September 15

  In 1964, the people of Wales, UK gave this poignant stained glass window as

an expression of sympathy and concern to the Birmingham's Sixteenth Street

Baptist Church.. It depicts the essence of the Bible verse: "What you do unto others, you do unto me."

On September 15, 1963 at 10:22 AM an explosion at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama killed Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson, Denise McNair and Cynthia Wesley in a basement ladies' room while they were preparing to take part in a special youth service. Klansman Robert Chambliss was identified as having placed a box under the steps of the church earlier that morning. A month later Chambliss was found not guilty of murder, and fined $100 for having dynamite in his possession. The case was reopened in the 1970s and 3 men were found guilty of murder.

 Alabama. Birmingham. September 15, 1963. The 16th Street Baptist Church after a KKK bombing that killed four girls in a Sunday School class. Image Reference NYC19621 (LYD1962014W00005/26) © Danny Lyon/Magnum Photo

Birthdays

George Franklin Grant (September 15, 1846 – August 21, 1910) graduated from the Harvard School of Dental Medicine in 1870 and began teaching in the department of mechanical dentistry in 1871, making him Harvard's first African American faculty member. He maintained a dental practice in Boston and founded the Harvard Odontological Society. In 1899 Dr. Grant patented the first wooden golf tee; previously golfers had  used a small pile of sand to rest a golf ball on.

Edward Alexander Bouchet (September 15, 1852 - October 28, 1918) was valedictorian of his high school class at The Hopkins School in New Haven CT and was one of the first African Americans to attend Yale as well as being the first elected to Phi Beta Kappa in 1874 (although not the first inducted since the Yale chapter was inactive at the time.), He then earned a PhD in physics, the first African American to receive the degree in any discipline (1876). Unable to find a university position, he taught at Philadelphia's Institute for Colored Youth (now Cheyney University) until he resigned in 1902 at the height of the W. E. B. Du Bois-Booker T. Washington controversy over the need for an industrial vs. collegiate education for African Americans.

Jan Matzeliger (September 15, 1852 - August 24, 1889) was born  in Dutch Guyana (now Suriname) to a  father of German descent and an enslaved Surinamese mother. He apprenticed in his father's machine shop at age 10, and emigrated to the U.S. when he 17. While working at the Harney Brothers' shoe factory in Lynn, Massachusetts he developed a shoe lasting machine that sewed the soles of the shoes to the uppers. This increased productivity from 50 pairs per day to 700, and cut the price of shes in half.

Festus Claudius (Claude) McKay (September 15, 1889 - May 22 1949) was a Harlem Renaissance novelist, poet and activist. He disagreed with both Marcus Garvey's nationalism and the NAACP's accommodationist views, and was a founder of the African Blood Brotherhood. His most famous poem, written during the Red Summer of 1919, is "If I Must Die". "If we must die—let it not be like hogs / Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot, / While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs, / Making their mock at our accursed lot." His 1922 poetry collection, Harlem Shadows, was among the first books published during the Harlem Renaissance.

James Theodore Ward (September 15, 1902 – May 8, 1983) was a leftist political playwright and theater educator known for tackling controversial topics related to African-American urban life during the Great Depression. A prolific writer, Ward composed over thirty plays and co-founded the Negro Playwrights Company with Langston Hughes, Paul Robeson and Richard Wright. His best known works are the drama Big White Fog (1938), produced by the Negro Unit of the Federal Theatre Project in Chicago as well the musical Our Lan' (1947) which premiered on Broadway at New York's Royale Theatre.

Alvin Childress (September 15, 1907 – April 19, 1986) was an African-American actor who is best known for playing the cabdriver Amos Jones in the 1950s television comedy series Amos 'n Andy. Earlier he had appeared as Noah in the Broadway show Anna Lucasta, but found few acting roles after being typecast as Amos. Holding a bachelor's degree in sociology from Rust College, he worked as an unemployment interviewer for the Los Angeles Department of Personnel.

Julius "Nipsey" Russell (September 15, 1918 – October 2, 2005) was an American comedian, best known today for his appearances as a guest panelist on game shows from the 1960s through the 1990s, especially Match Game, Password, Hollywood Squares, To Tell the Truth and Pyramid. His appearances were distinguished in part by the short, humorous poems he would recite during the broadcast.

Snooky Pryor (September 15, 1921 – October 18, 2006) was a Chicago blues harmonica player. He claimed to have pioneered the now-common method of playing amplified harmonica by cupping a small microphone in his hands along with the harmonica, although on his earliest records in the late 1940s and early 1950s he did not utilize this method. He recorded some of the first postwar Chicago blues, in 1948, including "Telephone Blues" and "Snooky & Moody's Boogie", with the guitarist Moody Jones, and "Stockyard Blues" and "Keep What You Got", with the singer and guitarist Floyd Jones.

