The Lessons of Birmingham

摘要

Nearly 40 years after the act, an unrepentat former Ku Klux Klansman was finally convicted of murdering four black girls in a Birmingham, Ala., church. Instead of spending his retirement in a nursing home, or in the care of overburdened relatives, Thomas E. Blanton Jr. becomes a ward of the state. Does this represent justice? Prosecutor Doug Jones seems to believe so. "Justice delayed is still justice; and we got it right here in Birmingham," he proudly declared. But for many sons and daughters of Birmingham, the judgment is not so easy.