Page 84 - 1619 Project Curriculum

The 1619 Project

A group of Ku Klux Klansmen bomb the 16th Street Baptist Church

⬤ Sept. 15, 1963:

in Birmingham, Ala., a center of the civil rights movement. Four young girls are

killed, and at least 14 people are injured. Years later, three of the four conspirators are

brought to trial and convicted; the fourth dies before he is tried.

This morning’s already good — summer’s My daughter’s three months old. A nightmare

rocks me awake, and then fourteen words: Brevity.

cooling, Addie chattering like a magpie —
but today we are leading the congregation.
As in four girls; Sunday dresses: bone, ash, bone, ash, bone.

Ain’t that a fine thing! All in white like angels, The end. 1963, but still burning. My darkening girl
they’ll be sighing when we appear at the pulpit

lies beside me, her tiny chest barely registering breath.
and proclaim ‘‘Open your hymnals —’’ Had they lived beyond that morning, all the other explosions

Addie, what’s the page number again?
shattering Birmingham — even some who called it home
Never mind, it’ll be posted. I think. I hope.
called it Bombingham — three of the girls would be 70,

Hold still, Carole, or else this sash will never

sit right! There. Now you do mine. the other 67. Somebody’s babies. The sentences I rescue
from that nightmare, I make a poem. Four names,
Almost eleven. I’m ready. My, don’t we look —
what’s that word the Reverend used in grayscaled at the bottom of the page:
Addie Mae Collins. Cynthia Wesley. Carole Robertson. Denise McNair.
last Sunday’s sermon? Oh, I got it: ethereal.
Revision is a struggle toward truth. In my book I won’t keep, The end.

For such terrible brevity — dear black girls! sweet babies — there’s been no end.
Bow: Shutterstock
By Rita Dove By Camille T. Dungy
78 Photo illustrations by Jon Key