Robert Waltrip "Bobby" Short (September 15, 1924 – March 21, 2005) was an American cabaret singer and pianist, best known for his interpretations of songs by popular composers of the first half of the 20th century such as Rodgers and Hart, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Harold Arlen, Vernon Duke, Noël Coward and George and Ira Gershwin. He also championed African-American composers of the same period such as Eubie Blake, James P. Johnson, Andy Razaf, Fats Waller, Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, presenting their work not in a polemical way, but as simply the obvious equal of that of their white contemporaries.

Julian Edwin "Cannonball" Adderley (September 15, 1928 - August 8, 1975) began his musical career playing alto sax with Ray Charles in Tallahassee in the 1940's. His brother Nat played cornet, and at the time their parents taught at Florida A&M University. Adderly later recorded with Miles Davis and is best known for his crossover 1966 single "Mercy Mercy Mercy".

Anne Moody (born September 15, 1940) wrote “Coming of Age in Mississippi”, a memoir about growing up in rural poverty and her later years as an activist with SNCC, CORE, and NAACP while attending Tougaloo College in Jackson, Mississippi. The book received renewed publicity when fiftieth anniversary articles on the Civil Rights Movement often showed a photograph of her with John Salter and Joan Trumpauer (who were white) at a 1963 Woolworth's sit-in in Jackson. Moody published only one other book during her lifetime, a collection of short stories for young adults about mortality entitled "Mr. Death: Four Stories", and worked as a counselor for the New York City Poverty Program.

Anne Moody in 1963 being harassed alongside John Salter and Joan Trumpauer at a Woolworth’s. Credit Fred Blackwell/Jackson Daily News

Jessye Norman (born September 15, 1945) is a Grammy award-winning contemporary opera singer and recitalist, and a successful performer of classical music. A dramatic soprano, Norman is associated in particular with the Wagnerian repertoire, and with the roles of Sieglinde, Ariadne, Alceste, and Leonore. She was presented with the 2010 National Medal of Arts presented by President Obama in a ceremony at The White House in February 2010.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (born 15 September 1977) is a MacArthur "Genius Grant" recipient and author of several widely-acclaimed novels including Purple Hibiscus, Half of a Yellow Sun, and Americanah. She  is noted for TedX Talks "The Danger of a Single Story" on stereotyping and "We should all be feminists" which was sampled in Beyonce's 2013 song "Flawless". She was born in  Nsukka, Nigeria and holds master's degrees in creative writing from Johns Hopkins University and in African American studies from Yale University.



Events

No other events could be found for this date. Below are brief biographical sketches of the six young people killed in Birmingham on September 15, 1963.

Addie Mae Collins (April 18, 1949 - September 15, 1963). She and her sisters sold their mother's handmade aprons and potholders door-to-door after school. Liked playing hopscotch, singing in the church choir, drawing portraits and wearing bright colors. The youth center at an Ishkooda Road church in Birmingham is named for her.

Denise McNair (November 17, 1951 - September 15, 1963). Held tea parties, was in the Brownies, and liked to play baseball. Organized a neighborhood talent show in her garage every year to raise money for Muscular Dystrophy. Always smiled in pictures even when she lost her baby teeth.

Carole Robertson (April 24, 1949 - September 15, 1963). Took tap, ballet and jazz dancing lessons on Saturday mornings. Avid reader and made straight A's. Member of Jack and Jill, Girl Scouts, marching band, science club. Wanted to be a history teacher when she grew up.

Cynthia Wesley (April 30, 1949 - September 15, 1963) Wore a size two and her mother made all her clothes. Liked to have parties in her back yard. She had invited a friend, Ricky Powell, to the youth service. He had agreed to come but instead had to attend a funeral with his family.

Johnny Robinson Jr. and Virgil Ware also were killed in Birmingham on September 15, 1963. Johnny Robinson, 16, was shot and killed by police later that day after throwing rocks at a car driven by whites waving the Confederate battle flag. Virgil Ware, 13, died after being shot by white teenagers while delivering newspapers on his bike.

Photo Gallery

Dancer and actress Louise Franklin strikes a pose in this September 15, 1941
publicity photo with Duke Ellington for his musical, “Jump For Joy.”

John Coltrane is seen here on September 15, 1957 in Hackensack, NJ during the recording
 of his "Blue Train" album. Photo: Francis Wolff/Mosaic Images/Corbis. | Vintage Black Glamour

September 15, 1978 boxer Muhammad Ali defeats Leon Spinks at the Louisiana
Superdome in New Orleans to win the world heavyweight boxing
title for the third time in his career, the first fighter ever to do so.

Publications

Jet Magazine, September 15, 1955

Jet Magazine, September 15, 1955

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