Jewel Chris McNair (abt. 1926 - 2019)

Born about 22 Nov 1926 in Fordyce, Dallas County, Arkansas, United States

Ancestors

Husband of Thelma Maxine (Pippen) McNair — married 11 Jun 1950 in Birmingham, Jefferson County, Alabama, United States

Died 8 May 2019 at about age 92 in Alabama, United States [uncertain]

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Biography

Chris McNair is Notable.

Private First Class Chris McNair served in the United States Army in World War II
Service started: October 2, 1941
Unit(s): 34th infantry, 135th Infantry Division
Service ended: 1945

Chris McNair was an African-American politician and businessman. His daughter Denise was one of the victims of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in 1963.^[1]

Jewel Chris McNair was born in 1926 to Jewell McNair and Lillie Childs in Fordyce Arkansas. In the 1930 census Chris is shown having two siblings. Mr. McNair graduated from Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama.

Legislator McNair had a photography studio on 6th Ave So. in Birmingham Alabama starting in 1962. The studio sometimes served multiple purposes. He gave a helping hand to one of his neighbors daughters just starting out her career as an attorney. Rhonda and Barbara had lived across the street and been friends with the McNair children.

The McNairs lived in the very close knit community of Roosevelt, on the outskirts of Birmingham. They attended 16th Street Baptist Church . On Sept 15th 1963 their world was turned upside down. Their only daughter Denise McNair was murdered in the bombing of their church. Their church was used to plan civil rights activities by organizers including Dr Martin Luther King.

After serving two terms as a state legislator, McNair ran against Richard Shelby for the 7th Congressional District of Alabama in the U. S. House of Representatives Legislator McNair lost.

McNair served on the Jefferson County Commission from 1986 until his abrupt resignation on March 29, 2001.

Governor Seigelman appointed Steve Small Jr to replace Mr. McNair.

Legislator McNair ran against Congressman Richard Shelby again in 1992, again he lost. Mr McNair was thought well of in the community. .Legislator McNair had been the commissioner with responsibility over the Jefferson County Sewer System, he had difficulty overseeing the task of keeping wastewater out of rivers and streams during periods of heavy rain.

Mr McNair was found guilty of poor planning and mismanagement. and on April 21st Legislator was found guilty of 11 counts of bribery and conspiracy involving contractors . Legislator McNair paid back over 800,000 he was scheduled release on October 13, 2015, but was released early, on August 29, 2013 under a Federal Bureau of Prisons policy to release elderly or sick inmates convicted of non-violent offenses after they serve a majority of their sentence.

There was to be a Fifty year ceremony in remembrance of "The Four Little Girls" Mr McNair would be paroled. in time to participate in the ceremony.

Obituary

Obituary ^[2] "Chris McNair, Father of 16th Street Church Bombing Victim Denise McNair, Dies at 93

Chris McNair, father of 16th Street Baptist Church bombing victim Denise McNair His eldest child, an 11-year-old girl named Denise McNair, was brutally taken from him and their family by a group of homegrown terrorists known as the Ku Klux Klan in the 1963 bombing of Birmingham, Ala.,’s 16th Street Baptist Church.

Now, Chris McNair—father, husband and history-making political figure in his own right—has died at his home in the city he never abandoned despite the pain it brought him. He was 93. The cause was cancer, his daughter Lisa McNair told the Washington Post.

On the day of the bombing, Sept. 15, 1963, Chris McNair was at the Lutheran church he attended. The sound of the blast at the Baptist church his wife and first-born attended could be heard across town. McNair, then a milkman and freelance photographer, recalled wondering if the sound was thunder.

It wasn’t long before he learned the horrible truth: that his daughter Denise and three other girls—Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley—were killed when the Ku Klux Klan bombed the African American house of worship.

Their deaths spurred passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

In the years that followed, McNair, with his wife, Maxine, had two more daughters, and McNair made history by becoming one of the first black state legislators in Alabama since Reconstruction and a Jefferson County commissioner.

