05/02/01
CHRIS SCRIBNER
and SHERREL WHEELER STEWART
News staff writers

Former grade school classmates Daniel Ransom and Carole Smitherman met Tuesday with an embrace on the Jefferson County Courthouse steps.

Almost 38 years after they lost friends in the bomb blast that ripped Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, both said they were numbed by the guilty verdict handed to Thomas E. Blanton Jr.

Mrs. Smitherman, a lawyer and former judge, said she was pleased with the trial's outcome.

"I left a meeting to come over here and congratulate Doug Jones for having the courage to do what is right," she said.

"We make good jurists," she said. "We question everything."

Ransom said the verdict shows that Birmingham has come a long way.

"We're not what we used to be, and we're not what we're going to be. All cities have problems," he said.

 

Jefferson County Sheriff's deputies lead Thomas Blanton Jr., center, out of the courtroom in handcuffs after a jury convicted him of murder. AP Photo

Many in Birmingham said they felt a sense of satisfied calmness, not euphoria, after the verdict.

"All of us in the city, I hope we can breathe a sigh of relief," said Mayor Bernard Kincaid.

Richard Arrington, who won the first of his five terms as mayor in 1979, said the verdict will be good for the city's image - one dominated by civil rights unrest and the church bombing.

"We're putting some of this to bed with this decision," he said.

But he said it was difficult to gauge community interest in the trial.

On Sunday, for instance, he gave a talk at Sixteenth Street, part of the church's 125th anniversary celebration. After the service, people had very little to say about the trial, he said.

"I don't know how much it was in the minds of people, quite frankly," he said. "I think people just want to get this over."

Jesse Lewis, founder of The Birmingham Times, said the trial and verdict mean less to people under 50, who might not be able to recall the days of segregation.

Because the bombing happened so long ago, Birmingham area residents lack context to understand it, he said.

"People decided that life goes on. It went on during the trial, it will go on after the trial," Lewis said.

The apparent lack of interest may have resulted from reluctance to get too optimistic about a conviction, said City Councilman Lee Wendell Loder. "They did not want to be let down."

Loder said the verdict - "an indictment on racism in general" - will be a building block to improved race relations.

"I think a lot of people have race on their minds right now," said attorney James Rotch, author of the Birmingham Pledge, a statement against racism.

Lewis said he doesn't expect much change because one trial won't alter long-held beliefs.

But the quickness with which word of the verdict spread through the city Tuesday evening shows that many people want a new start, others said.

In the Fourth Avenue Business District, Willie Miles sat in front of his Miles One Stop Lounge and said he was glad to finally see a verdict.

Inside Green Acres Restaurant, where hot wings and fish were being bagged for take out and Smokey Robinson was playing on the jukebox, 17-year-old Bermeaka Mason said she was glad to see the trial's outcome.

"I don't care how long ago it was, it still happened, and he should be punished," said the Carver High School student.

Clifford Echols said he was glad to see a verdict, but he questioned why it took so long to convict Blanton.

"They knew he did it a long time ago. Why they allow him to hide more than 30 years?" said Echols, who recently painted all the windows at Sixteenth Street Baptist Church.

Loder, 30, said many younger blacks will take solace in the Blanton conviction.

"At least in 2001, the system has rendered a just verdict," Loder said.