Half a century on, Charleston carnage resonates in South

Both attacks racially motivated, and shocked nation reeling with racial, societal tensions In the Birmingham attack by four Ku Klux Klansman, a bomb planted under the church steps killed four young girls in the church basement. The Charleston rampage targ

Ahalf century ago in this deeply southern city, a racially motivated attack on a black church left four young girls dead and helped galvanise a civil rights movement that changed voting laws across the United States.

For those with ties to that deadly event, Wednesday’s shootings in a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina, another deeply southern city 644km distant, echoed the tragedy and compounded the frustration that more progress has not been made.

“It definitely brought back memories,” said Lisa McNair, 50, the niece of one of the girls who died in the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church, which happened before McNair was even born. “I just feel so sad this happened. Now these people in South Carolina are going through what my parents went through.”

In the Birmingham attack by four Ku Klux Klansman, a bomb planted under the church steps killed four young girls as they changed into choir robes in the church basement. The Charleston shooting rampage targeted a Bible study group.

Both attacks were racially motivated, and shocked a nation that was reeling with deeply entwined racial and societal tensions, lately focused on US gun violence and police-related shootings of unarmed black men in several US cities. “Progress, what progress?” said Joanne Bland, 61, co-founder of a voting rights museum in Selma, Alabama. “It seems like we’re back right where we started and racism is still alive and well.”

Donald Jones, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Miami who teaches classes on the role of the civil rights movement, said he hoped the Charleston attack would “jar us awake to the fact that we do not live in a post-racial society”.

The Birmingham bombing is credited with serving as a major catalyst in the movement for racial equality and the passage of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bans racial discrimination. Despite the parallels, the two attacks were met with starkly different responses by local authorities who reflected the political dynamics of their eras.

In 1963, Alabama was the centre of a non-violent civil rights movement led by Martin Luther King Jr and others that was met with violence from the Ku Klux Klan and state and local officials, led by Governor George Wallace, trying to enforce racial segregation laws.

While it took decades to prosecute the Birmingham bombers, authorities in South Carolina quickly arrested the suspected perpetrator of the Charleston shooting who faced nine murder charges by Friday morning.