Hebrew Benevolent Congregation Temple bombing
But, let it be understood that when leadership in high places in any degree fails to support constituted authority, it opens the gates to all those who wish to take the law into their hands.
[1] The day after the bombing, Atlanta Constitution editor and civil rights advocate Ralph McGill tied the bombing to the ongoing civil rights movement in a Pulitzer Prize-winning[2][3] editorial, "A Church, A School..." Jacob Rothschild, the temple's rabbi since 1946,[4] was a highly visible and early[4] advocate of civil rights and integration,[2] supporter of the United States Supreme Court's decision ending school segregation in Brown v. Board of Education,[4] and friend of Martin Luther King Jr.
In 1957, he helped author the Ministers' Manifesto, a statement signed by 80 clergy members in Atlanta that offered several key tenets that they proposed should shape the discussion over school integration, which included communication between white and African American leaders.
[6] The bombing ripped the delicate social fabric of Atlanta, which called itself the "city too busy to hate,"[7] although it also elicited widespread support for Rothschild and the Temple from Jewish and non-Jewish Atlantans alike.
B. Stoner, founder and chairman of the National States Rights Party (NSRP), who, according to Griffin, left Atlanta before the explosion in order to establish an alibi.
[17] Police had by then searched nineteen Atlanta-area houses associated with the suspects and had uncovered large caches of anti-Semitic propaganda, some of which was attributed to the Christian Anti-Jewish Party.
[18] On October 17, one of the five suspects, Luther King Corley, was released and the other four, Wallace Allen, Bright, Griffin, and Robert A. Bolling, had been indicted by a Georgia state grand jury on a capital charge of bombing The Temple.
[14] The New York Times reported on October 17 that American Nazi Party founder George Lincoln Rockwell had written to Allen in July 1958 and mentioned a "big blast.
"[14] Material found during the investigation also linked future NSRP vice-presidential candidate and former naval officer John G. Crommelin with the suspects.
[11] The first suspect to be tried, George Bright, initially appeared before the court on December 1, 1958[21] represented by, among others, James R. Venable, Imperial Wizard of the National Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.
"[23] On December 3, the state of Georgia produced a note that Bright (admittedly) had written to Rothschild after the May meeting informing him that "You are going to experience the most terrifying thing in your life.
"[24] On December 4, a witness testified that Bright had been friendly with noted segregationist John Kasper and had regularly attended meetings of the National States Rights Party.
[34] Georgia solicitor general Paul Webb announced during Bright's trial that his prosecution of the remaining defendants would be guided by its result.
[32] After Bright's acquittal, Webb was unsure whether his office would proceed with the prosecution of Allen, Griffin, and Richard Bolling, the three defendants remaining under indictment.
