While the World Watched: A Birmingham Bombing Survivor Comes of Age during the Civil Rights Movement

In the introduction, McKinstry briefly describes her involvement in the civil rights movement as a young girl, including losing her four friends in the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing and marching with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Birmingham, Alabama. She describes spending 20 years trying to forget these traumatic experiences. However, as an older woman, she understands the value of remembering, sharing her story to help others “commit […] to live a life of reconciliation” (10).

On Sunday, September 15, 1963, 14-year-old Carolyn Maull dressed for the Youth Sunday service at Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. She was excited about the service and looking forward to completing her responsibilities as one of the church’s secretaries. Sixteenth Street Baptist was “the center of [McKinstry’s] life” (19). It was also an important hub for Birmingham’s Black community, and civil rights leaders, including Martin Luther King Jr., met there. During the 1950s and 1960s, Birmingham was considered the most segregated city in the Southern United States and was an important battleground in the fight for civil rights.

McKinstry’s father, whom she called Daddy, was an “organized and efficient” man, while McKinstry’s mother was the opposite—a “laid-back” woman with an “unassuming personality” (26). Daddy had a master’s degree in applied science and taught physics and chemistry at the local all-Black high school.