McNairMaxine Visitation Saturday, January 13, 2007 5-9 PM Poling-St. Clair Funeral Home Funeral Service Sunday, January 14, 2007 2 PM Funeral Home Burial Buckhannon Memorial Park Maxine M. McNair Maxine M. McNair, age 68, of Fayetteville, WV died Wednesday, January 10, 2007 at Plateau Medical Clinic in Oak Hill, WV. Two years earlier, Obama had denied a request for clemency. He was gregarious and always on the go. They married the following year, got pregnant and moved closer to her mother's home in Birmingham. Seated at right is Thelma “Maxine” Pippen McNair, the mother of Denise McNair. When the Rev. Denise's death had a different effect on Chris. Thelma "Maxine" Pippen met Christopher McNair during her freshman year at Tuskegee Institute in 1945. Funeral arrangements for Mr. McNair will be on Friday, May 17th at … On Sept 10, 1963, Kennedy signed an executive order to desegregate the city’s schools, nine years after the U.S. Supreme Court issued its Brown v. Board of Education decision declaring separate and unequal schools unconstitutional. He didn’t learn about his wife’s connection to Denise until after they were married. Lisa once found an old 45 rpm record of Denise’s voice that her parents had. He landed a job in Tupelo, Miss., teaching veterans. We have 22 records for Maxine Mcnair ranging in age from 49 years old to 102 years old. But African-Americans could not get a sandwich at a lunch counter. Alex Cohn, a journalism student interning at the News, found the image among thousands of negatives stashed in the paper’s photography equipment room. She hailed from nearby Birmingham and he was from the tiny town of Fordyce, Ark. In the months after the murders, she told the crowd, white women reached out to her mother and other black women, inviting them to tea. Unable to find work as a teacher or in the steel mills, Chris McNair made his living as a neighborhood milkman. California Do Not Sell My Info Continue Maxine’s daughter, Denise McNair, and three friends had been primping for their role in Youth Day services when dynamite planted by Ku Klux Klansmen blasted them into history. Chris McNair took lots of photographs: Denise as a baby. In 1986, he began serving on the Jefferson County Commission. Found: Maxine Mcnair. The moments when Denise’s name was uttered in hushed whispers. No amount of money would bring her back. Denise clutching a Chatty Cathy doll close to her face. From left are, Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Ala. sponsor of the bill; Lisa McNair; Thelma "Maxine" Pippen McNair mother of Denise McNair; Dianne Braddock sister of Carole Robertson; and Rev. What was she like? The next year, he married Maxine Pippen, a classmate. Within minutes, Chris McNair heard about the explosion and headed toward 16th Street. As of this date, Maxine is married. One of Denise is contained in a wooden, butterfly-shaped frame, surrounded by pictures of her sisters, their father and their grandmother. A cousin stopped him and directed him to go to the hospital, where he found his wife. Denise’s parents—schoolteachers like her aunt Juanita—had shielded her from the indignities of second-class citizenship, vaguely explaining that “a few white people don’t like colored children, but...most white people like all children.”. He was handy with a camera, too, and took portraits, photographed reunions, weddings and other special events. When the initial shock subsided, blacks and whites began to talk. Until he retired from politics in 2001, he avoided public discussion of Denise “because people would say—and did say—I was using it to advance my own cause.” As this issue of Smithsonian went to press, McNair, 80, was facing trial on charges that he accepted bribes from a sewer contractor while in office. He also teaches photography classes at the Smyrna Community Center. In 2011, she did a series of articles on 10 of the 1961 Freedom Riders who live in Atlanta, including Congressman John Lewis. Chris McNair was a part of those discussions. Denise, 11, wore her Sunday dress and black patent leather shoes. His classic portrait of Coretta Scott King still sells as a poster. "You are not supposed to die at church ... in such a vicious manner.". One item stood out: a flat piece of concrete the size of a fist. Rice was born and raised in Birmingham, where her father was a pastor. An uncomfortable silence followed. Denise as a toddler, smiling from ear to ear. One such effort is Sojourn to the Past, a California-based organization that sends high school students on trips to the deep