Word: blanton
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...years since the deadly blast, one of the alleged conspirators died in jail while serving time for his part in the bombing, and another died before he could stand trial. This week, avowed Klansmen Bobby Frank Cherry, 71, and Thomas Blanton Jr., 62, were both scheduled to go on trial for their roles in the deadly explosion at the Sixteenth Street Church that killed four young black girls and helped to ignite an already smoldering civil rights movement. But while jury selection will begin Monday in Blanton's trial, Cherry's case has been put on hold after presiding judge...
...turned there was something brilliant happening. Texan Laura Wilkinson came from nowhere to win the platform diving on a broken foot. Chinese veteran Xiong Ni nailed his last dive to become the only man besides Greg Louganis to win back-to-back titles off the springboard. American volleyballers Dain Blanton and Eric Fonoimoana kicked sand in Brazil's face at Bondi Beach. The softball and baseball tournaments were more competitive than ever. The U.S. batswomen lost thrice before storming back to win the gold, while the batsmen did the unprecedented, beating Cuba 4-0 for the title. Finally, there...
...Blanton was a 25-year-old 10th-grade dropout working in a stockroom. Bobby Frank Cherry was 33 years old with only eight years of school; he was missing all his upper teeth and had already fathered seven children. Both men had been in the Klan but found it too restrained for their liking. So, along with a few others, they formed the Cahaba Boys, who met beneath the Cahaba River bridge on U.S. 280 to drink beer and talk about saving the South from Jews, Catholics and blacks...
Investigators believe that around 2 a.m. on Sept. 15, 1963, Blanton drove his turquoise-and-white 1957 Chevy to 16th Street with Chambliss, Cash and Cherry. While the others waited, Cherry placed a 12-stick package of dynamite in a window well outside the 16th Street Baptist Church. The bomb exploded eight hours later, killing Denise McNair, 11, and Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson and Addie Mae Collins, all 14. The martyred girls horrified the nation and transfigured the civil rights movement...
Despite emboldened witnesses, prosecutors will still have problems. One important witness who could have placed Blanton's car at the scene has since died. There is also a sticky web of alibis. Blanton claimed he was on a blind date with Jean Casey (whom he later married and divorced). A couple of weeks after the bombing, according to FBI files, Blanton called to ask her to remind him what they had done that Saturday night: they had dinner, and he stayed past midnight. "Her dad run old Tom off," says Wyman Lee, a Blanton crony. "Pretty hard...