Explanation:

woke up on Sunday morning, September 15, 1963,

and looked out my bedroom window. The SKY was slightly

overcast, but the sun was trying hard to shine through

the clouds. It was a warm, beautiful September day in

Birmingham, Alabama—an ordinary busy Sunday morning

at the Maull home.

I laid out my white Sunday dress. I had starched and

ironed it before I went to bed the night before. At age four-

teen, I didn’t own a lot of clothes because there were six

children to clothe in our household. But I had several special

church dresses and one pair of black patent leather shoes I

saved just for Sunday church.

Today was Youth Sunday at SIXTEENTH Street Baptist

Church. On the fourth Sunday of each month, Reverend

John H. Cross asked the church’s youth to lead the service,

teach the Sunday school classes, and take over jobs the adult

members usually did. It proved an exciting day for us each

month. The boys wore dark pants and white SHIRTS on those

Sundays, and the girls wore their prettiest white dresses.

I had been an active member of Sixteenth Street Baptist

Church in Birmingham, Alabama, for as far back as I could

remember. In 1950, when I was two years old, my parents

registered me in the cradle-roll Sunday school class. My

church served as the center of my life. I worshiped there. I

socialized there. I even WORKED there part-time as a church

secretary. Sixteenth Street Baptist Church was the first black

church built in Birmingham. SINCE its construction in 1911,

the church had become a worship home