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Jury selected in 1963 church bombing trial

Bobby Frank Cherry exits the rear door of the Jefferson County courthouse during lunch last week.

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (CNN) -- Almost 39 years after a bomb rocked the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, killing four black girls dressing for Sunday service in their white, satin choir robes, a jury was chosen Monday to hear evidence against former Ku Klux Klan member Bobby Frank Cherry.

Twelve jurors and four alternates were selected to determine whether Cherry is guilty of the murders of the girls, who were killed instantly September 15, 1963, crushed by bricks and mortar.

Opening statements are to begin Tuesday at 9 a.m. (10 a.m. ET).

Twelve whites and four blacks made up the 16 slots at Jefferson County Criminal Court, a mile from the church.

Court officials did not reveal which of the 16 would serve as alternates. It was not clear whether the jury would be sequestered.

Bespectacled and gray-haired, Cherry, wearing a gray suit and tie, sat between his two private attorneys during jury selection.

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Cherry, 71, was ruled mentally incompetent to stand trial last year, but a subsequent ruling found him competent. He has professed his innocence.

The bombing came at a time when segregation was still common throughout much of the South, and the Ku Klux Klan was frequently the enforcer of the status quo, especially in Alabama.

After the attack, Birmingham acquired the nickname "Bombingham."

The victims of the 1963 bombing were (clockwise from top left) Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley and Carole Robertson, all 14, and Denise McNair, 11.

The FBI investigation pointed to four Klansmen as suspects in the case, but FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover determined there was not enough evidence to charge them.

Eight years passed before a crusading Alabama attorney general, Bill Baxley, reopened the case and charged Bob Chambliss, one of the original suspects, with murder. He was convicted and sentenced to a life term in prison, where he died in 1985.

More than a decade later, the files in the case were opened yet again. Two more of the original suspects, Tom Blanton and Cherry, were charged. The fourth suspect had already died.

Blanton was convicted of murder last year and sentenced to life in prison, where he remains today.

-- CNN Producer Mike Phelan and Correspondent Brian Cabell contributed to this story.