Johnnie Robinson – The Birmingham News Article, “Victims of Bomb Aftermath Buried”

Description

September 23, 1963 article from The Birmingham News reporting on the funerals of Johnnie Robinson and Virgil Ware, both killed during the racial violence that followed the September 15 bombing of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. The article states that Robinson, age 16, was buried following services at New Pilgrim Baptist Church and reports that approximately 500 people attended. It records remarks by the Rev. A. L. Woods criticizing what he described as a history of police brutality in Birmingham and expressing hope that Robinson’s death would prompt action concerning police conduct.

The article also reports that Coroner J. O. Butler planned to request a grand-jury investigation and that the investigation determined Robinson had been struck by pellets from a police officer’s shotgun. It presents the contemporaneous police account that Robinson had been throwing rocks and that officers fired toward the ground. The clipping uses the spelling “Johnny Robinson,” a contemporary variant of the name established in official records as Johnnie Brown Robinson.