In the years since Robinson and Ware passed away on September 15, 1963, the day four Black girls were slain in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, those names have virtually faded from memory outside of Birmingham, Alabama.
They perished in the ensuing turmoil after the Ku Klux Klan destroyed the church that morning, killing Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, and Carol Robertson, all 14 years old, and Denise McNair, 11, in an attack. A white police officer and a white youngster both killed Ware and Robinson during the subsequent revolt.
According to James Ware, Virgil’s older brother, “For so long, the four little girls got all the attention, and they forgot about the two little boys,” he said to The Birmingham News in 2013.
Except for the four girls, the only other victims of the attack that day were Ware, 13, and Robinson, 16. According to NPR, Robinson was with his pals when a group of white folks drove past while waving Confederate flags, throwing trash, and using racial epithets toward the Black group. Then, according to witnesses, a police cruiser showed up when Robinson and his buddies were spotted hurling rocks at a vehicle covered in the Confederate flag.
Dana Gillis, an FBI agent, told NPR in 2010: “The people were fleeing, and Mr. Robinson had his back [turned] as he was fleeing.” He was struck in the back by the bullet.
The Robinson family was given a letter in 2010 with more details about Robinson’s case and what truly occurred that day, according to Gillis, a retired FBI agent who spoke to NBC News via email. Gillis said he is now retired from the FBI. The Robinson family was so overcome with grief that they barely discussed the teen’s passing, especially after state and county grand juries opted not to charge Jack Parker, the officer who murdered him, according to NPR. 1977 saw Parker’s passing.
In an effort to address unsolved cold cases from the civil rights period, Gillis spoke with the family. According to a 2013 article in The Birmingham News, providing the family with closure on Robinson’s passing was the intention.
Diane Robinson Samuels, Robinson’s sister, remarked at the time, “We didn’t get any closure. “We only have heartaches,” the speaker said.
Ware, who was riding on the handlebars of his brother James’ bike that day, was unaware of the church bombing, in contrast to Robinson. In order to get ready for the job, Ware and his brothers visited a scrapyard to find Ware a bike, according to Time. A group of white teenagers saw them on their way home, probably mistaking them for other Black boys who had been charged with hurling a brick at a white teen.
Time claims that one of the white lads, Michael Farley, gave his friend Larry Sims a handgun and instructed him to shoot a shot to “scare” the Black youngsters. Sims closed his eyes and shot, claiming to Time in 2003 that he mistakenly believed he was shooting at the ground. He struck Ware in the face and the chest.
Farley entered a guilty plea to second-degree manslaughter, and Sims was found guilty of the crime. A judge awarded them two years of probation and suspended their sentences.
The president of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, DeJuana Thompson, told NBC News in an interview that while the history is well known in the city, people in other parts of the country are unaware of the boys. Their tales are presented in an exhibit at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.
“The blast happened that morning, but the terror’s aftereffects didn’t end until their deaths that afternoon. What happened that day gave those people more confidence to inflict that fear on Virgil and Johnny, Thompson added.
Farley and Sims attended a segregationist demonstration before they attacked Ware, and Sims maintained that he was just following his pals and never meant to harm Ware.
“People don’t realize the impact these terrorist activities have on our neighborhood. It didn’t end at the church, though. In reference to Sarah Collins Rudolph, she was with the other four girls but survived the attack, Thompson said, “It didn’t simply stop with the four girls including the fifth girl. “There were effects felt in various parts of the city, and these stories are also crucial to share.”
Grief over the loss of loved ones and the apparent invisibility of their stories filled the decades that followed Robinson and Ware’s deaths for the families. Ware’s remains were interred in an unmarked grave in a forest along the side of an Alabama highway for many years. His remains were reinterred in a fresh, clearly designated grave in 2004, according to a report from USA Today at the time. Melvin Ware, Ware’s brother, expressed his delight about his brother’s acknowledgment at the time to the media.
He claimed that “he had been seated in the back, in the shadowy positions of the four little girls, all these years.” He’s right there with them now. They have now pulled him out into the open from the shadows.
The acknowledgment has persisted. The young men were admitted to Birmingham’s Gallery of Distinguished Citizens in 2011. Their pictures are now displayed on plaques next to those of the four girls who died in the bombing. In Kelly Ingram Park, a sculpture remembering the four girls and glorifying the boys was unveiled by the city two years later. The Four Spirits memorial sculpture, which honors all six Black children slain that day, including Robinson and Ware, includes bronze figurines of four girls and a bench with their names and pictures.