Description
ISBN: 9798986614571
Format: Trade paperback (US)
Year: 2024
Publisher: Third Man Books
Description:
New evidence in 'Dynamite Nashville: Unmasking the FBI, the KKK, and the Bombers Beyond their Control' uncovers the origin of an organized group of racist terrorists committing nationwide acts of violence against integration efforts in the late 1950's and early 1960s. The book also implicates both the FBI and local law enforcement agencies. No understanding of the violent nationwide white response to desegregation efforts then and white supremacist actions now can be complete without reading 'Dynamite Nashville.' Award winning historian Betsy Phillips not only paints a detailed picture of the social dynamic of the times, but details how a violent fringe of racists came to national prominence. In 'DynamiteNashville,' Phillips unmasks the KKK, reveals a racist terrorist network, "The Confederate Underground," names its principle leader, J.B. Stoner, and shines a much needed historical spotlight on unsung civil rights hero and near martyr Z. Alexander Looby.
Just as Nashville was where Civil Rights icons like John Lewis, James Lawson, and Diane Nash began, Nashville is where one of the country's most prominent organizations of racist terrorists formed. Members of The Confederate Underground would participate in least twenty bombings between 1957 and 1963, including the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama-a bombing for which J.B. Stoner allegedly provided the dynamite. In 'Dynamite Nashville,' Phillips revisits three unsolved Nashville bombings-Hattie Cotton Elementary School (1957), The Jewish Community Center (1958), and the home of Civil Rights attorney and city councilman, Z. Alexander Looby (1960)-