Letter 1

The Sister I Never Knew Dear Denise,

I am your sister Lisa. I have so missed having a big sister all of my life. What makes your absence from my life so odd is that we never got to meet, and yet you are part of every aspect of my life. I can’t tell you the number of times I wished you were alive and with us so that I could talk with you and know life having you as a big sister to me and Kim, our baby sister. I have so much to tell you.

I missed getting to know you, and have always wanted to talk to you and hug you. It is odd to lose a family member before meeting them, especially losing a sister, someone I would have grown up with, a partner and a sibling in this life. I can understand never meeting a grandparent, but not an older sister. It’s so strange that I don’t know what you sounded like or what your mannerisms were.

I was born almost exactly one year from the day of your death. Many people don’t know that about our family’s story. It’s interesting how God works. How odd that Mamma and Daddy had not been able to bear more children after you were born. And yet after you were killed, they had two more little girls. I am the oldest child now and we have a younger sister named Kimberly who was born four years after I was, but I always wanted a big sister so I would have someone to talk to and look up to.

I think Mamma gave us all some beautiful names. I have always loved that Mamma gave you the first name Carol after her sister, whom she loved very much. I’m not sure why they didn’t call you Carol, as Denise is your middle name. But that’s the name that everyone knows you by. I wish I could have gotten to know and love you like Mamma loved her sister.

People ask me all the time, “When did you first know that your sister was killed in the bombing?” I can never answer that question definitively because it’s something I have always known. I cannot recall a time when I didn’t know about you and how you died. I guess people freely talked about it around me when I was a baby, and I just picked up on it. I am sure folks would see me with Mamma and say something like, “that is Maxine McNair. Her daughter was killed in the bombing and she was their only child, but now God has given them another baby.” I don’t ever recall someone sitting me down and telling me directly. And yet it is my first and oldest memory. It is a strange feeling to have a sister who died before you were born, especially in such a tragic and public way, and this feeling has been and always will be a part of who I am.

Your death thrust all of us, Mamma, Daddy, Kim, and me, into the surreal limelight of history. The bomb blast at 16th Street Baptist Church was heard all around the world and your death was a pivotal event in the Civil Rights Movement. People look at our family differently, treat us like celebrities sometimes, and put us on a pedestal. This all feels strange, even though it has been true for as long as I can remember. I am still not ever sure how to react to the attention. That is not how we see ourselves. We are just regular people who suffered an immense tragedy. When I first meet people, I don’t say anything about you most of the time, but your death inevitably comes up. When I tell them you are my sister and how you died, most people are shocked and often sad and sorrowful. Others even burst into tears. It can be very emotional. How others experience the significance of your death is always quite moving for me. If I am with friends, they will usually bring it up. Close friends wait until I have left the room to bring it up or ask me first if it is okay to talk about you because they know I would rather someone get to know me for me first.

I have wanted to write and share my life with you as I would have done if you were not taken away from us so tragically. In recent years, God has placed several women in my life who are around the age you would have been, which is twelve years older than me. These women have been a source of great comfort to me. I can pretend that I do have a big sister and that in some ways you are with me through them. I can talk with them and learn what life might have been like back then for you. Many of them have their own memories of the day you were killed—where they were when it happened and how they felt when they learned the awful news.

The woman God sent to me whom I feel closest to is named Reena. Sadly, the Klan killed her father a few months before your murder. Reena’s father’s name was Medgar Evers. He lived in Mississippi and worked with the NAACP. He was well known for his fight for voting rights and became a target of the Klan. They assassinated him in his driveway one evening as he returned home. Reena and her brothers and mother ran out of their house when they heard the shots and saw him lying in a pool of blood, face down on the driveway. I can’t even imagine that. She knows the pain of violent, senseless loss full well and I am sure it never leaves her.

The year 1963 was very sad for our country. Our president John F. Kennedy was also killed that year.

Her family’s story, like ours, is well known. I find some solace in the fact that we share such a place of grief in such a public way. I can’t share that with many people. She treats me as a friend but also mothers me a little, as I assume you would have. What binds me to Reena even more is that her middle name is Denise. When I learned that about her, I cried. She says I am the only person who calls her that. That has got to be a God thing. It is a very beautiful bond. You would like her very much. Maybe you have met her father up there in heaven. He would be very proud of her.

