RACIAL TENSION MOUNTS IN BIRMINGHAM AFTER FOUR KILLED IN CHURCH BOMBING
The Montgomery Advertiser Sept. 16, 1963
by Arthur Osgood

All Birmingham waited with taut nerves Sunday night for a possible major eruption of racial violence.

City police and state Troopers covered the city in an all out effort to hold the lid tight. Streets were almost deserted as citizens heeded Mayor Albert Boutwell's plea, "Please stay home tonight."

But at police headquarters reports of death and violence kept coming in late into the night.

A 16-year-old Negro boy was reported shot and killed by a policeman after a rock-throwing incident.

A white man was reported shot.

Another Negro boy was reported slain while riding a bicycle.

A firebomb was reported thrown at a Negro home on "Dynamite Hill," which got its name from previous racial troubles.

A larger fire was reported several minutes later on Fourth Avenue South, several blocks away.

A Negro was reported wildly firing a shotgun.

Rocks were hurled at cars in various parts of the city.

Less than a block from City Hall, a police wagon stopped to pick up a Negro who was obviously drunk. He yelled wildly inside the wagon.

A clump of white men converged on the wagon until warned back by police.

"I wish I could have gotten hold of him," muttered a young white man as the wagon pulled off.

But inside the adjacent bus station whites and Negroes sat quietly side by side.

Across the street an elderly white man was commenting to a friend, "It's a helluva comeoff when they start bombing churches and killing innocent people."

Inside City Hall, before which stood scores of helmeted State Troopers, a wary Albert Boutwell commented to newsmen in a masterpiece of understatement.

"There is considerable excitement in our city."

He retired with other city officials to draw up an appeal for law and order.....