No disrespect to Mr. Swayze or his family, but I’m about to dump all over the irony-laced posts that have been going up for about the last 18 hours. “Church members said they found the girls huddled together beneath a pile of masonry debris.” This was from the NY Times reporting on the bombing of Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church on September 15, 1963. Four girls — Cynthia Wesley, Denise McNair, Carol Robertson, and Addie Mae Collins — were killed in a blast that caught them between Sunday School and church. The lesson that day was “The Love That Forgives.” Nor were they the only children killed in Birmingham that day. Johnny Robinson was killed by a police shotgun blast after the group of which he was a part was driven away from the street corner near the church where they were throwing rocks at the cars passing through bearing Confederate battle flags. Virigina Wade was shot and killed “for no apparent reason” while riding her bicycle.
After we have gotten so worked up over the death of Michael Jackson, the passing of Edward Kennedy, and so many other famous and infamous people who have died this summer, I for one am not up for more psuedo-hip remorse over losing another celebrity. The issues which led to four babies huddling in the corner of a restroom 46 years ago today have improved in some ways, but they have not disappeared. Let’s not leave them in the corner.