Dynamite Nashville: Unmasking the FBI, the KKK, and the Bombers Beyond their Control
“You don’t know Nashville—the South, or America’s dark soul—until you’ve read Dynamite Nashville. Betsy Phillips' true stories tell us who we are. Her unique voice—personal, funny and tragic—should be listened to and savored.” — former U.S. Representative Jim Cooper
"Phillips' patience, attention to detail, and dogged determination have provided us with a work that not only describes these events in sharp detail but names the villains responsible for these cowardly actions and in many instances the villains who allowed them to fade into obscurity. " — Dr. Learotha Williams, Jr., professor of history at Tennessee State University and editor of I’ll Take You There: Exploring Nashville’s Social Justice Sites
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 'Dynamite Nashville,' 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) —and uncovers the same J.B. Stoner, perhaps best known by the public as one of James Earl Ray’s attorneys, as the mind behind the bombings. Additionally, her research shows how the differing agendas of local police and the FBI allowed these bombers to escape prosecution until decades later, if at all. 'Dynamite Nashville,' is a prequel to the racist violence of the 1960s, the story of how these bombers came together to learn how to terrorize communities, to blow up homes, schools, and religious buildings, and to escape any meaningful justice. It is also the story of how communities and heroes like Z. Alexander Looby pushed back.
Author:
Betsy Phillips
photo by Rachael Johnson
Betsy Phillips has written for the Nashville Scene and the Washington Post. Her fiction has appeared in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and Apex Magazine, among others. She was named 2019 Best Historian in the Best of Nashville edition of the Nashville Scene and has served on the board of Historic Nashville, Inc. She lives in Whites Creek, Tennessee.
