By, Udo Jude Ilo
I had to hold my breath and fight back tears. Looking at Denise McNair’s shoe was horrifying and as it was heartbreaking. As a father, I could totally relate to the inexplicable agony and pain of her family. Having just recently buried my own daughter, it is difficult not to break down when you imagine the horror a parent had gone through in this kind of senseless death. While the party of visitors at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute moved forward, I paused to reflect on what the one leg of shoe lying beside a purse, children’s bible and necklace, which Denise wore the day she died, say to the world on the price of freedom.
Denise McNair was one of the four little girls who were killed by a Ku Klux Klan bomb on September 15, 1963 when they were practicing in the basement of the Sixteen Street Baptist Church for the Sunday service sermon. Denise was only 11 years old. There were about 25 kids in the basement when the bomb went off.
As a Nigerian visiting America on the Eisenhower Fellowship with the objective of exploring expanding role of citizens in democratic accountability, I have a lot of interest in understanding the civil rights movement especially how the bright young men and women turned what, at that time, was a local problem for them into a national and global movement. Visiting the South remains one of the high points of my fellowship.
I crossed the street to the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church where the bombing had taken place and had an emotional introduction into the horror of September 15. The intensity of the hate that fueled this crime is still stamped in the items that were kept from the bombing wreck. Church in the South represented much more than just religion during the civil rights movement, it was a rallying point for the black community. An environment where they were temporally shielded from the segregation outside their doors. It was a safe house for kids, but it was where hate did its worst.
In preserving the reminders of this horror, the world is reminded that freedom, true democracy and human dignity came with a price. A price so steep that it claimed child martyrs. The need to preserve history and to teach us the value of dignity through careful curating of symbolic events and items is an ingenious tool for citizens’ awakening and mobilization. This is something my country, Nigeria, and indeed most countries in Africa will need to learn to ensure that we relate to where we are coming from and through history we can find our way today.
Another big lesson for me looking at Denise’s shoe is that freedom, good governance and all the benefits of democracy that we yearn for come with huge personal sacrifice. We have to be willing to inconvenience ourselves to stand for what we believe. Good governance has to be demanded as it is never freely given. We have to sustain our duty as citizen watchdog and help our communities demand the kind of government that they want and deserve. This requires hard work but Denise’s shoe tells us that it is possible. Her sacrifice changed the face of the movement. Ours can do the same in our little corners.
I can’t help but wonder why the bombers targeted a church. In my mind, I think that if they knew better they wouldn’t have. As Nelson Mandela rightly said, nobody is born with hate. Hate is something we learn. The men that carried out this act only reflect the failing of their environment and the toxicity of their orientation. Civic education, value building and compassion are things we need to help our children understand to enable them build a world better than ours. Our educational system should not just be about academics but about building character. We may not leave a shoe behind but we do have a duty to make our presence here count.
Udo Jude Ilo heads the Nigeria office of the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA). He is a 2016 Eisenhower Fellow, a global network committed to creating a world more peaceful, prosperous and just.