In celebration of Black History Month (last month), the men and women of Weber Gallagher’s diversity committee considered various guest speakers to emphasize the importance of the African American experience in the United States, and how that experience can inform our client relationships and our business strategies. They made their pick. But no one who attended this event, including firm personnel and invited guests, was quite prepared for the influence exerted by the petite—though giant—Sarah Collins Rudolph.

For those of you unfamiliar with her history, Rudolph was an ordinary, everyday little girl in Birmingham, Alabama on Sept. 15, 1963, headed to the 16th Street Baptist Church with her sister Addie Mae. They walked and talked, they tossed their purses back and forth to each other as children do, and entered what they thought would be the welcoming embrace of their family’s house of worship. Shortly afterward, at least 15 sticks of dynamite linked to a timing device went off, killing Addie Mae, along with three other girls: Cynthia Wesley, Carole Roberson and Carol Denise McNair. Twenty-two others were injured in the bombing. Eight year-old Condolezza Rice, at her father’s church nearby, heard the explosion. Secretary Rice hears it to this day.