Witness Says He Didn’t See Ex-Klansman in ’63

A barber whose earlier testimony helped convict two Ku Klux Klan members of murdering four black girls in a 1963 church bombing testified Monday he did not see Bobby Frank Cherry with the other men the night before the attack.

Bill Jackson also told the jury that he didn’t see Cherry at a Klan recruitment meeting he went to at about the same time as the bombing at the 16th Street Baptist Church.

“I met him [Cherry] this morning for the very first time,” Jackson said of the defendant.

Cherry is the last suspect to stand trial in the deadliest attack against the civil rights movement. The blast killed Denise McNair, 11; along with Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley, all 14.

The defense rested its case late Monday, contending the evidence against Cherry is “mostly hearsay.”

Cherry was not called to testify. Final arguments are scheduled today, with the case then going to the jury.

Thomas Blanton Jr., one of the men Jackson testified against, is serving a life term after being convicted last year. That jury reached its verdict after only two hours of deliberation. The other Klansman, Robert “Dynamite Bob” Chambliss, was convicted in 1977 and died in prison. A fourth suspect, Herman Cash, died in 1984 without ever being charged.

Facing four counts of murder, Cherry, 71, has often seemed bored during his trial and showed no emotion when a 1957 newsreel was played for the jurors last week, showing Cherry taking a swing at a black minister during a civil rights demonstration.

“Bobby’s just an old guy who wants this to be over,” his attorney, Mickey Johnson, said of the ex-Marine who was trained in explosives and was 33 at the time of the attack.

Two of Cherry’s grandsons also testified Monday, saying they had lived with Cherry for extended periods and never heard him speak of bombing the church or being a Ku Klux Klan member.

But last week an ex-wife and four other witnesses told the jurors they had heard Cherry admit to taking part in the bombing, statements the defense branded as lies. Cherry was indicted in the attack in 2000, but his trial was delayed by questions over his mental competence.

A good part of Cherry’s defense is focused on a claim made by an FBI informant, Mary Frances Cunningham, in 1964. She said she saw Cherry and the three other Klan suspects sitting in a car near the church on the morning of the bombing. Cherry got out of the car and put the bomb in the building, she said.

Saturday, testifying for the defense, she denied ever making the statement to the FBI.

On the morning of the bombing, Sept. 15, 1963, civil rights demonstrators were gathering at the church for a protest against segregation. The church was used by civil rights leaders, including the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Rev. John Cross, as a base to promote civil rights.