Many of those female mentors in my life tell me how their own mothers re-acted at hearing the news of your death— most often with a sense of fear for their own children. Not all of these women are Black; several of them are white. I am sure they can’t help but think about what it would have been like to die at church that day as they were also likely at their own houses of worship at the same time. In some ways, these women who were your peers relate to me as you and I would have as sisters. They love, support, and look out for me. They are a blessing from God.

One of the lines in your obituary was, “She received much joy from reading good books.” I hope that will be true as you read this one. Surely you already know most of what I am telling you. I believe that people who die and go to heaven look down and see us. I pray that you all put in a good word of prayer for us in the presence of God, where you and the other girls surely went on that tragic day. I guess then that I am sharing not so much for your benefit but for my own and for any-one who will read these letters.

I love you and miss you,

Your Sister Lisa

Letter 4

What a Difference a Year Makes

Dear Denise,

I have told you that I was born almost a year to the day after you were murdered. I can only imagine the excitement that Mamma and Daddy felt at my birth. The entire Birmingham community was happy for them because—as I have already told you—our parents had difficulties having babies. That is why you were an only child. They had a number of miscarriages between each of us (and one stillbirth). I know folks who were close to them were thrilled for Mamma and Daddy when I arrived, knowing both the struggles they had been through and that you were their only child at the time of your death at age eleven. I often meet women Mamma’s age or older who say to me, “You are here! Thank God! We prayed for you.” I even appeared in Jet magazine as a baby.

I like to think that you had a happy life during your short time here with our parents, grandparents, uncles, cousins, and close friends, even though you all lived in the Jim Crow South. Because of the circumstances surrounding your death, and even though I was the second child, I was treated like a first child. I was given huge amounts of attention and love, especially from our extended family. You were the first grandchild on both sides of our family, so I am sure you were smothered with love and attention too.

We were blessed with wonderful grandparents, all of whom are with you now in heaven. Mamma’s parents, Dear Dear and Granddaddy Mac, were awesome. Their real names were Clara Marshall Pippen and Maxell Pippen. I don’t remember Granddaddy Mac because he passed away while I was quite young, but Mamma has always filled our lives with interesting stories about him. She told us that he had a great sense of humor and was always teasing people and cracking jokes. I love the fact that he was a successful business owner and did very well for his family. Mamma said that Granddaddy Mac’s business, Social Cleaners, was a dry cleaning store that had pick-up locations all over town. He went to trade school and was a very smart man.

Dear Dear, our maternal grandmother, was the rock of our family. All things revolved around her, and she was a strong Black woman. If she said it, that settled it, and there was no discussion. I was always impressed that she had a college degree from Alabama State University. Did you know that? It was quite a feat for a Black woman to get a college degree back then. Most of my friends have parents who have degrees, but not grandparents. Mamma said that Dear Dear taught school and even helped found a school. I loved her very much. She was always there when we needed her and taught us about how to put some money away for a “rainy day,” as she called it. I never knew her to be broke.

She told us an interesting story about how she started her first savings ac-count. As she recalled, Granddaddy Mac liked to party and he would go out drinking. Some nights he would go out and have a little too much to drink, and it really angered her. One night he came home drunk, and he pulled off his pants and laid them on the bedroom floor. He fell asleep and, when he did, she went into his pockets and took a few dollars. She told us, “That’s how I started my savings account. He never missed it because he was so drunk that he never remembered how much he had spent.” She said I should always have some money of my own, especially when I got married, “because you never know what will happen.” I do that now, even though I am not married yet. You never know when an emergency will arise.

Dear Dear helped keep our family together. If one member of the family did something, we all came out to support it. If one of us kids were in a play or had a solo at church, a speech, or a sporting event, she would make sure that everyone in the family attended.

While I was in elementary school, she came to live with us part-time—during the weekdays, mostly during the school year—to help Mamma get us ready for school and with household chores. Daddy was gone a lot then, traveling to Montgomery three days a week to serve in the legislature. It was great having Dear Dear live with us. We would leave for school and when we came back, she would have made our beds up, placing our stuffed animals on top and leaving pieces of candy by them. We were always excited to find the candy, which she said the stuffed animals had purchased for us when they went out shopping. I thought that was such a cute thing to say. We all knew that she had put the candy there. She was so loving.

I would love to hear your memories of Granddaddy Mac, whom I’m sure you knew well. And of course, you would have had your own stories about Dear Dear and life with Mamma and Daddy. I’ve got so much more to tell you.

