by Joe Wilhelm Jr.
Staff Writer
The monthly luncheon of The Jacksonville Bar Association had a theme of justice and opportunity.
The JBA had the opportunity to bring in two former prosecutors who seized the opportunity for justice.
William “Bill” Baxley is a former lieutenant governor and attorney general of Alabama and Douglas “Doug” Jones is a former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama.
Both were able to convict criminals involved in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombings Sept. 15, 1963, in Birmingham, Ala.
Four girls died in the bombings, 11-year-old Denise McNair and 14-year-olds Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson and Addie Mae Collins.
The two men have been making presentations and lecturing on one of “biggest cases of our lives.”
Former Florida Bar and JBA President Hank Coxe attended one of their presentations in Tampa and suggested to current JBA President Courtney Grimm that their story would benefit the members of The JBA.
“Hank was impressed with the presentation and we had the opportunity to bring them to Jacksonville,” said Grimm.
“They have an amazing story and we could tell our membership recognized that through the attendance today,” she said Tuesday.
The final tally on reservations for the luncheon was 357 people.
“The 16th Street Baptist Church was one of the focal points of the civil rights movement,” said Jones, as he provided background on what Birmingham was like in 1963.
“A lot of the mass meetings occurred at 16th Street Baptist Church. Birmingham was full of segregation, not only in the city, but also in the surrounding areas,” he said.
Jones detailed how he and other attorneys tried to figure out some of the motives involved in what was happening in Birmingham to trigger the unrest.
The movement to integrate schools, the elimination of white and “colored” signs at water fountains and restrooms and allowing whites and blacks to sit together at lunch counters were advances that did not sit well with some people, said Jones.
“The (Ku Klux) Klan was not happy. They were beginning to see their segregated way of life slide away,” said Jones.
Not all white people in Alabama shared that attitude, including Baxley, who detailed his deep family roots in Alabama and his public school education.
“My education from the first day of school to the last day of law school was in the public, segregated schools of Alabama,” said Baxley.
“I say this because after the trial, people sometimes thought that maybe I’d gone off to some Ivy League school and that is why I felt the way I felt. Really and truly it’s not a good story, but I have always felt the way that I felt,” he said.
“What I saw is not what you would learn in church about treating your brothers and sisters as you’re supposed to,” he said.
When Baxley was young, he asked his parents why people were treated differently because of their skin color.
“We, me and my brother, never did get a good answer,” said Baxley.
“When I got a little older, I learned the reason why we never got good answers was because there weren’t any good answers as to why people were being treated like that,” he said.
Baxley told the audience that he became physically ill when he heard about the bombing and he wanted to do whatever he could to help bring the people responsible for the bombing to justice.
As a college student, he never imagined he would have the opportunity to reopen the case in 1971 as the Attorney General of Alabama.
Baxley decided the strongest evidence was against Ku Klux Klan member Robert “Dynamite Bob” Chambliss, and in 1977 Chambliss was convicted of murder for the bombing and sentenced to several terms of life imprisonment. He died in prison in 1985.
Jones picked up where Baxley left off and was able to convict both Thomas Blanton and Bobby Frank Cherry of murder for their roles in the bombing nearly 40 years after the tragedy.
“It’s never too late to do the right thing,” said Jones.
356-2466