Denise, at age 11, became a civil rights martyr when she and three other little girls were killed in the Sept. 15, 1963, bombing of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. I've written about that day before, recalling how I heard the blast from my home a few miles away, and how my daddy and other fathers armed themselves that night expecting a war with the Ku Klux Klan.
Fast-forward to now, and McNair is an 85-year-old man who in June began serving a five-year sentence at a federal penitentiary in Illinois for public corruption. At his age, it could be a life sentence unless President Obama intervenes and pardons him, which I and so many others who knew McNair pray will happen.
How did this man, who nearly 50 years ago became a symbol for dignity and graciousness in the face of disaster, fall so far from grace? His accusers will say it was greed, though McNair appeared to plead naivete. The old man told prosecutors he didn't mean to break the law and didn't understand that he had.
The former member of the Jefferson County Commission was convicted by a federal jury in 2006 of bribery and conspiracy involving a $3.2 billion construction project to repair the county's sewer system. In all, 21 people were convicted or pleaded guilty in the case.
McNair was accused of taking nearly $1 million from companies that won bids to do the work, including $225,000 to expand his photography studio and add a memorial room, $320,000 to build a lake house in Arkansas, and $410,000 in cash.
McNair contended that whatever he took from the contractors were not bribes, but gifts from friends. His daughter Lisa tried to explain further to another Birmingham expatriate I know, Diane McWhorter, author of Carry Me Home, who recently wrote about the case for the New York Times.
