BPL 2021 Local Authors Expo Spotlight: Sarah Collins Rudolph

Sarah Collins Rudolph will appear at the 2021 Local Authors Expo.

Author: Sarah Collins Rudolph 

Book Title: The 5th Little Girl: Soul Survivor of the 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing (The Sarah Collins Rudolph Story)

My favorite quote that I live by: “Love wins.”

How to buy her book: The 5th Little Girl is available on Amazon.com by clicking here  You can also check out The 5th Little Girl from Birmingham Public Library locations by clicking here. 

Birmingham, Ala.-The Birmingham Public Library’s 2021 Local Authors Expo is this Saturday, November 20. BPL is spotlighting some of the 25 poets who will sell their books as well as the three keynote speakers: Ashley M. Jones, Alabama's first African-American poet laureate; Eunice Elliott, a former NBC 13 anchor turned author/comedienne; and Dr. Fred Jones, a book coach. 

 Come Saturday and meet Sarah Collins Rudolph, co-author of The 5th Little Girl: Soul Survivor of the 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing. Four little black girls died in the September 15, 1963 bombing at 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, set by white supremacists. Sarah, then 12, was the only survivor. Among the victims was her older sister, 14-year-old Addie Mae Collins.

Her memoir, The 5th Little Girl, is Sarah's effort to set the record straight and educate the public about her story as a survivor, which was not well known. 

 Sarah hosted a book talk at Smithfield Branch Library on September 15, the 58th anniversary of the tragic bombing.

Sequoria Lewis, branch manager at Smithfield Library, wrote a review of "The 5th Little Girl" in September before the talk.   

 In a Q&A, Sarah talks about the difficulty of reliving the tragic 1963 bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church.

BPL: Tell us about your memoir “The 5th Little Girl: The Soul Survivor of the 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing”

Sarah: It talks about what happened during the church bombing, how I lost my sight, was having panic attacks and my sister was killed. My dreams of becoming a nurse were never fulfilled because of the bombing. It talks about living in the Jim Crow era.

 BPL: Describe the meaning of your book title in using the phrase “soul survivor” instead of sole survivor of the church bombing. 

Sarah: Reason I did not use sole is that my soul survived the bombing. God saved me. My soul changed and I became a better person because of the love to God. 

 BPL: Was it difficult to write your memoir, reliving that dark day in your life in which you lost your sister and suffered major injuries in the bombing of Sixteen Street Baptist Church?

Sarah: It wasn’t as difficult to write it. I had a co-author who helped write it. So many people did not know I was the fifth little girl who survived the bombing. So many stories came out but were not true. I wanted the truth out because I was there and lived through it myself. 

 BPL: Who is your favorite author? 

 Sarah: My favorite author is Diane McCormick (the Birmingham native who won a Pulitzer Prize in 202 for her book "Carry Me Home: Birmingham Alabama: The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution). She wrote about those dark days and there was a lot of truth in her book. 

 BPL: What can attendees of the 2021 Local Authors Expo expect from your book?

 Sarah: My book tells the truth of how I overcame the trauma of the bombing. It was only through Christ that I overcame it. 

BPL: What advice can you offer those who want to write a book? 

Sarah: It takes time. Doing this book took 19 years but finally I was able to finish it.