In The Faith - A Chronicle of the Christian Faith

Bobby Frank Cherry was 74

MONTGOMERY, Alabama (AP)—Bobby Frank Cherry, convicted of killing four black girls in a racially motivated bombing of a Birmingham church in 1963, died Thursday in prison. He was 74.

Cherry, suffering from cancer, died in the hospital unit at Kilby Correctional Facility in Montgomery, a Department of Corrections spokesman said.

Cherry was convicted in May 2002 in the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, a gathering place for civil rights demonstrators in Birmingham, and was sentenced to life in prison. It was the deadliest act of the civil rights era.

Cherry was among three former Ku Klux Klan members convicted in the bombing, which killed the four girls as they were preparing to take part in a Sunday morning service.

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Filed under: History