Counterblast: How the Atlanta Temple Bombing Strengthened the Civil Rights Cause

Abstract

Damage from the Reform Temple bombing, October 1958. Courtesy of the Cuba Archives of the Breman Museum. Clive Webb revisits the 1958 bombing of the Atlanta Reform Temple, when militant white supremacists expressed their resistance to segregation and civil rights by dynamiting the most prominent symbol of Jewish life and culture in Atlanta. While members of white radical groups like the National States Rights Party hoped the blast would ignite a full-scale race war against Jews and blacks in the South, it instead served to underscore support for Jews and liberal racial attitudes. Using archival material, including letters of support sent after the bombing and propaganda materials from the National States Rights Party, Webb examines the complex ways in which the bombing and its aftermath affected Atlanta's Jews, blacks fighting for civil rights, and segregationist southern whites.

Keywords

• Criminal Justice
• Religion and Spirituality
• Social Movements
• Urban and Suburban Studies
• Whiteness Studies
• Atlanta Studies