Poignant words by Peter Hum

“On Sunday, Sept. 15, 1963, the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama killed four girls – Denise McNair, 11, Addie Mae Collins, 14, Carole Robertson, 14, and Cynthia Wesley, 14. They were attending Sunday school classes. Twenty-three other people were also injured by the blast.

The church had been used as a meeting-place for civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King. Years later, a Ku Klux Klansman was tried and convicted of murder in connection with the killings.

King gave a speech at the funeral for the four murdered girls, and it inspired John Coltrane to compose Alabama, which he recorded in mid-November, 1963.  Descriptions of the piece suggest that Coltrane meant for the piece to be programmatic, with his saxophone playing mirroring King’s speech and the crash of Elvin Jones’ drums signifying King’s call for renewed determination in the fight against racism.” (Source)


Notes

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