User:Terrapin2022/Killing of Johnny Robinson

Events (Copied)
Early on Sunday morning, September 15, 1963, a Ku Klux Klan member placed a bomb with a timing device under the side steps of the 16th Street Baptist Church, which had served as the headquarters for the Birmingham Children's Crusade during April and early May.[4] Two hundred worshipers were expected in the church that day and after the bomb detonated in the late morning, three 14-year-old girls and an 11-year-old girl were found killed, with twenty-two wounded. (Citation?) The incident prompted civil unrest that was further provoked by the shooting deaths of two young black men that day: 16-year-old Johnny Robinson, and 13-year-old Virgil Ware.

Robinson was about to join his sister for Sunday dinner, but had accompanied his friends to a gas station that was not far from the 16th Street Baptist Church. Several white men drove by, yelling racial slurs, waving Confederate flags, and throwing bottles. Robinson and his friends allegedly retaliated by throwing rocks at the cars. A police car then arrived on the scene. Birmingham police officer Jack Parker was in the back seat, pointing a shotgun out the window.[6] The bullet hit Robinson in the back as he attempted to run down a nearby alley; he was pronounced dead before he reached the hospital. Parker later gave two differing accounts of the event, as he both claimed to have fired a warning shot and that the gun went off accidentally.[7]

Parker was white, as were all Birmingham Police officers at that time.[8] He had joined the police force in 1951 and was 48 years old at the time of Robinson's death. During his career, Parker was also the head of a Fraternal Order of Police.[9] - Maybe we explain what this is

Johnny Robinson
Johnny Robinson was a young African American boy born in 1947 and killed in 1963. He was 16 at the time of his murder. Johnny was the oldest child of 3 in his family.

Jack Parker
Officer Jack Parker was a Birmingham Police Officer. He joined the police force in 1951. At the time of Robinson's death, Parker was 48 years old at the time of Johnny Robinson's death.

During his career, Parker also served at the head of a Fraternal Order of Police. He publicly expressed his position on the Civil Rights movement by adding his signature to an anti-integration ad in the newspaper.

References (MINE)
All Information/Paragraphs copied from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Johnny_Robinson