This story and video are part of a series of articles, “Bending Toward Justice,” focusing on the 60th anniversary of events that took place in Birmingham during 1963 that changed the face of the city, and the world, in the ongoing struggle for equality and human rights. The series name is a reference to a quote by Martin Luther King Jr.: “Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.” The series will continue through 2023.

“We have to love each other.”

That is just one of the simple but profound messages conveyed in Lisa McNair’s recently published book, “Dear Denise: Letters to the Sister I Never Knew.”

McNair was born in 1964, just a year after her sister, Denise, was killed by the Ku Klux Klan in the infamous bombing of Birmingham’s Sixteenth Street Baptist Church – 60 years ago this month.

“That was painful: to have somebody in your life who was that close to you that you never got to know and never got to meet,” McNair said in an interview with Alabama News Center videographer Joe Allen.

Perple Mudd Photography

In her book, more than a decade in the making, Lisa opens her heart in a collection of 40 letters written to her murdered sister. According to the website goodreads, the letters “[…] offer an intimate look into the life of a family touched by one of the most heinous tragedies of the Civil Rights Movement.”

But the book is much more. Featuring nearly 30 photos from the McNair family connection — many of them taken by her father Chris McNair, a professional photographer — Lisa shares her personal journey of growing up in the shadow of her sister’s murder, which her parents “never got over.” While composing the book, both of Lisa’s parents died, which she also explores in the volume as a way to “say goodbye to them.”

Lisa also reflects on the challenges and opportunities she has experienced as part of the first generation of Blacks to grow up in the wake of the civil rights movement and the end of officially sanctioned segregation in the deep South.

“There was a lot of loneliness and trying to find out where I fit in,” said Lisa, who attended both integrated public schools and a mostly white private school.

She said she hopes the book – which goodreads describes as “unswervingly candid, gentle and nuanced” – will inspire and encourage others in their personal journeys.

Learn more about Lisa and the McNair family in the video below: