His daughter Denise was killed in the 1963 bombing of Birmingham's 16th Street Baptist Church. A service for Chris McNair will be held May 17 at 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. He was 93. McNair opened a photography studio in 1962. After his appeals failed, McNair reported to federal prison in Marion, Illinois on June 6, 2011. A small exhibit area in the gallery served as a memorial to Denise's memory. The Associated Press. Several years later, he was convicted on federal corruption charges stemming from the $3 billion overhaul of the local sewer system. McNair was elected to the Alabama House of Representatives in a 1973 special election to fill a vacancy in the Jefferson County House Delegation. Carol Denise, their first child, was born Nov. 17, 1951. McNair became one of the first African-American members of the Alabama Legislature since Reconstruction when he was elected as a state representative in 1973. The next year, he married Maxine Pippen, a classmate. Mr. McNair insisted that there had been no quid pro quo — that the contractors had provided their services as friends. He pleaded guilty to a twelfth count of conspiracy in February 2007. In their horrifying senselessness, the deaths of Denise McNair and the three other girls — Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley, all 14 — helped spur passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. And you wonder, ‘What would my daughter be doing now?’ ”, Martin Kilson, first tenured black professor at Harvard, dies at 88, Jean Vanier, who gave homes and dignity to the intellectually disabled, dies at 90, Robert Pear, scrupulous chronicler of health care for the New York Times, dies at 69. 2 min read. By. “It took them 38 years to bring to justice the people responsible for the deaths of my daughter and the other three girls at 16th Street Baptist Church,” he told the Birmingham News. People were asking me, ‘Why don’t you leave?’ I said, ‘Where else can I go and not still be black in the United States?’ My intent was to try to make this a better section of the world.”. “I knew that the city fathers were using me,” Mr. McNair told McWhorter, “and they knew I knew they were using me.” He participated, he said, “because the overall picture was bigger than me — and bigger than them.”.
In 2007, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bribery, admitting that he had accepted and attempted to hide $140,000 in bribes. “I didn’t want anybody to ever think I was using Denise to move myself up the line,” he later told the Birmingham News. McNair began serving on the Jefferson County Commission in 1986.
He lost primary bids for the U.S. House in 1978 and the U.S. Senate in 1992.
McNair was a native of Arkansas who came to Alabama to attend Tuskegee Institute. His imprisonment, and ultimate release, prompted an emotional reckoning with what Birmingham had taken from his family, what he had given to the city and what mercy he was owed in return. Doug Jones represented him on his petition for early release.
Lisa McNair suggested to McWhorter that the contractors had done their work not only “out of love for Daddy,” but also “out of apology, or guilt.” At least one had recently seen the Spike Lee documentary “4 Little Girls” (1997) that laid bare the extent of her father’s suffering. His wife was unharmed. At least one had recently seen the Spike Lee documentary “4 Little Girls” (1997) that laid bare the extent of her father’s suffering. A second conspirator, Thomas E. Blanton Jr., was convicted in 2001, and a third, Bobby Frank Cherry, in 2002. When Mr. McNair left the county commission in 2001, he was roundly admired in Birmingham and beyond. He had been scheduled for release on October 13, 2015, but was released early, on August 29, 2013 under a Federal Bureau of Prisons policy to release elderly or sick inmates convicted of non-violent offenses after they serve a majority of their sentence. ", Koplowitz, Howard (May 8, 2019) "Chris McNair, former commissioner, father of bombing victim, dead at 93. This page has been accessed 21,529 times.
Mr. McNair’s survivors include his wife and two daughters, Lisa McNair and Kimberly Brock, all of Birmingham; and 10 siblings. (AP Photo/Hal Yeager, File). A relative stopped him on the street, told him of the bombing and sent Mr. McNair to the hospital. McNair was convicted in 2006 of bribery and conspiracy in connection with Jefferson County sewer construction and sentenced to five years in prison.
The McNairs gave Denise what McWhorter described as a comfortable, enriching life, with a piano and dance lessons. On the other hand, he had been the commissioner with responsibility over the Jefferson County Sewer System, which proved to be inadequate to the task of keeping wastewater out of rivers and streams during periods of heavy rain. Mr. McNair’s work, published in outlets including Jet magazine, chronicled black life in Birmingham, a city that had become known as “Bombingham” for the violence that plagued it during the civil rights movement. ", Faulk, Kent (June 6, 2011) "Ex-Jefferson Commissioner Chris McNair on way to prison along glorious, tragic trail. In 1973, Mr. McNair won a seat as a Democrat in the Alabama House of Representatives, where he became chairman of the county delegation. McNair opened a photography studio in 1962. On the morning of Sept. 15, 1963, as Sunday church services were set to begin across Birmingham, Ala., Chris McNair heard a boom across town. He entered prison in 2011 but was released in 2013 because of his health problems and age. They sought to teach her that not all whites were racist but could not spare their child the indignities of Jim Crow segregation. He served two terms in the state legislature, including one as chair of the county delegation. He invited Joseph W. Ellwanger, his white Lutheran minister, to participate in the funeral jointly held for Denise and two of the other slain girls. Mr. McNair tried “to do his best to make it a better place,” Jones continued, “and he did.”, Doug Jones triumphs in an Alabama Senate race that conjured a deadly church bombing. Jewell Christopher McNair (born 1926 in Fordyce, Arkansas; died May 8, 2019) was a photographer, a state legislator and a Jefferson County Commissioner. A small exhibit area in the gallery served as a memorial to Denise's memory. He was 93. At first, he took comfort as he scoured a list of injured parishioners and did not find his daughter’s name. He served in the U.S. Army during the later months of World War II before returning to college, graduating in 1949. This page was last modified on 1 July 2020, at 07:18. He then ran unsuccessfully against Richard Shelby in the 1978 Democratic Primary to represent the 7th Congressional District of Alabama in the U.S. House of Representatives.
