Editing Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr. (section)

==Biography==
Thomas Blanton Jr. was born to Thomas Blanton Sr. in Washington, DC. Both father and son lived in the Alabama city of Birmingham and were notorious racists in the area. In the early 1960s, Blanton Jr. was listed as a member of the notorious hate group (which was then a terrorist group), the [[United Klans of America]]. 

On September 16, 1963, Blanton and his fellow conspirators planted 15 sticks of dynamite under the steps of Birmingham's majority-black 16th Street Baptist church. Later that day, one of them phoned the church and told them "three minutes". Shortly afterwards the explosives went off and killed four young girls who were in the basement. Twenty other attendees were wounded. 

The ensuing investigation into the bombing easily found the identities of the three attackers, along with a fourth suspect named Herman Cash. In a tape made by an FBI informant in April 1964, Blanton can twice be heard to mention the phrase "plan a bomb". A former Klansman named Mitchell Burns also provided the FBI with recordings of Blanton boasting about the attack. However, FBI director [[J. Edgar Hoover]] ordered that the four not be charged because it was unlikely that they would be convicted. This was proved wrong in 1977 when Chambliss was convicted of one count of murder against Carol McNair.

After the case was reopened in 1995, the FBI found that the conspirators had been named by the original investigation but only one was charged. With Chambliss and Cash having died, in 2000 Blanton and Cherry were indicted by a grand jury and charged with four counts of murder. The tapes made by Mitchell and the FBI were brought forwards by the prosecution, while the defence claimed that Blanton was making grandiose and untrue claims. 

The jury deliberated for two and a half hours before returning with a verdict finding Thomas Edwin Blanton guilty of four counts of first-degree murder. When asked by the judge whether he had anything to say before sentence was imposed, Blanton said: "I guess the Lord will settle it on Judgment Day." He received four consecutive life sentences.

At a parole hearing in 2016, the families of Blanton's victims spoke out against his parole. Alice Martin said: "The cold-blooded callousness of this hate crime has not diminished by the passage of time." The parole board took only ninety seconds to refuse Blanton parole before setting the next hearing for 2021. The year before it could happen (2020), Blanton died of unspecified causes while in prison.
[[Category:Terrorists]]
[[Category:Supremacists]]
[[Category:Xenophobes]]
[[Category:Deaths in prison]]
[[Category:Male]]
[[Category:KKK Members]]
[[Category:Imprisoned]]
[[Category:Criminals]]
[[Category:Mass Murderers]]
[[Category:Deceased]]
[[Category:Modern Villains]]
[[Category:Dimwits]]