South, where they learn about the country’s racial past. Next week: Unusual hobby inspires nurse to create a museum for her quirky collection. She is guarded about who she lets into her circle — ever skeptical of people’s motives — and fiercely protective of her mother. Chris McNair went to his own church, St. Paul Lutheran, a few miles away. I said, ‘Let me go find my child! The next year, he married Maxine Pippen. Juanita Jones, now 75, said that seeing the photograph four decades after the fact made “the anger boil up in me again, that anyone could be that evil and that lowdown.” Her daughter, Lynn (the 10-year-old girl with her back to the camera), was supposed to have gone to Sunday school that day with her inseparable cousin Denise. Some had been put in envelopes labeled “Keep: Do not Sell”—a measure to keep out of national circulation material that might stoke Birmingham’s reputation as the Johannesburg of America. McNair was born on November 22, 1925, in Fordyce, Arkansas, the oldest of 12 children. Last October, the city finally commemorated the four Sixteenth Street dead with plaques in City Hall. “I tried to block it out.”. Eventually he decided to run for public office and in 1974 became one of the first black state legislators since Reconstruction. HOW WE GOT THE STORYFifty years ago today, members of the Ku Klux Klan bombed a church in Birmingham, Ala., killing four young African-American girls. The midnight homecoming on Aug. 28 was an emotional one for Chris McNair, 87, and his family. Seated at right is Thelma "Maxine" Pippen McNair, the mother of Denise McNair. Angela Tuck, 54, has been a reporter and editor at the AJC for 23 years. He served in the U.S. Army during the later months of World War II before returning to college, graduating in 1949. Carol Denise, their first child, was born Nov. 17, 1951. On the morning of August 17, 2000, his sailing companion and third wife, Linda Stanley, found him in their Old Lyme, Connecticut, backyard, dead of a gunshot wound to the chest. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) Kimberly McNair Brock’s “in-your-face moment” came when she was 8 or 9 years old. When he refused to step aside, President John F. Kennedy sent federal troops. In May, Maxine and Lisa McNair traveled to the White House to witness President Obama sign legislation designating Congressional gold medals for Denise and the three other girls. What did she like to do? Four years later, Kim was born. She died when she was 11, Maxine McNair repeated softly. When she became pregnant, they moved to Birmingham so Maxine McNair could be near her mother. She wanted them to know what happened, to understand, so when they heard the whispers about Denise they would know. Every day Maxine McNair talked to her husband on the phone for 15 minutes. The McNairs made a conscious decision to prevent Denise's death from overshadowing the lives of their daughters. Seated at right is Thelma "Maxine" Pippen McNair, the mother of Denise McNair. The couple’s first child, Carol Denise, was born on Nov. 17, 1951. Lisa and Kim grew up in an alternate universe from their sister Denise, who would have turned 62 this year. Known Locations: Norfolk VA, 23504, Virginia Beach VA 23456, Elmwood Park NJ 07407 Possible Relatives: Jannie L Loncke, Marlene Loncke, Maxie R Loncke. Sunday, September 15, 1963, was the most sensational day yet in a city historically embarrassed by dubious superlatives; Birmingham, which called itself the “City of Churches,” was also known as the most segregated city in America. For years, Birmingham’s public safety commissioner, Eugene “Bull” Connor, contributed to a culture of fear and loathing toward black citizens, many of whom worked in the city’s steel mills or in white homes as domestic workers. The bodies of Carole Robertson, Addie Mae Collins and Cynthia Wesley, all 14, were also pulled from the dusty site of the bombing. Maxine McNair teases her married daughter about giving her a grandchild. She was very outgoing. She was born September 11, 1938 in Gilmer County, WV, a daughter of … Most of Merritt’s colleagues on the News saw the cataclysmic events of 1963 as “just an assignment,” recalled another photographer, Ed Jones. I just couldn’t stop crying, and Mother and Daddy tried to console me. Before the day’s end, two more black children would be murdered. |. “He thought it was the real deal.” A few months after the church bombing, Merritt landed in Time—as the subject of a story—after a county sheriff assaulted him with a cattle prod for boarding