Much love, Your Sister Lisa

Letter 40

So Long for Now Dear Denise,

You now know more about me than anyone in the universe, other than our Lord. You know things I have not shared with another living soul. I wanted to share with you all about my life, the life you would have known and been a part of if you had not been taken away from this earth so soon. I hope I shared with you a little bit of what society has been like since you passed away.

Learning about your death is my oldest memory. Many young Black kids learned early on that they were Black, and that meant white folks hated them for no reason other than the color of their skin. That meant they would have a place of “less than” when compared to their white counterparts. That was difficult to wrap my head around, but it was compounded for me because I knew that being Black meant you could be murdered just for being Black too. That has haunted me and has stayed with me to this day; how could it not? I always wondered why there was such discrimination. It made no sense to me. I often thought that if only white folks knew me and my family and how nice we were, they couldn’t hate us. I still feel that way today. Not just me and my family, but all Black fami-lies in this country.

Over the years, I learned that hatred for Black people was not in the hearts and minds of all white people. That was a big relief, but as I’m writing this, some of those ugly, hateful actions by white people that we thought were gone have reared their ugly heads again. We thought we had made progress, but it turned out that the racism in some people’s hearts had not been erased, it only went into hiber-nation and became dormant. When the opportunity presented itself, that think-ing came back to life, as evidenced when our first Black president, Barack Obama, came into office.

Your death set my life on a certain course and trajectory. Daddy said that we have lived parallel lives with you, and I have found that to be so true. I don’t do much that doesn’t involve you and the circumstances that are a direct result of your death. Mamma and Daddy—mostly Daddy—were often called upon to talk about you and the bombing for years. After Spike’s documentary, they were asked to speak about the effects that the bombing had on them and our family. That doc-umentary introduced the tragedy of your death to a whole new group of people who had either forgotten or never knew about it.

In the last several decades, the study of what happened during the Civil Rights Movement has been a more widely accepted interest in our country. Across the country, a number of African American museums have opened up. Many of the Civil Rights legends, icons, and foot soldiers have been sought out for interviews and speaking engagements, and many even had documentaries and movies made about them. Increased interest has arisen about the church bombing and the Civil

Rights Movement in the Birmingham area. Sadly, many of those Civil Rights he-roes and sheroes are passing away.

We now have the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, which is a wonderful museum and learning institution that focuses on and chronicles the entire movement. It sits right in front of 16th Street Baptist Church on the Sixth Avenue side of the church. They also have archived stories from local activists, icons and foot soldiers. In 2013, we loaned some of your personal effects to the institute, includ-ing your toys, clothes, and shoes, and other items. There is even a piece of concrete that was embedded in your head on the day you were killed. Mamma talked about it in the documentary 4 Little Girls. She was worried about whether the under-takers would be able to make you look normal for viewing in the casket because of the damage that concrete did to your beautiful face. The folks at Davenport and Harris said they would do their best. Mamma said they did a good job and you looked nice. I have seen pictures of you in your casket, and you did look nice. The funeral home folks sent that concrete home in a box after your death, along with other personal items you had with you on that terrible day. They gave it to our grandmother Dear Dear, who many years later took it out and shared it with the family, and then gave the box to Mamma.

Today, tour groups drive or fly into Birmingham to learn about the Civil Rights Movement. In fact, they travel all over the South, and it has become a big business for the tourism industry. Many of these groups want Civil Rights activists and martyrs’ family members to speak with them. Daddy was often asked to speak, but now that he can no longer tell your story it has fallen on me to carry the torch. Kim doesn’t really like speaking in public, so she has asked that I handle all those requests. I enjoy this responsibility because I love to meet new people. It allows me to keep your sacrifice and memory alive and to share my views on race, Civil Rights, and how we must remember our history and learn to get along. It is imperative that we all—Black and white—live, love, and work together in harmony, and learn to relate to one another as human beings.

I have learned more about Dr. King in recent years and found that he left behind deep wisdom for all of us. One thing he said was, “It is no longer a choice my friends, between violence and nonviolence. It is either nonviolence or nonexistence.” I find that quote to be profound, not so much in its reference to physical violence, but as it pertains to the violence of our words and what we say to and about each other. That violence also can bring about death. Our words and rhetoric reveal and fan the flames of hate and anger, which can and often does lead to physical violence. We must always stay cognizant of that.

