Investigators work outside the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., following an explosion that killed four young girls. Three Ku Klux Klansmen were convicted in the bombing years later. AP hide caption

One man was convicted in the bombing in 1977, but more than two decades would pass before any other suspects were tried for murder. AP hide caption

Ronald Lewis, a resident of the Lower 9th Ward, says eight years after Hurricane Katrina, rebuilding his neighborhood is a story still in progress. Debbie Elliott/NPR hide caption

Southern Poverty Law Center President Richard Cohen discusses a federal lawsuit against the Alabama Accountability Act on Monday. Cohen says all students in Alabama can't take advantage of the law. Dave Martin/AP hide caption

Shelby County, Ala., attorney Butch Ellis talks to reporters outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in February, when oral arguments were heard in the Voting Rights Act case. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images hide caption

Medgar Evers' widow, Myrlie, comforts the couple's 9-year-old son, Darrel, at her husband's funeral in Jackson, Miss., on June 15, 1963. AP hide caption

Tourists watch as workers clean oil from the sand along a strip of oil that washed up on the beach in Gulf Shores, Ala., in 2010 after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded off the Louisiana coast. Dave Martin/AP hide caption