a bus to photograph the black children integrating the public schools of Notasulga. Denise in a red winter coat with a matching hat. He met his future wife Maxine Pippen when both were attending college at the Tuskegee Institute in 1945. McNair was a graduate of Tuskegee Institute, where he met Maxine Pippen in 1945. AJC editor Angela Tuck tells the story of how that event changed one family. Maxine McNair suffers from Alzheimer’s disease, glaucoma and other health problems. We have lots of information about Maxine: religious views are listed as unknown, ethnicity is unknown, and political affiliation is currently a registered Democrat. The church bombing made headlines around the world. But last month, Chris McNair became one of the first prisoners released under new guidelines from the Obama administration that allow for the early release of sick, elderly federal inmates. He met his future wife Maxine Pippen when both were attending college at the Tuskeegee Institute in 1945. Free. Thelma Maxine Pippen McNair, mother of Denise McNair, whispers to the President after he signed H.R. Vivian and Ambassador Andrew Young will be recognized. Last month Tuck, photographer Johnny Crawford and videographer Ryon Horne traveled to Birmingham to spend time with the McNair family, whose 11-year-old daughter, Denise, was one of the victims. 103148415, citing Glendale Cemetery, Des Moines, Polk County, Iowa, USA ; Maintained by Katie Lou (contributor 46950342) . Advertising Notice 360, which provided for the presentation of a congressional gold medal to commemorate the lives of the four young African American victims of the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, in September 1963. From left are, Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Ala. sponsor of the bill; Lisa McNair; Thelma “Maxine” Pippen McNair mother of Denise McNair; Dianne Braddock sister of Carole Robertson; and Rev. Denise McNair's mother at the White House . She dashed out of the front door and ran into someone who told her a woman had carried some children to her house. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) By Jay Reeves. Established in 1983 as a private foundation by Regions Bank and The Birmingham News, the fund has awarded more than 232 college scholarships. Fred Shuttlesworth and the Rev. Whites in Birmingham were furious at the prospect of sending their children to school with black children. He is survived by his loving wife of 68 years, Maxine Pippen McNair; his children, Lisa McNair and Kimberly Brock (Jimmie); 10 siblings, and a plethora of nephews, nieces, other relatives and friends. Tuck tells a moving, sensitive story about a national tragedy, its personal toll and the power of forgiveness.Suzanne Van AttenFeatures Enterprise Editorpersonaljourneys@ajc.com. As Sunday school was winding down, they joined three other girls in the ladies’ dressing room in the church’s basement, excitedly preparing for the youth services to follow. Martin Luther King Jr. emerged from jail after writing his famous “Letter from Birmingham jail,” in April 1963, Chris McNair captured an image of King and the Rev. Chris served in the Army in the waining days of World War II, and both graduated in 1949. Maxine McNair doesn’t remember what King said that day. Maxine Mcnair, age 58, Washington, DC 20011 View Full Report. Lisa McNair, who earned a psychology degree from the University of Alabama, works for a local nonprofit and has immersed herself in projects that honor her sister’s memory. A fourth man, Herman Frank Cash, died before he could be tried. Box 1688, Birmingham, AL. Johnny Crawford joined the AJC 27 years ago as an intern after graduating from Morehouse College. Joseph E. Lowery, The Rev. The bricks were falling down. Maxine McNair was upstairs in the choir stand with her Sunday school class at the time. Four Little Girls: Birmingham 1963 – 50 Years Later. Neither Denise nor the other murdered girls had been among the thousands of young people who had marched that spring. Less than 24 hours earlier, the two sisters at the center of the photograph were worrying over house curtains. “Instead of becoming bitter and hateful and resentful and moving away and throwing up his hands, he decided to try to make this city a better place,” said Doug Jones, the attorney who prosecuted two of the bombers and later represented Chris McNair. They rarely told friends about their family’s unique place in history. In the past, Maxine has also been known as Maxine Pippen Mcnair, Maxine P Mcnair and Maxine P Mnair. She was hurt. "What am I doing here?" Her grandparents and friends in the McNair’s suburban neighborhood, between Midfield and Bessemer, doted on her, too. It would take decades before Ku Klux Klan members who planted the bomb were brought to justice: Robert “Dynamite Bob” Chambliss in 1977; Thomas E. Blanton in 2001 and Robert Cherry in 2002. Mother and daughter shopped at the major department stores downtown. They belonged to her sister. "She still couldn't imagine it was real. That, said her grandmother, was embedded in Denise's head.2Carol Denise McNairThelma "Maxine" Pippen met Christopher McNair during her freshman year at Tuskegee Institute in 1945. 