Bobby Frank Cherry, 74, Convicted in 1963 Birmingham Church Bombing
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Bobby Frank Cherry, convicted of killing four black girls in a racially motivated bombing of a Birmingham, Ala., church in 1963, died Thursday in prison. He was 74.
Cherry, from Mabank, Texas, died at about 2:30 p.m. in the hospital unit at Kilby Correctional Facility in Montgomery, Ala., a Department of Corrections spokesman said.
Cherry was convicted in May 2002 in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church, a gathering place for civil rights demonstrators in Birmingham, and was sentenced to life in prison.
It was the deadliest act of the civil rights era.
Cherry was among three former Ku Klux Klan members convicted in the bombing, which killed the four girls as they were preparing to take part in a Sunday morning service.
Thomas Blanton was convicted in 2001 and is serving a life prison sentence. Robert Chambliss, convicted in 1977, also died in prison.
