Those We Lost — September 15

Honoring those we lost on September 15 — remembered for what they gave, and for what they left behind.

The Six Children of Birmingham

Died September 15, 1963

Addie Mae Collins, 14; Cynthia Wesley, 14; Carole Robertson, 14; Denise McNair, 11; Johnny Robinson, 16; Virgil Ware, 13.

Four girls were murdered when Klansmen dynamited the 16th Street Baptist Church during Sunday services; hours later, Johnny Robinson was shot in the back by a police officer and Virgil Ware was shot from his brother’s bicycle by white teenagers. Six Black children died in Birmingham in one day — deaths that shocked the world’s conscience and helped drive the Civil Rights Act. We remember them first as children who deserved to grow up.

Tito Jackson

Full name: Toriano Adaryll Jackson

Born October 15, 1953 — died September 15, 2024

Guitarist, singer, and founding member of the Jackson 5.

Tito’s guitar and steady harmony anchored the Gary, Indiana brothers who sent their first four singles to number one — a feat no group had ever achieved — and he later toured the blues circuit under his own name. He passed one month before his seventy-first birthday.