Bobby Frank Cherry (June 20, 1930 – November 18, 2004) was an American white supremacist, terrorist, and Klansman who was convicted of murder in 2002 for his role in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in 1963.

The bombing killed four young African-American girls (Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley, Addie Mae Collins, and Denise McNair) and injured more than 20 other people.

After his time with the Marines, Cherry worked a series of low-paying jobs, including a long stint as a truck driver.

[1] During his trial, the prosecution presented evidence that Cherry, a white man, had assaulted black minister Fred Shuttlesworth in 1957 using a set of brass knuckles.

At his trial, he denied his involvement in the bombing as well as his affiliation with the Ku Klux Klan, but he was ultimately found guilty.

"[3] Michael Wayne Goings, a house painter who worked with Cherry in Dallas in 1982, said he also heard him boast about the crime, even saying "You know, I bombed that church.

They were subsequently misplaced or archived and were rediscovered in 1997; the rediscovery of the tapes ultimately led to the prosecution of Blanton and Cherry.

[5] Also presented at Bobby Cherry's trial were videos showing explosives in the same quantity as had been used in the bombing being used to destroy a car in a field.

The violent force of the explosion evident in the video was designed to counter the defense's suggestion that, though they claimed that Cherry was not involved, the purpose of the bomb may have been to scare the church congregants, not to kill or injure them.

"[3] At one point, the prosecutors "froze the film as a grinning, slender white man with a bulbous nose, wavy hair and a cigarette dangling from his mouth — unmistakably a grinning young Bobby Frank Cherry — was seen slamming his fist into the minister's head after pulling what appeared to be a set of brass knuckles from his back pocket.

He could be seen joking with his lawyers and several supporters, not appearing to believe that the legal system which had protected him up to that point would ultimately send him to jail.

The court rejected Cherry's claim that a delay of 37 years between his commission of the crime and his indictment in 2000 had resulted in an inherently unfair trial.