I feel now and have always felt that if we spend time getting to know each other, we will learn to like each other, embrace our differences, and discover that we are more alike than different. At least, I have found that to be true in my own experience. Because my life has been so multicultural, I have learned that we, Black and white folks, share many things in life. All of us want love, all of us suffer loss, we have stress and anger, problems and heartaches. We work in our yards, share recipes, go shopping, love to travel and have many other things in common. At the end of the day, we are all human beings and are only on this planet for a short time.

That time is too short a time to hate and be mean to one another. Since your death so many of the relatives I loved have gone to join you: both sets of grand-parents, Auntie Nee Nee, Mamma’s sister; Mamma Helen, Mamma’s closest first cousin; Lynn, your closest friend and our first cousin; many of our grandmother Dear Dear’s relatives; Daddy’s brother Uncle James, who I think was your favorite uncle; and of course now Daddy. Just as this book was about to go into produc-tion, we lost Mamma too.

This is a profound loss for me. Mamma was always my best friend. We used to talk on the phone every day, several times a day. We shared everything. She made me her confidante years ago when I was a little girl. I know things about her life that I probably should not have known but she felt comfortable sharing them with me and I always wanted to be there for her in any way I could. But sadly the Alzheimer’s brought an end to that everyday conversation. I always used to say that I never wanted my Mamma to die. I even prayed that the rapture would come and we would all be taken up to heaven so that she would not have to die and I would not lose her. I thought I would not be able to function once she was gone, but so far I am still standing. As I write this, it has been less than a month—so I could still be very much in shock and in denial. Also, I remember something the well-known minister T. D. Jakes said about his mother, who also had Alzheimer’s disease: he said it was the long goodbye. I believe that because I have grieved over Mamma for years. Every step of her decline took a little piece of her away from me. Many a day I have been driving and thinking about losing her or a certain part of her and I would scream, or cry my heart out. I am sure if other drivers saw me they wondered what was wrong. I have cried for her so very many times that now I find it odd that I don’t seem to be crying enough. People say I will have my moments that will come unexpectedly.

I will never forget her. I will carry her with me always. I am who I am so much because of her, her love, and all she taught me. What I love so much and has been very healing for me since her death is how she loved others. We have heard from so many of her students who have credited Mamma with helping them to become the people they are today. Who would have thought a third- grade teacher could leave such an impact? Those stories have really warmed our hearts. We even had some of her former students speak about how she blessed them at her funeral. For me this means she has not really left us, because she lives on in so very many peo-ple. That is a life well lived. I know she is watching over me all the time. There is no better advocate for me with Jesus than Mamma. You hug her tight until I get to heaven and can do so myself.

I miss them deeply, but I find peace knowing that you all are in heaven to-gether and I will be there one day. I had them for most of my life; now it is your turn to share in their love and treasure trove of memories.

Dr. King spoke about death at your funeral. Of course, I was not there but in recent years I discovered that it was recorded, and I have heard it played in the church. It is quite moving. Every time I hear it, I cry. I envision Mamma, Daddy, Dear Dear, Granddaddy Mac, Grandmother Lillie Bell, Auntie Nee Nee, and other family members and friends sitting there listening with such grief and sorrow. It is such a well-done eulogy. Although the event was very sad, his words are some-how comforting. He shared a written copy of the eulogy with our parents. There are two paragraphs that Dr. King didn’t read on that day. We don’t know why he didn’t read them, but in the second paragraph he wrote something that has stayed with me. I have already shared with you that in my eulogy for Daddy, I quoted some of what he wrote regarding death coming for everyone.

For me, that says it all. We are all the same, we are all going to experience death, ours and that of our loved ones. We are all only here for a time and then we are gone. We don’t have time to hate each other, but only have time to love one another, share with one another, enjoy each other’s company, learn as much as we can about this wonderful world God gave us, make peace, and learn how to live in harmony as God would want us to. That’s what we are supposed to be doing as humans in this world. All those should be our main goals so we can live in peace. I hope people will remember that, think of your death and how sad and horrible the hate that caused it was, and vow to do that no more.

Until we meet in heaven, I love you dearly and think about you every day.

I love you to heaven and back again, my sister, Lisa

About the Author

Lisa McNair is a Birmingham native and the oldest living sister of Denise McNair, one of the four girls killed in the infamous 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church. Lisa is a renowned national public speaker on the topic of racial reconciliation and also leads antiracism workshops. Visit www.speaklisa.com for more information.

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