360, which provided for the presentation of a congressional gold medal to commemorate the lives of the four young African American victims of the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, in September 1963. Suddenly, her grandmother, Clara “Dear Dear” Pippen, ushered Kim, her big sister, Lisa, and others into her living room. Lisa McNair’s sister, Kim Brock, earned a fine arts degree from Auburn University and went on to graduate from the Culinary Arts program at Johnson and Wales University in Denver, Colo. She met her husband, Jimmie Brock, in church. Virgil Ware, 13, was riding on the handlebars of his older brother’s bike when he was shot and killed by a white teenager. Standing, from left are, Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Ala., and Lisa McNair. He was ordered to pay more than $400,000 in restitution and began serving his sentence in 2011, after his appeals were exhausted. Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel, Morehouse College, 830 Westview Drive S.W., Atlanta. Chris, too.”. When the photograph was taken, the family knew only that Denise was missing. NORRIS: That was Christopher McNair. Everyone called him "Wahoo. In that instant, the family matriarch decided it was time that Kim and Lisa, then 12 or 13, learned the truth about the way their sister died. He and Maxine were married in 1950 and moved to Birmingham, where he worked as a milkman. The Robertson family made separate arrangements. 18th Annual Photo Contest Winners and Finalists Announced! Referring to Denise, she recently sat in her home, surrounded by pictures of her family, and said, “I can’t remember what high school she went to.”, “She didn’t go to high school,” her daughter Kim Brock reminded her. Give a Gift. or Of the church bombers, she says, “I don’t hate them. My baby, my baby!’”. They were playing around with friends in the cafeteria one day when they caught each other's eyes. She liked to cook and sew things, and she was a leader among her friends.”. “We looked and looked,” Maxine McNair said. From her hospital bed, Sarah Collins — eyes bandaged — overheard someone say her sister Addie was dead. It was youth Sunday and they wanted to be on time. Later, the teen was sentenced to six months in a juvenile detention center. Friends and family were gathered for Sunday dinner at her grandparents’ house when someone mentioned Denise, the older sister she never knew. That was the last thing Sarah Collins Rudolph, now 62, remembers before a powerful explosion shook the building, hurling glass and concrete in every direction. 360, which provided for the presentation of a congressional gold medal to commemorate the lives of the four young African American victims of the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, in September 1963. Rep. John Lewis, The Rev. Although the “children’s miracle,” as their triumph came to be known, had been launched from the centrally located sanctuary of Sixteenth Street Baptist, the proud bourgeois congregation had not actively supported King’s crusade. Neither woman is angry about what happened to their sister, though that hasn’t always been the case. Mr. McNair was born in 1925 in the tiny town of Fordyce, Arkansas, the first of 12 children. Hundreds were arrested almost daily. They attended elite private schools and made friends with people of all races. “No, ma’am, I don’t remember all that stuff,” she told me from her home in Southern California. Adults exchanged glances. As they got older, Lisa and Kim asked questions about Denise. He accepted $140,000 in bribes from contractors working on a $3.2 billion county sewer project while serving on the Jefferson County Commission. Kim Brock and her husband moved in two years ago to help take care of her around the time Chris McNair, then 85, began serving a five-year prison sentence. She said he accidentally fell on the .22 rifle he had taken out to dispatch the groundhogs colonizing their property. “She died when she was 11.”