we were both trying to get to the same place, following different paths. on the state side, i went to jeff sessions and said, i ve got this guy named bob eddy. he was chief investigator for the d.a. bob had investigated the klan successfully. bob eddy solved the 63 church bombing in birmingham. the klan felt that they were either protected or purely invincible. their influence and sympathizers were embedded throughout government, throughout law enforcement, in both the city and the state level. in spite of the fact that four innocent negro girls were brutally murdered in a church in birmingham, alabama, not a single arrest has been made. a little over six years after the bombing, i was elected attorney general of alabama.
there s a difference between what you know and what you can prove. the investigation was evolving. bob eddy was on the case. he was interviewing people. he never took his foot off the gas. agent bodman, under the direction of thomas figures, was out there interviewing klansmen. we knew who committed this crime. we, however, could not prove it without a break. i never once thought that i was not being looked at seriously as a suspect. law enforcement started to zero in on us more and more. i was bound and determined that i wasn t gonna talk to nobody. they were building that narrative, and i just wasn t going to give anybody the satisfaction. everybody thought i was
friday abduction of michael donald. three days before michael donald s murder, we had a private meeting, which we would have every wednesday for just klan members. bob eddy knew who was at that klan meeting tiger knowles, frank cox, teddy kyzar, henry hays, and bennie hays, the second highest ranking klansman in the state of alabama. bennie hays is the great titan, which is the third highest ranking official in the united klan. bennie jack hays was a hard-nosed business man. he could drop a dime in his pocket and pull out a quarter. bennie jack was a very detailed man. he was pure evil when he set his mind to it. henry hays was bennie hays son. he was a lifetime member. he was secretary treasurer.
the 16th street baptist church bombing was carried out by members of the untied klan of america, the same organization who killed michael donald. again and again, we ve seen white racists take the lives of black people and do so with impunity, with the legitimization, and the seeming permission, of law enforcement. bob eddy, he said, chris, this is a klan killing. you not only had the noose, but the typical klan diversionary tactic, burning a cross on the lawn of the county courthouse. bob eddy, in the course of interviewing witnesses, learned that there had been a meeting on wednesday night, preceding the
that meant i had the real position where i could do something about it. so i got a terrific investigator named bob eddy. one great witness bob eddy found was chambliss niece. she testified that two or three days before the bomb went off, robert was ranting and raving about the blacks and the demonstrations. and he said, you just wait til sunday. they ll beg us to segregate. somebody said, what do you mean? well, he said, you ll find out. you ll find out. and so that was pretty powerful. that made an impact on the jury. so baxley and bob eddy in a new light, put the pieces of a puzzle together that resulted in the conviction of robert chambliss. but the community knew that there were still others out there other than chambliss that were involved. justice, freedom, and truth, and god s people are on the move.