In 2006, Mr. McNair was convicted in federal court on conspiracy and bribery charges. McNair's daughter Denise was one of four girls killed when a bomb placed by Ku Klux Klan members ripped through Birmingham's Sixteenth Street Baptist Church on Sept. 15, 1963. Chris McNair, father of 1963 church bombing victim, dies, Fact-checking Trump and Biden during 2nd presidential debate, 'Yes, I'm nervous': Mayor urges calm after police shooting of unarmed Black couple, FILE - In this Sept. 14, 2013, file photo, Chris and Maxine McNair, the parents of of Denise McNair, watch as the sculpture is revealed at the unveiling ceremony for "The Four Little Girls," a sculpture memorial honoring Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley in Birmingham, Ala. Chris McNair, the father of one of four young girls killed in the 1963 bombing of a Birmingham church, died Wednesday, May 8, 2019. The renovation of his photo studio included a memorial for Denise. ", "4 Little Girls Spike Lee Documentary on 1963 Bombing Opens in Birmingham" (September 12, 1997), Kizzire, Jamie (March 30, 2001) "Career marked by integrity: Public officials praise retiring McNair.
“Is that thunder?” Mr. McNair, a milkman and photographer and the father of an 11-year-old girl, recalled wondering.
We ask for prayers and privacy as we prepare to lay him to rest," his family said in a statement. Denise cried, according to an account from McWhorter, when Mr. McNair took her to a five-and-dime store and was forced to explain why she could not sit at the counter for a hot dog. He served in the Army during World War II before receiving an agronomy degree in 1949 from what is now Tuskegee University, the historically black institution in Alabama. Jewell Christopher McNair was born in Fordyce, Ark., on Nov. 22, 1925, the oldest of 12 children in a farming family. But for years, Mr. McNair rarely spoke of his daughter’s murder as he rose to become one of the first black members of the Alabama legislature since Reconstruction and a Jefferson County commissioner.
McNair died in May 2019. “I suppose every little girl’s foot looks about the same, but I knew it was Denise. On September 19, 2007 he was sentenced to five years of prison and ordered to pay $851,927 in restitution. Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin said in a statement that, "Mr. McNair and his family are forever tied to our country's civil-rights legacy.". “I saw a little foot sticking out from under one of the sheets. Even in the immediate aftermath of his daughter’s death, Mr. McNair sought to be a unifying figure.
By signing up you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. He and Maxine were married in 1950 and moved to Birmingham, where he worked as a milkman. President Barack Obama declined to grant him clemency, but Mr. McNair was released in 2013 as part of a “compassionate relief” program for sick and elderly inmates.
"When he tragically lost his daughter Denise in the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing in 1963, his courage and fortitude fueled our march for peace," Woodfin said. McNair's two other daughters, Lisa and Kim, both worked in the gallery. Denise McNair would today be 67. Chris McNair and his wife, Maxine, hold a photograph of their daughter Denise the day after her death in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala. (AP) The first conviction in the church bombing did not come until 1977, with a guilty verdict for Robert “Dynamite Bob” Chambliss. The project was marked by poor planning and mismanagement. ", "Chris McNair, father of girl killed in church bombing, dies at 93." It was the sound of dynamite set by the Ku Klux Klan, tearing through the 16th Street Baptist Church, the African American congregation where Mr. McNair’s wife, Maxine, and their daughter Denise worshiped. The sewer system and the scandal surrounding it were linked, along with other factors, to the county’s eventual bankruptcy. Once a lawsuit against the county was settled by consent decree, McNair took charge of the estimated $1.2 billion project of improving the system.
The cause was cancer, said his daughter Lisa McNair. Mr. McNair and his wife had two more daughters. At the time of retirement, McNair's reputation was of a fair-minded and penny-pinching public servant who brought dignity to his office. “But I had a sense of balance. ", Stewart, Virginia (July 27, 2001) "There's life beyond public life.