Tuesday, Aug. 8, 2023 | 2 a.m.
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Lisa McNair said one of her earliest memories was hearing people talk about the tragic death of her sister, Denise McNair, in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Ala., on Sept. 15, 1963.
“My first and oldest memory is that my sister was killed in the church by white people because they didn’t like Black people,” McNair said. “It is part of who you are constantly.”
McNair was part of a panel discussion “From Four Little Girls to Tyre Nichols: Birmingham and the Evolution of Coverage of Civil Rights Movements” during this year’s annual meeting of the National Association of Black Journalists. The panel looked at the importance of honoring history throughout news coverage, and how to cover current efforts for civil rights and social justice.
This year marks the 60th anniversary of Birmingham’s summer of change, a momentous year that marked a turning point in the Civil Rights Movement. This year is also historic as it is the first year the National Association of Black Journalists convention was hosted in Birmingham — the hub of the Civil Rights Movement.
In McNair’s book, “Dear Denise: Letters to the Sister I Never Knew,” she discusses what her life was like as a part of the first generation of Black people allowed to move freely within the nation and the happenings of her own household and neighborhood after the death of the four young girls who died in the bombing.
“For me and my sister, we just want to make sure we honor her name, we honor our parents, we let people know that this story was pivotal and that we don’t need to forget it,” McNair said, referring to her sister, Kimberly McNair, who was also born after the bombing.
The panel also featured Pulitzer finalist Roy Johnson and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist John Archibald, both of whom stressed the importance of honoring history.
“When anyone is trying to rewrite the earlier drafts of history and rewrite the facts of history, they must be called out for it,” Johnson said. “We simply cannot let this happen. It is incumbent upon us to fight that fight.
Archibald said newsrooms, which were primarily white throughout the 1960s, aided and abetted law enforcement in the oppression of Black people.
“It is not that we have become so good, it is that we used to be so bad,” Archibald said to a crowd of fellow journalists and business professionals as they nodded and agreed.
“I grew up like most white people in Birmingham, completely oblivious to what was going on around me,” Archibald continued, noting he was born around the same time the “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” was written, though he was never taught about the letter’s significance in school.
Judge Shanta Owens said criminal justice has also evolved since 1963 as some members of law enforcement who commit acts of violence against Black people are now being held accountable for their actions. Though cases in which officers being prosecuted for brutality are not abundant, there was a time when they were nonexistent.
Denise McNair’s killer was not prosecuted until 1977, 14 years, after the bombings. Some of the participants, members of a white supremacist terrorist group, the Ku Klux Klan, died before being brought to justice.
The panelists agreed that 1963 is a time to be remembered and honored as both a year of devastation and revolution. In the memory of Denise Carter and the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement, there are stories imperative to Birmingham’s, and the nation’s, past and future.
“Journalism matters, good journalism matters,” Owens said. “It helps to dispense justice when there is good journalism casting a light on things the public needs to be aware of.”
Alaina Bookman is a columnist for al.com.
