Sarah Collins
Sarah Collins Rudolph (born c. 1951 in Birmingham) was injured in the 1963 bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church, which killed her sister, Addie Mae and three other girls.
Sarah was the youngest of 8 children born to janitor Oscar Collins and his wife, Alice, who lived on 6th Court West. She attended Hill Elementary School.
In the bomb blast, Sarah was in the same downstairs bathroom with the other victims. She was struck by shards of glass, injuring both eyes. She spent two months in the hospital and never regained sight in her right eye. She has also suffered from memory loss and post-traumatic stress. After high school, Sarah worked as a short-order cook and at Lawler Foundry for 16 years. She married a city worker for three years. In 1988 she married mechanic Leroy Cox.
In 1990 Sarah made preparations to relocate her sister's remains to a mausoleum at Elmwood Cemetery, but none were found in the marked plot. Collins' family filed suit against Poole Funeral Home, which operated the cemetery at the time, but the case was dismissed in 2003. In 2002 her testimony concluded the state's case against Bobby Frank Cherry in his long-delayed trial for murder.
In 2013, as Representatives Terri Sewell and Spencer Bachus co-sponsored a bill to confer the Congressional Gold Medal on the four victims of the blast, Collins spoke out against the gesture, saying that justice remains unfulfilled and that she deserves restitution for her suffering and medical expenses at the hands of the Ku Klux Klan. Her appeal to Mayor William Bell resulted in a no promise of reparations from the city, but instead his pledge to include her in planning for the 50 Years Forward events surrounding the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Movement events of 1963, and that she could be paid for sharing her important story. She is currently collaborating with Wright State University professor Tracy Snipe on a memoir entitled The Fifth Little Girl: Soul Survivor of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church Bombing.
In 2020 Collins lobbied for, and received, a formal apology from Governor Kay Ivey on behalf of the State of Alabama for not doing more to prevent the bombing. Her petition for restitution was not answered.
She and her current husband, George Rudolph, live in Forestdale.
References
- Smith, Kyle (August 11, 1997) "The Day the Children Died". People magazine. Vol. 48, No. 6
- Temple, Chanda (January 14, 1998) "'63 bombing victim's family eager to locate site of grave." The Birmingham News
- Bragg, Rick (May 18, 2002) "Survivor of '63 Bomb Recalls Glass Shards and a Sister Lost." The New York Times
- Bryant, Joseph D. (November 23, 2012) "'Fifth little girl' remains relatively unknown in Birmingham, seeks role and place as 50th anniversary nears." The Birmingham News
- Gates, Verna (April 14, 2013) "Victim of 1963 Alabama church bombing wants restitution, not medal." Reuters
- Rudolph, Sarah Collins (September 14, 2017) "In New Book ,‘Fifth Little Girl’ Describes First Hand Account of Horrific Church Bombing" The Birmingham Times
- Stuart, Shauna (September 10, 2018) "'God had to do a work in me': Sarah Collins Rudolph on reclaiming her story" The Birmingham News
- Whites-Koditscheck, Sarah (September 30, 2020) "Alabama Governor apologizes to survivor of 1963 Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing." The Birmingham News
- Reeves, Jay (September 15, 2022) "Alabama sidesteps compensation for survivor of 1963 KKK Birmingham church bombing." Associated Press / The Birmingham News