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BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- Even though he has not experienced major trauma, Kolven Hoey's learning about the tragedies that befell Lisa McNair and Sarah Collins Rudolph felt like a double sucker punch to the emotional gut.
"I was thinking about how they got over it," Hoey, 16, a Youngstown Rayen Early College sophomore, said last week. "It really hit me hard."
He was referring to the fact that McNair and Collins Rudolph lost their sisters, Denise McNair and Addie Mae Collins, who, along with Cynthia Wesley and Carole Robertson, were killed in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing Sept. 15, 1963. Denise McNair never got to know her younger sister, who was born about a year after her death.
Hoey is among the 13 Youngstown high school students and adults who are on an eight-day annual Sojourn to the Past journey to key civil rights sites in four southern states. Last week, McNair and Collins Rudolph spoke to the Youngstown contingent, along with several groups from California, about their tragedies and triumphs.
Collins Rudolph, often referred to as the "fifth little girl" because she was in the basement with the other four girls and was seriously injured in the blast at 10:22 a.m., was blinded in her right eye and entered the hospital with more than 20 pieces of glass in her face, she told the groups of more than 140 high school students, educators and parents. She returned temporarily to the church in June 1964, but was too frightened and traumatized to continue.
After attending another church a while later, the pastor delivered a sermon that resonated with her and later, she was baptized and joined, Collins Rudolph said, adding that "God took away my fear."
Collins Rudolph, who has never received an official apology or compensation for her injuries, stressed to her audience the importance of voting.
She has penned a book titled "The Fifth Little Girl."
McNair, who often became emotional during her presentation, recalled receiving a box from her grandmother that contained various items related to her sister. One of them was a piece of concrete that had been embedded in Denise McNair's forehead from the force of the explosion, Lisa McNair said.
Since their deaths, McNair has served as a spokeswoman for her parents, Christopher and Maxine McNair, who used to address Sojourn groups in the church about the importance of forgiveness and refraining from hating others -- both messages she continues to impart.
At one point during her talk last week, McNair became upset that on the 62nd anniversary of the start of the Birmingham campaign on April 3, 1963, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey's proposed budget calls for defunding the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, across the street from the church, along with other cultural sites, which aligns with national efforts to suppress conversations about race, inequities, diversity, equity and inclusion, and the civil rights movement as a whole.
The campaign included the May 1963 Children's Crusade in which more than 4,000 children -- including a 4-year-old -- were arrested and charged with marching without a permit. Beforehand, the young people received training in nonviolent tactics and strategy largely from the Rev. James Bevel in the church, with the goal of desegregating downtown Birmingham via filling the city's jail cells and rendering segregation laws powerless.
One of those children was the Rev. Gwen Webb, a former Birmingham police officer. She also was Alabama's second black female officer.
"I wanted to fix the evils of segregation in the city," Webb said about her primary goal of joining the nonviolent action.
Hoey was also impressed after hearing a presentation from Minnijean Brown Trickey, one of nine black students who integrated the all-white Central High School in September 1957 in Little Rock, Arkansas, and became a staunch civil rights, environmental and social activist.
"She said that even as kids, our voices have an impact on the world," Hoey said.
TRAVELS TO MISSISSIPPI
After spending a day in Birmingham, the groups made the three-hour bus trip to Hattiesburg, Mississippi, where they were introduced to the life and legacy of civil rights leader Vernon F. Dahmer Sr., who was a farmer, sawmill operator, grocer and church music director and, since the 1940s, a member of the Forrest County NAACP chapter. His primary mantra was voting rights and he was fond of saying, "If you don't vote, you don't count.".
The students traveled to the Dahmer home and met Dahmer's son, Dennis Dahmer of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, who recalled when two carloads of Ku Klux Klansmen firebombed the family home in the early hours of Jan. 10, 1966, resulting in the elder Dahmer's death from smoke inhalation at age 57.
Because of his civil rights activity, Dahmer had earned the enmity of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, which was based in nearby Jones County, Mississippi, and led by Samuel H. Bowers Jr., who was convicted in August 1998 of Dahmer's killing, more than 32 years and four mistrials later, and sentenced to life in prison.
Bowers died Nov. 5, 2006, at age 82.
Unlike most blacks in Mississippi at the time, Vernon Dahmer was well respected by white people and was willing to help anyone in need. For example, after learning that a white farmer who lived nearby had undergone a leg amputation, Dahmer plowed the man's field without charging or telling him, Dennis Dahmer recalled for the groups of students and adults.The elder Dahmer also had a small grocery store on his property, where he often helped blacks to vote via paying the illegal $2 poll tax for those who were unable to afford it.
Also meeting the groups was Ellie J. Dahmer, 99, a former teacher and Forrest County education commissioner, who married Vernon Dahmer in March 1952. Before her education career, she attended Tennessee A&I State College and Alcorn State University.
Also, the younger Dahmer and a few relatives met the busloads of Sojourn students and educators at nearby Shady Grove Baptist Church, which was built during the Civil War and is next to a cemetery in which Dahmer is buried.
While there, the groups paid their respects to Dahmer, and his son and relatives passed out voter registration forms to everyone.