. A native of Lexington, Ky., she has also worked as a reporter for the Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader and the St. Petersburg Times and as a deputy metro editor at the Detroit Free Press. “I longed to hear her voice because people always said Mama, Kim and I all sounded alike.” Yet the full gravity of her sister’s murder didn’t hit her until 2002, when she attended Cherry’s murder trial and an expert witness described the effect of a bomb on a body. she asked, over and over. Keep up-to-date on: © 2021 Smithsonian Magazine. Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com: accessed ), memorial page for Maxine McNair (2 Sep 1927–15 Aug 1995), Find a Grave Memorial no. Sixteen-year-old Johnnie Robinson was reportedly throwing rocks when he was shot in the back by a city police officer. But Merritt “really believed in the cause,” says Pam Blecha, who was married to him at the time. “And he did.”. 360 in the Oval Office, May 24, 2013. The newly hired Birmingham News photographer who captured the family’s gathering grief was Vernon Merritt III, 22, an Alabama native whose father, a businessman active in state politics, vocally detested the civil rights movement. I feel sorry for them.” Her husband, Chris McNair, the owner of a photography studio, became the city’s first black representative in the state legislature and was a longtime Jefferson County commissioner. “Thelma Maxine Pippen McNair, mother of Denise McNair, whispers to the President after he signed H.R. The McNairs have never expected to be compensated for Denise’s death. AJC editor Angela Tuck had always wondered how the families of the girls moved on after such as horrific crime. C.T. Ralph David Abernathy, who’d come over from Atlanta. A year later, they married and settled in Tupelo. Maxine and Chris McNair began making plans to bury their child when civil rights leaders suggested a joint funeral, with King giving the eulogy. Lisa McNair recalls asking her mother if they were supposed to hate white people. It was overcast when 12-year-old Sarah Collins Rudolph and her sister, Addie Mae Collins, walked to 16th Street for Sunday school. Now 48, Lisa McNair remembers her mother mentioning Denise on her birthday or on the anniversary of her death. 6 p.m. Sept. 15. Now they fear that the 11-year-old daughter and only child of Maxine Pippen McNair (center, right) lies across the street, buried in the rubble of what had been the ladies’ lounge of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. McNair was born in the tiny town of Fordyce, Arkansas. McNair was a native of Fordyce, Arkansas, who came to Alabama to attend Tuskegee Institute, where he met his future wife, Maxine Pippen in 1945. A third man, Robert Chambliss, had been convicted in 1977, and he died in prison in 1985. In researching the story, she read parts of Diane McWhorter's Pulitzer Prize-winning book, "Carry Me Home," and re-watched Spike Lee's documentary, "Four Little Girls." What kind of people blow up a church and kill four little girls? Tax-deductible donations can be sent to: 4 Little Girls Memorial Fund, c/o Regions Bank, Trustee, 1900 5th Ave. North, Suite 2500, P.O. Arthur Price Jr., pastor of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. His lawyer, Doug Jones, is the former U.S. attorney who won convictions in 2001 and 2002 against the last two surviving Klansmen who bombed the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. Then the next thing you're asleep, then you are waking up. “Thelma Maxine Pippen McNair, mother of Denise McNair, whispers to the President after he signed H.R. Around Birmingham, Kim Brock, 44, is known as Chef Brock. Find Maxine Mcnair's phone number, address, and email on Spokeo, the leading online directory for contact information. Their desire is for reconciliation and healing. 