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Randall Jimerson, an archivist and history professor at Western Washington University who lives in Bellingham, was 14 at the time of the bombing. The family, he says, was inspired to donate after hearing President Obama talk at the museum groundbreaking about how it would house artifacts that would help his daughters understand the civil rights era. “He mentioned specifically broken shards of glass from the 16th Street Baptist Church,” Jimerson says. His voice breaks, and he pauses. “When I heard that, I said that’s what we have to do.”