Emanuel Cleaver: “I say congratulations to Ms. Sewell and Mr. Bachus. I had returned home from a movie. If we went to church, we had the…”

“I say congratulations to Ms. Sewell and Mr. Bachus. I had returned home from a movie. If we went to church, we had the opportunity to do other things; and I went on to church, and so my parents allowed me to go to the movies. When my sisters and I walked back into the house, our mother was in the living room with some friends and they were crying. We didn't know what happened, and she said that they had killed some little black girls down in Birmingham. I had no idea that I would eventually become deeply involved in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and I realized later that the reason for the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church is that it had been the headquarters, the meeting place of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference led by Martin Luther King, Jr.; the vice president, Ralph David Abernathy, and my father in the ministry, who wrote to me, ``I am your Paul; you are my solace.'' And there was also Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, who says he taught me how to preach. {time} 1330 They met there, and that was reason enough to blow up that building and kill these little girls, innocent little girls. I was pleased in 1979 when Richard Arrington was elected mayor of Birmingham. And I remember thinking Fred Shutterworth had coined the term ``Bombingham'' because his own home was blown to bits; and on the day Richard Arrington, a Black man, was elected mayor, I said, ``It is no longer Bombingham; it is now Birmingham.'' Ms.…”