22 records for Maxine Mcnair. The Rev. When would the killers be found and punished? When Maxine McNair turned to go there, someone else told her no, Denise was taken to the hospital. Approaching her father in the crowd on the sidewalk, Maxine Pippen McNair cried, “I can’t find Denise.” M.W. Like most Southern cities in the 1950s and ’60s, white people had their place and black people had theirs in segregated Birmingham. Denise was born in 1951. Merritt spent less than a year at the News, and later shot for the Black Star agency, Newsweek and Life. Connor had ordered the city’s firemen to use high pressure water hoses to disperse protesters, many of them children. Like most first-born children, Denise was the center of her parents’ lives. Chris served in the Army in the waning days of World War II, and both graduated in 1949. “She wanted to know what everything was all about. Maxine has been found in 18 states including Georgia, Alabama, Texas, California, Massachusetts, and 13 others. I just broke down and they carried me to my Mother and Daddy’s house. Maxine McNair, 77, has two grown daughters, both born after Denise died. She loved that doll. It was left to Chris McNair to explain to his beloved daughter why. Get the best of Smithsonian magazine by email. On a subsequent trip, Tuck saw Lisa McNair speak at Canterbury United Methodist Church and interviewed friends and associates of the family. Would whites who helped blacks be targeted? Married 63 years, the couple chatted about their day. Denise’s childhood friend Condoleezza Rice presided over the unveiling. 360, which provided for the presentation of a congressional gold … Denise was a “busy little bee,” recalled her mother. “This was a pivotal moment in the struggle for justice ... People were fighting, then one day people killed four girls in a church.”. The police officer was never prosecuted. He was 59. Some in Birmingham cried foul and wondered if he was given special treatment, given the timing of his release just before the 50th anniversary of the bombing. Denise attended Center Street Elementary School; her mother taught there. She contacted Malena Cunningham, a friend and former journalist in Birmingham, who put her in contact the McNairs. On that day, the culmination of a month-long nonviolent campaign Martin Luther King Jr. had been waging in Birmingham, school-age demonstrators faced down fire hoses and police dogs and inspired President Kennedy to introduce federal legislation outlawing segregation. Birmingham’s black and white residents were fearful and angry after the murders. Lisa McNair and the Brocks all live with Maxine McNair in the family home, which has been expanded twice. Privacy Statement It is a moment that divides before and after. The church is in Mountain Brook, a wealthy Birmingham suburb. “As long as you had money you could shop there,” she said. On September 15, 1963, 14-year-old Cynthia Morris Wesley and three other members of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church youth choir left their Sunday school class to freshen up for their roles as ushers in the main service. The city became known as “Bombingham.”. He is the beat photographer for Georgia Tech football and has also covered NASCAR and the Olympics in Atlanta, Norway and China. Now they fear that the 11-year-old daughter and only child of Maxine Pippen McNair (center, right) lies across the street, buried in the rubble of … There had been many such unexplained moments during her childhood. Lisa McNair sees these events as a way to heal. Maxine McNair, 85, often grows confused these days. Fifty years ago today a bomb killed four young girls and altered American history. They often held strategy meetings at the church, a fact that became known to those who wanted to stop the movement, at any cost.3Murder at a churchMaxine McNair got her daughter up early the morning of Sept. 15, 1963. She pulled out a cardboard box. Maxine Anjeanette Mcnair, age 43, Norfolk, VA 23504 View Full Report. Maxine McNair, the only surviving mother of a bombing victim, along with her daughters, Lisa McNair and Kim Brock, generously shared their memories about Denise and the years of sorrow and healing that followed. At first, she just thought of him as a good friend. 205-264-7132, cara.gober@regions.com, www.facebook.com/4littlegirlsfund. President Barack Obama talks with Thelma Maxine Pippen McNair, mother of Denise McNair, after signing H.R. Looking inside, Kim saw a pair of black patent leather shoes, a matching purse, a few coins, a tiny bottle of eye drops and some crumpled tissues. 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And headed toward 16th Street for Sunday school run for public Office and in 1974 became one of the bombers. She never knew, had been convicted in 1977, and she 11. Ordered the city finally commemorated the four Sixteenth Street dead with plaques in Hall! Private foundation by Regions Bank and the Olympics in Atlanta, Norway and China Sunday school at. Aside, President John F. Kennedy sent federal troops Tuskegee in 1949 Maxine McNair her! Waining days of World War II before returning to college, 830 Westview S.W..