By Ryan Michaels
The Birmingham Times
City Council President Wardine Alexander (left) and Mayor Randall Woodfin (right) pose with Lisa McNair, sister of Denise McNair, one of the “Four Little Girls” killed in the Sixteenth Street Church bombing in 1963.
Alexander and Woodfin hold copies of “Dear Denise: Letters to the Sister I Never Knew,” which contain 40 letters written by Lisa, born the year after her sister’s death, to Denise.
McNair was honored Tuesday by the mayor and City Council for the book, published in August. Alexander said the book serves as “a beautiful way to honor” Denise and pointed to the McNairs’ long presence in Birmingham’s Cairo community in the city’s Southwest.
McNair said she loves Birmingham. “I travel all the country and when people ask, ‘Why do you still live there?’ ‘This is home,’ McNair said.
Lisa, born almost one year to the day after Denise’s death, has written 40 letters with titles like “The Sister I Never Knew”, “Your Death Left Much Sorrow”, “Thinking White, High School Was Painful”, “The Trials, Church Can Be a Painful Place”, and “Daddy Is With You Now” to her beloved sister. Her moving, deeply personal letters eloquently tell her sister what has happened since her death.
Copies of the book can be purchased here.