He rarely spoke publicly of the loss of his eldest daughter, later telling the Birmingham News: “I didn’t want anybody to ever think I was using Denise to move myself up the line.”

During his time in office as Jefferson County Commissioner, the feds reopened their probe of the 1963 blast, and two KKK members were convicted of the murders, the Birmingham News reports. Two other Klan members were named co-conspirators posthumously.

16th Street Baptist Church Bomber Is Denied Parole Thomas Blanton Jr., 86, the last living convicted bomber in the 1963 attack on the 16th Street…

In 2006, a few years after McNair left office, legal trouble found him. He was convicted of bribery and conspiracy charges involving contractors on a sewer project and spent a little over two years in federal prison.

He was free in time to observe the 50th anniversary of the 1963 bombing.

“What I hope they will remember him for is not his transgressions, not his failings. What I hope they’ll remember Chris for is someone who stayed in Birmingham, despite an unimaginable loss, in a most horrific of circumstances, at a time when he could have easily picked up and left Birmingham, Alabama,” said state Sen. Doug Jones, who served as McNair’s personal defense attorney. “He and [McNair’s wife] Maxine stayed behind to build a better community, to build a better state, to build a better Birmingham.”

Funeral services for McNair, who died May 8, will be held Friday at the church that so marked his life, the 16th Street Baptist Church.

Survivors include his wife, two daughters and 10 siblings.

[2]

RELATED STORIES

55 Years Ago, Someone Blamed a Bombing on a Racist Politician

And racially motivated killings have never stopped. Never will stop until the sickness in the killers is no longer bred, fed, sanctioned, excused and supported. How low down do you have to be to kill children in a house of worship? They are still attacking sacred places where people are minding their own business. Still being excused and supported [3]

Sources

1. ↑ Wikipedia: Chris McNair
2. ↑ [1]

• http://sixtiessurvivors.org/McNair.html

• http://www.bhamwiki.com/w/Chris_McNair

• "United States Census, 1930," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XM2Y-3HB : accessed 12 October 2017), Jewel C Mcnair in household of Jewel Mcnair, Fordyce, Dallas, Arkansas, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) ED 5, sheet 2B, line 52, family 45, NARA microfilm publication T626 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2002), roll 72; FHL microfilm 2,339,807.

• Jewell C Mc Nair
• United States World War II Army Enlistment Records
• Name Jewell C Mc Nair
• Event Type Military Service
• Event Date 27 Nov 1945
• Term of Enlistment One year enlistment
• Event Place Macdill Field, Florida, United States
• Race Negro
• Citizenship Status citizen
• Birth Year 1926
• Birthplace ARKANSAS
• Education Level 2 years of college ...
• Military Rank Private First Class Army Branch...
• No branch assignment Army Component
• Regular Army (including Officers, Nurses, Warrant Officers, and Enlisted Men)

• War II Army Enlistment Records, 1938-1946," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:K8BD-6T9 : 5 December 2014), Jewell C Mc Nair, enlisted 27 Nov 1945, Macdill Field, Florida, United States; citing "Electronic Army Serial Number Merged File, ca. 1938-1946," database, The National Archives: Access to Archival Databases (AAD) (http://aad.archives.gov : National Archives and Records Administration, 2002); NARA NAID 126323, National Archives at College Park, Maryland.

• "Alabama Deaths, 1908-1974," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:JXFP-D95 : 27 November 2014), Jewell C. Mcnair in entry for Carol Denise Mcnair, 15 Sep 1963; citing reference 22042, Department of Health, Montgomery; FHL microfilm 1,909,057
• Find A Grave, database and images (accessed 27 November 2019), memorial page for Jewel Christopher “Chris” McNair (1926–8 May 2019), Find A Grave: Memorial #198983356, citing Elmwood Cemetery, Birmingham, Jefferson County, Alabama, USA ; Maintained by the Chronicler (contributor 47037004) .
• http://www.bhamwiki.com/w/1963_church_bombing
• http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118540/?ref_=nm_flmg_prd_51

See also:

• Wikipedia: 4 Little Girls
• https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q110402825