Sarah Collins stood before the Clearwater High students Saturday morning in the basement of 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala. wearing a neat blue two-piece suit. Most in the room had heard of the four little girls who were killed by a bomb while in that same basement on Sunday, September 15, 1963. But through research and some hard work, the Clearwater High students had found and now was listening to the fifth girl who was in that basement.

Sarah Collins, 12 years old at that time, survived, though her vision was damaged for life. Her sister Addie Mae Collins, 14, did not.

Collins spoke to the students on the third day of a five-day Civil Rights Tour which brings them up close to the people and places involved in the Civil Rights Movement. The students will visit Atlanta, Ga., Birmingham, Montgomery and Selma, Ala. and Memphis, Tenn. During the school year, the 22 students researched experiences that connects them to the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. The students made contact and scheduled the speakers, museums and local cuisine.

In meticulous detail, Collins led the students through every moment of that 1963 morning.  She pointed to where she was standing in the basement. She told the students about how happy everyone was and that one girl was tying the sash on the dress of another. Then there was the bomb. She called out for her sister and there was no answer.

 Collins spent weeks in the hospital with bandages over both her eyes. She passed around a photo of that image that brought tears to the eyes of some of the Clearwater High students. As a result of the bomb, she lost vision permanently in her right eye. Collins said that she could not attend her sister’s funeral because she was in the hospital. Any loud sound caused her to jump.

Through the years, Collins said she grew stronger with her relationship with God and found the will and the strength of forgiveness. She later married the man who graduated from high school the same year with year. On that Sunday morning, he heard the bomb’s blast while at a church in another part of Birmingham. He would serve a tour in Vietnam. Now, they are a team and speak to students to inform them about the Civil Rights Movement.

The students then toured the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and later traveled to Bethel Baptist Church, a leader of the church-led Southern Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s. The church was bombed three times because of its stance against Jim Crow. Its pastor, Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth, used nonviolent techniques to bring social change. Rev. Shuttlesworth, who survived a bombing of his home, was instrumental in confronting segregated housing, transportation, schools and employment discrimination.

The Clearwater High students are participating in a project-based personalized learning opportunity. The school is part of the first group of schools in the district to implement Personalized Learning through the district’s Pinellas Innovates plan.