New book sparks investigation into unsolved bombings from Nashville's desegregation years

Nashville police are reopening the investigations into three unsolved Civil Rights era bombings a local author believes were perpetrated by a network of racist terrorists in the South while the FBI turned a blind eye.

Mayor Freddie O’Connell announced July 13 that he asked the Metro Nashville Police Department to assign an investigator in the department’s cold case unit to lead investigations into the bombings of Hattie Cotton Elementary School, the Jewish Community Center and the home of city council member and prominent civil rights attorney Z. Alexander Looby between 1957 and 1960.

MNPD spokesperson Kristin Mumford said the department is still in the preliminary stages of “getting things going” on the investigations.

O’Connell made the announcement at the book launch of “Dynamite Nashville: Unmasking the FBI, the KKK and the Bombers Beyond Their Control” by Betsy Phillips, a writer, historian and columnist for the Nashville Scene.

Third Man Books, a local publisher, released the book July 16. Phillips said she worked on it for about seven years and pieced together new information to find who she believes are the suspects in at least one of the bombings.

“This book is not the last word on the bombings,” a statement from O’Connell’s office reads in part. “For 64 years, the question of who is responsible for three bombings has gone unresolved. The book doesn't have all the answers, but it can be the beginning of new discovery and a new conversation.”

Phillips said the news was very exciting and that she was relieved to have a well-resourced group looking into the case after years of what was mostly a solitary endeavor.

“I don’t know how to make sense of (the cases being reopened),” she said. “Because I thought it was so improbable, I didn’t really think of what might come of it."

Phillips through her research concluded the bombings were connected. While some people initially believed at least two of the bombings might have been connected, that idea faded over time, Phillips said.

The “Confederate Underground,” a secret network of terrorists with ties to the Ku Klux Klan throughout the South pushing back against integration and the Civil Rights Movement, was likely the group behind the attacks, she said. Phillips said her book also shows how the FBI appears to have been involved to varying degrees in some of the bombings, including being warned ahead of time of the attacks and not cooperating in local police’s investigations.

“They hid witnesses, they backdated memos,” Phillips said of the FBI. “They were telling Nashville police, ‘Well, you know, we'll analyze your evidence for you in our fancy lab, but we're not going to be any part of the investigation.’”

Phillips said she sees a connection between the attacks she wrote about in “Dynamite Nashville” and the presence of neo-Nazi groups in the city in recent months.

“Some of them really know their history,” she said. “They are coming to Nashville because of that history. So when we as a city try to pretend like these are just unfortunate, isolated (events) that have nothing to do with each other, we're kind of hamstringing ourselves when it comes to dealing with these guys.”

One of Phillips’ biggest hurdles while researching was that Nashville does not have police files from before 1963, she said.

O’Connell also said in his announcement he is asking Metro Legal to work with the Metro Public Records Commission “on recommendations for improvements in records retention so important records are not lost to future generations.”

The bombings

On Sept. 10, 1957, dynamite exploded under Hattie Cotton Elementary School in East Nashville in response to the integration of the school. Six-year-old Patricia Watson was the first Black student to attend Hattie Cotton, walking into the school on Sept. 9, 1957. No one was injured, but much of the school was destroyed.

Phillips said she is “100% confident” that she has identified at least two of the suspects. Police at the time believed the Hattie Cotton bombing was carried out by three people.

On March 16, 1958, the entrance of Nashville’s Jewish Community Center was bombed. Phillips noted in a 2018 Scene column that a local rabbi and The Tennessean were both called by people claiming to be the bombers within minutes who revealed anti-integration motives for bombing the center. No one was injured.

She said it is “very likely” that she identified two of the men who blew up the Jewish Community Center.

On April 19, 1960, a bomb detonated under the porch of Nashville councilman and civil rights attorney Z. Alexander Looby’s home in North Nashville. Much of the house was destroyed, but Looby and his wife survived. As a lawyer, Looby had argued school desegregation cases and had represented activists arrested in sit-ins around town. Later that day, 22-year-old student and activist Diane Nash led a march to the steps of the city courthouse and confronted Mayor Ben West about segregation. Nashville’s lunch counters were integrated within weeks, making it the first Southern city to do so.

The FBI told Phillips in 2018 that it had destroyed its file on the Looby bombing. Thanks to help from Nashville activist and U.S. Rep. John Lewis’ office and Rep. Jim Cooper, Phillips received the file in 2023, she said.

She said she feels the Looby bombing is still an open question.

“My grave concern with that bombing is that the FBI may have been involved in some way,” she said.

Evan Mealins is the justice reporter for The Tennessean. Contact him at emealins@gannett.com or follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @EvanMe a lins .

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: New book sparks investigation into unsolved bombings from Nashville's desegregation years