather’s wisdom and support and wished she could ask his advice as she looked “for a reason to live” (206).

One morning, McKinstry got her one and five-year-old daughters ready for the day and sent them outside to play. She told them to stay on the deck and made herself a drink of vodka and orange juice. As the girls played outside, McKinstry sat at the kitchen table and thought of Cynthia, who would have been 25 years old if she had survived the bombing. She felt as if Cynthia was sitting beside her, telling her that McKinstry might soon be joining her in death. She finished the drink and poured another, glancing outside to see the girls playing on the front deck. Her thoughts drifted to her grandfather, but they were suddenly interrupted by a violent knock on the door. The next-door neighbor was at the door, shouting at McKinstry that her daughter had been playing in the street and was almost hit by a bus.

Her daughter was safe, but the close call frightened McKinstry, and she committed to turn her life around. She began praying to God to give her the strength to stop drinking. She promised to repent and appreciate the beautiful family God had given her. She prayed for God to take away her taste for alcohol, heal the damage her drinking had done, and take away the sadness and pain she felt.

McKinstry didn’t realize the depth of her dependency on alcohol; without it, her reality was “terrifying.” She lost sleep, sweated profusely, and “passed relentlessly.” However, after two weeks, she felt revived: God had helped her to defeat her demons, and McKinstry was committed to making the most of her new lease on life.