Attacked in places most sacred, congregations struggle on By ADAM GELLER AP National Writer

AP Photo/Tom Lynn on a place considered sacred can inflict the deepest of scars. Members of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, had to rebuild both the congregation's structure and psyche after a bomb planted by Ku Klux Klansmen ripped apart the building and killed four black girls gathered for Sunday worship on Sept. 15, 1963. The city already was known as "Bombingham" because of a series of racist bombings going back years. But the bloody specter of children dying in church shocked the nation. "If these cruel and tragic events can only awaken that city and state - if they can only awaken this entire nation - to a realization of the folly of racial injustice and atred and violence, then it is not too late for all concerned to unite in steps toward peaceful progress before more lives are lost," President John F. Kennedy said. The victims buried, members turned to repairing damage that included cracks throughout the structure. Donors gave more than $300,000 to restore the church. Today, light from a memorial window donated by the people of Wales still casts a blue glow over the sanctuary's upper balcony. The repairs were long completed by the time the Rev. Arthur Price arrived as pastor 13 years ago. But memories were still fresh among members who were there the day the bomb went off. "I think no one really gets over that," says Price. "Every day you think about your friends. Every day you think about your loved ones. Every day you think about what happened in your place of security and sanctity." The church has become one of Alabama's leading tourist attractions. Strangers often attend worship; some even show up at intimate Bible or prayer meetings like the one being held at Charleston's Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church when a young white man allegedly intent on harming blacks opened fire. At 16th Street, even now, members remain a bit on edge. "If someone comes in with a backpack and leaves a backpack, you know, eyebrows begin to raise," Price says. In Wisconsin, Kaleka recalls sitting with about 100 other congregants in a bowling alley across the street from the temple on the day of the shooting, waiting for police to confirm the names of the victims. The temple remained closed for weeks as police teams and congregants unrelated to those killed worked to remove the blood-soaked carpets and scrubbed stains from the walls. The assailant, a white supremacist, committed suicide immediately after the attack. Framed photos of those killed were hung in the temple's entryway soon after the shooting. But Kaleka said the temple's trustees chose to take them down in 2013. "They removed them because they felt like they gave too much of a feeling of what had happened and people wanted to move on," Kaleka says. "But I think we have to build a foundation on the lives that were lost." One bullet remains lodged in the frame of the doorway entering the great hall, Kaleka says. "We left that there, and it goes with our mantra - Snatam Kaur- we are one." Mourning was not enough for Kaleka. He joined with a former white supremacist, Arno Michaelis, to create Serve2Unite, a community group that works to counter violence with peace. They visit local schools, where Michaelis describes his former life of hate and Kaleka explains how that sort of hatred led to pointless bloodshed. Soon, Kaleka hopes to take what he has learned to South Carolina, to talk with the families of those killed. "That wound will never ever go away," he says. "But what you can do is build around that wound. Because you always remember that it's there." In Atlanta, the weeks after the 1958 bombing brought hundreds of envelopes filled with dollar bills and notes of concern from around the country, despite the congregation's announcement that the building was fully insured. "People just wanted to show they cared," says Janice Rothschild Blumberg, whose husband, Jacob, served as rabbi of The Temple. Their son, Bill Rothschild, says that the Charleston shooting reminded him of how comparatively lucky his congregation had been. Finding a way forward from such horror seems unimaginable, he says. But Melissa Fay Green, whose book "The Temple Bombing" chronicled the Atlanta attack, says the role public support played in reassuring congregants then leaves her hopeful Charleston worshippers might eventually find comfort from those near and far. "I do believe that in their grief that people will feel the country is grieving with them, that we respect you, we identify with you, we are part of you," she says, "that this outrage has been committed against all of us."