In Birmingham, Historians and Community Members Working to Keep the Memory of Virgil Ware and Johnny Robinson Alive
By Shauna Stuart | For the Birmingham Times Every year during the annual commemoration of the 1963 bombing at 16th Street Baptist Church, speakers read the names of the children killed on Sept. 15, 1963. On Tuesday, as the community gathered in the sanctuary of the historic church to observe the 63rd anniversary of the […]
Black News 
By Shauna Stuart | For the Birmingham Times
Every year during the annual commemoration of the 1963 bombing at 16th Street Baptist Church, speakers read the names of the children killed on Sept. 15, 1963.
On Tuesday, as the community gathered in the sanctuary of the historic church to observe the 63rd anniversary of the bombing, Dr. Terrence Brown read the names of Johnny Robinson and Virgil Ware.
On Sept. 15, 1963, the explosion from a bomb placed in the basement of the church by members of the Ku Klux Klan killed four girls — Cynthia Wesley, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, and Addie Mae Collins. The blast also severely injured Addie Mae Collins’ sister Sarah, as well as more than 20 other church parishioners.
Over the decades, the stories of the four girls murdered in the bombing have been well documented. But the stories of Johnny Robinson and Virgil Ware — two teenage boys killed in the eruption of violence after the bombing — are widely unknown.
Fourteen-year-old Johnny Robinson was shot in Birmingham that afternoon when a white police officer fired into a crowd of young Black boys. Thirteen-year-old Virgil Ware was shot and killed while riding on the handlebars of his older brother James’ bicycle. The siblings were riding back from Docena, a community just outside Birmingham, when they reportedly encountered two white teenagers coming from a segregation rally, and one of the youths fired a gun at the brothers.
Brown, a longtime member of 16th Street Baptist Church, is now the Executive Director of the historic church’s new Education and Visitors center.
Brown, 54, knew about the death of the girls, but he didn’t know about the deaths of Johnny Robinson and Virgil Ware until he started giving tours of the church.
“You learn the script, and you learn about those two distinguished gentlemen,” said Brown. “However, I don’t think we know enough.”
A veteran educator whose roles include Director of Arts Education for the Jefferson County School District, Brown also noted that Ware and Robinson’s names don’t appear in the curriculum for Jefferson County Public Schools.
“They’re not in the Alabama state course of study,” said Brown. “So, it does not provide the opportunity unless there is a purposeful awareness for us to really talk about those two children.”
Brown hopes to use the 16th Street Baptist Church Education Center to help more people learn about the lives of Robinson and Ware.
“One of my goals as we open and explore the archives is that we begin to humanize those individuals and to learn more about who they are so that (visitors), when they come to see us, can see them as a nephew or a brother,” said Brown. “And then once we humanize them, then they become a part of who we are. And that’s where the magic happens.”
Learning the Story
Marietta Autery gives tours of the 16th Street Baptist Church on Tuesdays. She grew up on Center Street North in a neighborhood of Birmingham bombed so frequently by anti-integration terrorists in the 60s that it was known as Dynamite Hill. Her grandparents were members of 16th Street Baptist Church.
Autery was six years old when the church was bombed. Growing up, she’d heard about two boys who were killed the day of the bombing, but she didn’t know much about them until more than 50 years later when she watched the tour video at 16th Street Baptist Church.
“That’s when I really learned the story,” said Autery.
Materia Johnson was five years old when the church was bombed. Like Autery, Johnson learned more about the events surrounding the bombing and the lives of Ware and Robinson once she started giving tours of 16th Street Baptist Church.
“I would have never known anything about them. No one talked about the two young men,” said Johnson. “Racial tensions were high. And these young men in different parts of the city were accosted by racists who took their lives. One was a police officer who was sworn to protect and serve, but instead of doing that, he shot a young man.”
Preserving the Memory
Larry Ware, Virgil’s brother, gets a solemn feeling every September as the city gathers to commemorate the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church.
He and his family, along with historians and members of the community, have worked to keep Virgil’s legacy alive.
After TIME magazine published a 2003 article about Virgil Ware, readers sent donations to help the Ware family move Virgil’s body from an unmarked grave in Roberts Cemetery to the grounds of George Washington Carver Memorial Gardens.
In Birmingham, there are a few small markers that pay tribute to Ware and Robinson. The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute features a brief history of Ware and Robinson in its exhibit dedicated to the memory of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. Across the street in Kelly Ingram Park, the “Four Spirits” memorial sculpture bench features the names and photos of Virgil Ware and Johnny Robinson alongside Cynthia Wesley, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, Addie Mae Collins, and Sarah Collins Rudolph.
Now, a group of historians wants to honor Ware and Robinson with a formal memorial sculpture in Birmingham’s civil rights district. Roderick Royal, a former Birmingham City Council member and longtime instructor of African American history at Miles College and UAB, developed the Virgil L. Ware Institute to preserve the memory of the two boys through public lectures and presentations.
On Sunday, September 13, the institute hosted “A Ride for Virgil,” a memorial bike ride in honor of Ware and Robison.
That afternoon, attendees — including city officials and members of the Ware family — gathered in the parking lot across from the historic A.G. Gaston Motel for $10 registration and opening remarks before cyclists embarked on two different bike rides — a 6.5-mile route or a longer 22-mile tour around key sites in Birmingham history.
“There is no money to be made,” Royal said in his address to the crowd. “But there is a monument to build.”
As a child, Mindy Ware remembers telling her peers about her late uncle Virgil and helping her father Melvin keep his brother’s legacy alive. Decades later, she’s glad to see more people taking on the cause of preserving Virgil’s memory.
“I remember growing up in school, we would always do Virgil’s story for our reports because no one knew about it, just to get his name out there and to get him recognition,” Ware said on Sunday. “He kind of got overshadowed. Him and Johnny as well. So I appreciate everybody for recognizing him.”
Members of the Ware family want the public to know more about Virgil beyond the details of his death.
“I talk about him all the time,” said Larry Ware. “People say Virgil would have made a good lawyer.”
Melony Ware, one of Virgil Ware’s nieces, says she wants people to know that her uncle was smart and ambitious.
“My dad always said he probably would’ve gone to college, had he gotten the opportunity,” said Ware. “We wish we would have gotten to meet him.”
Historian Dr. Horace Huntley co-authored “Foot Soldiers for Democracy: The Men, Women and Children of The Birmingham Civil Rights Movement.” In the book, published in 2009, Ware’s brothers James and Melvin recall their memories on the day he was shot.
For Huntley, who gave the first lecture at the Virgil L. Ware Institute’s inaugural speaker series in 2025, Ware and Robinson represent the names of murdered Black boys whose names have been lost in the history of racial violence.
“It’s obvious that we have so many young men the age of Johnny Robinson and Virgil Ware who we’ll probably never know. That part of the history can shine through those two young men,” Huntley said in an interview Sunday. “It’s a period we need to know. No one else can tell this story but us. Keep those names in your vocabulary.”
