That's a shame. The trial tells a compelling story about Birmingham the fear under which its black citizens lived, the racism so ubiquitous that people of both races assumed the police were uninterested in investigating crimes against blacks. It also illustrates the difference between law and public relations. In the weeks leading up to this trial, much was said and written about its relation to Birmingham's image. But the trial itself amounts to the usual tedium of law.
Attorneys fight about what's admissible.
Witnesses are grilled and discredited. Jurors are asked to make Solomonic judgments based on conflicting evidence. If there were a trial that could redeem Birmingham for the race-based brutality of the 1950s and '60s, that trial would have been held shortly after this crime when the case was fresh and the culprits had not had a chance at living full lives. And in 37 years, Birmingham, like the evidence, has changed. Many who remember the terror of 1963 will never forget it or forgive the city.