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16th Street Church Bombing — Part 22
Page 52
52 / 69
FD-350 (Rev. 5-8-81)
(Mount Ciipping in Space Below)
Alexander admitted
church bombing,
brother says
From Staff and Press Reports
MONTGOMERY — The brother of a for-
mer Klu Klux Klansman implicated ina
acial slaying, said his brother also had
claimed he participated in the 1963 bombing
of a Birmingham church that took the lives
of four black girls
Sonny Mexander told a Montgomery tele-
vision station yesterday that his brother,
Henry Alexander. kad claimed he took part
in the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Bap-
tist Church on Sept, 15, 1963.
Alexander said his brother, a former
Klansman who died of lung cancer last year,
also confessed to the kil ling of a black man
in Elba in the mid-1950s, “They put him ina
barre! and rolled him down a hill,” Alexan-
der told WSFA-TV. “They drove nails in the
barrel and he was dead when they went to
let him out at the bottom of the hill.”
“It seems that a very few guys in the Klan
did most of the dirty deeds and Alexander
was one of them,” said Morris Dees, director
of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a group
that monitors and opposes the Klan
“We always knew that (convicted bomber
Robert) Chambliss didn't bomb the Six
teenth Street Church alone,” he added. “So it
just seems logical that Alexander was an-
other rat in that pack.”
Sonny Alexa his brother also ad
mitted to being part of a group that killed
Willie Edwards Jr. in 1957, but he says he
doubts his brother confessed to the killing on
his deathbed. Henry Alexander's widow, Di-
ane Alexander, has claimed her husband
confessed to the killing before he died.
But Sonny Alexander said his brother was
only part of the group that forced Edwards
to jump off a bridge. He said another man
was responsible for the actual killing.
“I don't believe he made a deathbed con-
fession at all,” said Sonny Alexander, who
said he granted the interview to clear his
family’s name of the Edwards slaying
Mrs. Alexander wrote to Edwards’ family
telling thern of her husband's deathbed con-
fession. Edwards’ widow, Sarah Salter of
Buffalo, N.Y., appeared with Mrs. Alexan-
der on a national TV program Wednesday.
Copy Sent
To FBIHQ
“Tate
j
(Indicate page. name of
newspaper, city and state.)
BIRMINGHAM POST-HERALD
BIRMINGHAM, AL.
9/10/93
Edition: FRIDAY
Tite. "ALEXANDER ADMITTED
CHURCH BOMBING, BROTHER
SAYS”
Character,
or
Classification
Submitting Office’ BH
Indexing
SE 223 52-9 /- V8
Sep 18 1993
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