While the World Watched

McKinstry, Carolyn Maull. While the World Watched. 2011. 320p. ISBN 9781414336367. Available at ...

When a bomb blasted inside the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama on September 15, 1963, Carolyn Maull’s life was forever changed. Four girls from the African-American congregation were killed by the actions of members of the Ku Klux Klan, throwing the city in turmoil and shining a spotlight on the unequal treatment of Blacks in Alabama. Carolyn had just been in the bathroom a minute before the blast, but had left just in time. Reeling from the attack, it took her years to finally come to terms with the events of that day.

With the struggle for civil rights raging in the South, Birmingham was one of the most segregated and violent cities. African-Americans were routinely targeted by the Klan for fighting against the established White order and for requesting better treatment and life conditions. Carolyn, as the only girl in her family, was sheltered by her parents and was protected from the worst abuses, but this bombing and its consequences forced her to confront the segregationist society she lived in. This vile action galvanized the Civil Rights movement and attracted Dr. Martin Luther King to Birmingham. Demonstrations and struggles followed, and eventually the city was desegregated.

Carolyn lived and worked at the forefront of it all. Her first-person perspective provides a much needed account of these events that marked a generation and continue to impact our society today, and how far we must still travel to make everyone feel a part of this great nation.