A Love That Forgives

Sixty years ago this September, Klansmen bombed the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing four young girls. Years later, this survivor found a mysterious message in the very Bible she carried that tragic day

- CAROLYN MAULL MCKINSTRY

I sat nervously in the waiting room of a psychologist. My husband Jerome’s plea for me to see a doctor had finally sunk in, yet not even Jerome knew the depth of my misery, how the sadness never went away, no matter how I tried to numb it with alcohol. These feelings had been a part of me since I was 14, throughout high school and college, going on 10 years now. I kept to myself. Rarely did I talk to other people. I was afraid something terrible would happen if I got too close to anyone, even Jerome, our daughters and other family members. I didn’t know where these feelings were coming from. That’s what made them so frightening.

I picked up a magazine and flipped through it. The pictures that stared back at me were of white smiling faces. Their lives were nothing like mine. I had grown up in Birmingham, Alabama, during the height of the civil rights struggles. Our city had been nicknamed Bombingham because of the bombs that had destroyed Black homes, churches and businesses.

My parents had done their best to shelter my brothers, sister and me. They may have talked with their friends about segregation and racism, but not with us. Daddy told us the places we weren’t to go, like across the railroad tracks, and insisted my brothers escort me everywhere. I questioned why there were so many rules. But I didn’t know to be afraid, not then.