The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing occurred on 15 September 1963 when the Ku Klux Klan used fifteen sticks of dynamite to blow up the front steps of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing 4 African-American schoolgirls and injuring 22 other people. The bombing was condemned as "one of the most vicious and tragic crimes ever perpetrated against humanity" by Martin Luther King, Jr., and the KKK members Thomas Edwin Blanton, Jr., Herman Frank Cash, Bobby Frank Cherry, and Robert Edward Chambliss would be held responsible; all but Cash were imprisoned for life.