This is a file in the correspondence of Thomas Merton under the heading: "McNair, Chris".
Chris McNair was the father of Carole Denise McNair, one of the children killed in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963. He took a picture of his daughter that was included in Look, which Merton saved and wrote a poem about called "Picture of a Black Child with a White Doll." He captioned the photo, "Carole Denise McNair, one of the four bomb-murdered Negro children, never learned to hate." (Source: The Road to Joy, p. 332.)
Please click here for general restrictions concerning Merton's correspondence.
See also one published letter from Merton to McNair in The Road to Joy, pp. 332-333.
If the person in correspondence with Merton has full text records in the Merton Center Digital Collections, there will be a numeric link to them below.
This Record Sub-Group is not divided into Series and is arranged chronologically.
Click icons for links: ✓="Published | Library Record", ✉="Scanned" | 🗷="Scanned, Viewable Only at Merton Center"
# | Date | From/To | First Lines | Pub ✓ | Notes |
| y/m/d | Merton | | Scan ✉ | |
1. |
1964/10/12 |
TAL[c] from Merton |
This is not exactly an easy letter to write. There is so much to say, and there are no words |
✉ ✓ |
[Merton sends his poem "Picture of a Black Child with a White Doll"]
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