YOUNGSTOWN — Sarah Collins Rudolph vividly and painfully remembers standing in front of a mirror while Denise McNair tied the sash on her sister Addie Mae Collins’ dress in the basement when a huge explosion rocked the church.

“So many people didn’t know there was a fifth girl,” Collins Rudolph said, referring to herself in the Sept. 15, 1963, bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, that killed four girls and seriously injured her and 21 others. “I heard someone outside saying, ‘Someone bombed the 16th Street Baptist Church!”

Killed were McNair, Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley, all of whom were in the women’s lounge preparing for the church’s outh Day celebration when the bomb went off at 10:22 that morning. McNair was 11; the other three girls were 14.

In recent years, Collins Rudolph, who still lives in Birmingham, has mustered the courage, desire and fortitude to share her story of heartache, pain and tragedy coupled with redemption, forgiveness and triumph.

For her efforts, she was honored during a program Tuesday evening at the Tyler History Center, 325 W. Federal St., in which she was the national recipient of the annual Simeon Booker Award for Courage. The local Booker Award went to Sister Ann McManamon, who ran the Dorothy Day House of Hospitality on Belmont Avenue.

Hosting the gathering, which also was part of Nonviolence Week in Ohio, was Mahoning Valley Sojourn to the Past. Acting as master of ceremonies was Madonna Chism Pinkard, community-relations director for WFMJ-TV 21.

The event also commemorated the 60th anniversary of the tragedy.

Collins Rudolph recalled a church deacon who tried to make his way to the basement only to discover that the bomb also had blown a gaping hole in the steps. He had to jump through the hole.

In addition, Collins Rudolph remembered that a waiting ambulance rushed her to the hospital because she had shards of glass embedded in her eye from having stood next to the mirror in the restroom. While at the hospital, her mother informed the young girl that the other four girls had been killed and that, “You’re the only survivor.”

“Why did they kill these girls, these innocent girls who never did anything?” she said to an audience of about 120 who attended Tuesday’s program.

Collins Rudolph, who was blinded in one eye and still has limited vision, spent a few months in the hospital, where she was told that her eye would have to be removed. She was able to eventually return to school, but dealt with a lot of anger, sadness and depression, yet received no counseling, she recalled.

Over time, though, Collins Rudolph — largely because of a steadfast faith in God — reached the point where she was able to forgive the four bombers, which absolved her of much anger. Nevertheless, in her remarks Tuesday, she expressed sadness that it took until the early 2000s to convict two of the killers, Bobby Frank Cherry and Thomas Blanton, both of whom were members of the Ku Klux Klan and were sentenced to life in prison.

Collins Rudolph, who also has penned a book titled “The Fifth Little Girl: Soul Survivor of the 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing,” said she shares her story in part so that the four girls will not have died in vain.

Minnijean Brown Trickey, one of nine black students who integrated the all-white Central High School in September 1957 in Little Rock, Arkansas, also spoke, saying that she’s deeply inspired by the area’s young people who are trying to tap into their power to make a positive difference in the city.

Brown Trickey also said it’s galling that Collins Rudolph’s story hasn’t been told or taught until the last few years — a situation she referred to as “profound intentional ignorance.”

In addition, citizens cannot afford to remain silent and apathetic, given today’s societal conditions, she said.

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McManamon served as director of the Dorothy Day House, which provides home-cooked meals for many in need, along with clothing, showers and, perhaps most importantly, friendship and fellowship.

In her remarks, she drew parallels between tenets of the facility’s mission and those in lockstep with the principles of the philosophy of nonviolence.

“I’m proud to be part of the nonviolence efforts,” she said.

In a recent presentation to the Rotary Club of Youngstown, in which she emphasized the importance of the Dorothy Day House’s mission to help those in need, McManamon said the mission aligns with a 2015 speech Pope Francis delivered to Congress in which he invoked Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., President Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Merton and Dorothy Day.

All four of them “were able to build a better future and shape fundamental American values,” according to the Rotary Club.

“It’s up to us to make a difference and stand up to be heard,” Chism Pinkard said.

The award was named after Booker, who attended Youngstown State University before becoming the Washington Post’s first black reporter. Booker also wrote for Jet magazine and, as a civil rights reporter, covered the trial of the two men who were accused in the Aug. 28, 1955, killing of 14-year-old Emmett Till in Money, Mississippi, and photographed Till’s open casket to open people’s eyes to the effects of racism.

The award is given to those who exemplify a high level of courage and, by doing so, greatly impact their communities and the lives of others.

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