T.K. Thorne discusses her new book on the infamous Birmingham church bombing

By Javacia Harris Bowser

Yesterday marked the 50th anniversary of the Birmingham church bombing that took the lives of four little girls. Thirty-two years after this tragedy only one person — Robert “Dynamite Bob” Chambliss — had been convicted in the murders. Two suspects were already dead, as were several key witnesses. Many considered this a hopeless case.

Birmingham police detective Sergeant Ben Herren and FBI Special Agent Bill Fleming did not.

In 1995 Herren and Fleming reopened the case and for over a year combed through the original FBI files on the bombing and activities of the Ku Klux Klan and then began a search for new evidence.

In her new book Last Chance for Justice: How Relentless Investigators Uncovered New Evidence Convicting the Birmingham Church Bombers, T.K. Thorne gives readers an inside look into the investigation from the perspectives of Herren and Fleming.

Thorne is certainly the right person to tell this story. Author of the award-winning novel Noah’s Wife, Thorne is a natural storyteller. Thorne is also a retired captain from the Birmingham Police Department.

We had a chat with her recently about the book, Birmingham, and more.

SJW Mag: How did you get interested in writing a book on this topic?

Thorne: I never thought I would be writing a book on this topic!  When the last two suspects were tried, I did realize that it was history in the making and tried to attend the trials, but the crowd was so large, I ended up standing in the hallway and gave up on it.

In 2004, I heard Sergeant Ben Herren and Bill Fleming speak about the case, and I was stunned on two accounts. For one, I didn’t realize that one of the primary investigators on the last case – which was reopened in the 1990’s – was someone I knew.  Herren and I had worked together over the years in the Birmingham Police Department.  The other surprise was how long and intensive the investigations were.  Over four decades the case was investigated three times.  Each time, law enforcement spent five years working on it.

I was aware that many people in the community—especially the African American community—felt the FBI had not put much effort into seeking justice.  Although the FBI knew who the suspects were, no one was tried in the 60’s.  Distrust still simmered between the black community and law enforcement.

I began then to feel a pull and responsibility to set the record straight.

How did your experience in and connections with the police department help you in your research?

The investigators knew that I understood their perspectives and the constraints that law enforcement works under.  They trusted me to get it right and trusted me with the complexities of the investigation, as well as understanding the humor that is always involved in police work.  In addition, I knew most of the prosecutors, and I was familiar with criminal court proceedings, constitutional law issues, etcetera.  It was a tremendous advantage.

This book seems like quite an undertaking. How did you go about organizing your research and writing process?

In the beginning, I met with Herren and Fleming, intending to just record interviews with them and donate the tapes to a library or the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.  At the time, Fleming had retired and Herren was close to it.  I was afraid their story, an important piece of history, would be lost. We met for eighteen months about once a week during our lunch hour and recorded the interviews.  When we were finished, they told me they wanted me to write the book!  Thinking I was just interviewing them for posterity, I hadn’t taken the first note!

Luckily, I found someone who transcribed the tapes onto a digital word processing program.  Then I created a time outline of witnesses and events and began searching the interview files for every mention of each witness. I was fortunate to have a box of Fleming’s personal copies of summary documents and reports.  In addition, I had access to the public library’s files, which were donated by Bill Baxley after the 1997 trial and conviction of Robert “Dynamite Bob” Chambliss. And the FBI gave me access to more files. I read books for background information and interviewed other participants.  Overall, it was a four-year project.

Since you have experience with both, can you talk about some of the major differences in writing a non-fiction book versus a novel?

Writing a novel is an organic process for me.  I am in charge of the general plotting and research, but my characters are responsible for reacting in their own way and thus determining the course of the story.  I might have a very general idea of where I am going or a scene at the end, but my characters often surprise me, and that is an aspect I love about the fiction process.  When I finished my historical novel, Noah’s Wife, which was also a four year project, I was a little depressed for a while, because I missed hearing the characters in my head.  I know; they have pills for that.

On the other hand, writing non-fiction required much more structure and organization.  There was certainly drama and suspense in Last Chance for Justice, but I couldn’t create it from my imagination.  I had to dig for it—ask questions and find real details that would help bring the characters to life and move the story forward.  In that sense, the same skills of the craft of writing come into play.  For this project, it was also my responsibility to present different perspectives while being objective, to plumb ironies, and to get it as right as possible.

What differences did you find in the publishing and marketing processes? 

I found it much easier to find a publisher for non-fiction.  Publishing in the fiction world is very tough right now.

Marketing, however, seems to be the same process for fiction and non-fiction, though there are probably more opportunities with non-fiction.  I will say it is very helpful to have a team behind you, but the responsibility still lies on the author’s shoulders.

What would you say to people who argue that discussing things like the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing is divisive and harmful to race relations?

I understand that many people are frustrated that Birmingham seems stuck in the 1960’s, and they feel that we can’t move forward if we keep talking about our past. But we can’t ignore our city’s past, any more than an adult can disclaim his or her childhood. That doesn’t mean that we are simply who we were as children, but our past is part of us. It’s healthy for us to have honest discussions about it.  It’s healthy for Birmingham to embrace understanding its past as one of its strengths, not a weakness.

One problem we have is that some people feel the world has only one image of Birmingham—dogs and hoses.  People who want us to just move on resent that, but the real story is much more complex, and we can’t recognize that complexity and richness if we ignore it.

I just heard former mayor/congressman/U.S. ambassador and civil rights activist Andrew Young talk about how the business community in Birmingham stepped forward and reached agreements with the Civil Rights leaders, both for business and moral reasons.  We can be proud that the city voted to change the government in order to remove Bull Connor from office and make progressive strides; that law enforcement, despite the wrongs of the past, did work diligently on this case; that people risked their lives to step forward and testify to bring about justice.  And we can celebrate with pride that men, women and children bravely stood up to injustice here in our city and provided a model for other struggling peoples throughout the world.  We are the result of all these things.

Why do you think it’s important for not only Birmingham residents, but all Americans to remember the events of the civil rights movement of the 1960s?

If we don’t remember our history—where we came from—how can we know who we are?  If we forget our past, we risk forgetting what we are capable of.  It is through the lens of the Civil Rights struggle, for example, that we recognized injustices to immigrants. Knowing what lies at the bottom of the slippery slope is what keeps us from falling.

T.K. Thorne will be signing copies of her book 1-3 p.m. on Sat., Sept. 28 at the Books-A-Million in Colonial Brookwood Village in Birmingham.