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But Virgil Ware's death went largely unnoticed then and is hardly recalled today. And so it is with the stories of hundreds of other bystanders swept into civil rights traumas. Their tales don't involve the main characters of the day--villains like Connor or martyrs like King. But what these incidental players did and suffered--and how those actions may have changed them--is just as important a legacy of the movement as the key historic turning points studied in schools today.
The story of Sims and Farley and their victim's family did not produce a clean, redemptive outcome for all. Told that this month marks the 40th anniversary of Virgil's death, Farley twirls his fingers sarcastically and says, "Whoop-de-do!" But Sims, who like Farley got no prison time for the killing, says his indifference about civil rights died that day too--and friends say he told them he decided to serve in the Vietnam War because he felt he still had a "debt" to pay. "Virgil knows in heaven that positive consequences came from this," Sims told TIME in his first-ever interview about the killing. "He knows that his death helped change society--that it changed me." As for the relatives whom Virgil left behind, they suddenly found themselves involved in a movement that had seemed remote before his death, and they drew strength from its nonviolent philosophy. "You can't hate anyone and call yourself a Christian," says Virgil's brother Melvin, who has since become an avatar of racial harmony in his community.
Birmingham in 1963 desperately needed change. It was the civil rights epicenter, a place where bombings of the black community were so frequent that the town was nicknamed "Bombingham." Most white families were apoplectic about federal court orders to integrate the city's public schools, and one of their champions was the Farleys' Baptist pastor, the Rev. Ferrell Griswold. Griswold (who died in 1981) was, ironically, an American Indian whose birth certificate read "colored," but he harbored a century's worth of Native American hatred for the Federal Government and spoke out for states' rights at segregation rallies--like the one Farley and Sims attended that Sunday. Virgil's killing "haunted him afterward," says Griswold's son Jon, 40, who teaches English in Birmingham to migrants. "He refocused." The older Griswold eventually stopped speaking at rallies, telling friends, "We have to change hearts before we tackle politics."
But even before Griswold's conversion, some whites were hearing a different kind of message from ministers like the Sims' Baptist pastor, the Rev. Ralph Jernigan. He often quoted Bible passages about Jesus' breaking down the "middle wall of partition," as code for racial tolerance. "You couldn't convey too much from the pulpit," Jernigan, 72, recalls, "because you could alienate the people you wanted to lead. But Larry Joe Sims and his family were not racist. That's why what happened was so amazing to all of us."