"I always leave this with the people I give my testimony to. You know, when we go through things in this life, we don’t have to depend on drugs, we don’t have to depend on the alcohol, but we got to really believe in God. Because he showed himself to me that day and ever since then I’ve been talking and going around — at first I couldn’t stand up before people and speak, and God, he really helped me come through all that trauma and everything I went through. And I went through it for a long time. It wasn’t until '86 when God — he healed me and I just give him all the glory. I give him all the praise, because I know for myself, that he’s real. If he hadn’t been there for me, I wouldn’t be here today."
-- Sarah Collins Rudolph on how she found healing through faith after surviving the 16th Street Church bombing in 1963 in Birmingham, Alabama. The racially motivated attack killed her sister Addie Mae and three other young African-American girls.
Rudolph spoke Jan. 23 at the Penn State Forum in the Nittany Lion Inn. She was joined by Tracy Snipe, associate professor of political science at Wright State University, who is writing her memoir, tentatively titled "The Fifth Girl."