Home / Full timeline / The home of Nashville, Tennessee’s Black City Councilman Z. Alexander Looby is demolished by a dynamite bomb. He and his family escaped injury.
The home of Nashville, Tennessee’s Black City Councilman Z. Alexander Looby is demolished by a dynamite bomb. He and his family escaped injury.
1960 (Apr 19)
The home of Nashville, Tennessee's Black City Councilman Z. Alexander Looby was demolished by a dynamite bomb. The NAACP attorney and his family escaped injury. The bomb also damaged several homes in Looby's neighborhood and blew out hundreds of windows at the Black Meharry Medical College; several medical students were injured by the flying glass. Looby had been Chief Counsel for more than one hundred students arrested in Nashville, Tennessee sit-ins since demonstrations began there in February. After the bombing, more than two thousand Blacks marched on the Nashville City Hall in protest of police failure to halt the racial violence. Reverend C.T. Vivian accused Nashville Mayor Ben West of encouraging the violence by permitting police to use their authority with partiality. West denied the accusation and claimed that he favored the desegregation of lunch counters. But, he said, businessmen practicing segregation were acting within their rights.
References:
- • Hornsby, Alton. Chronology of African-American History: Significant Events and People from 1619 to the Present. Detroit: Gale Research, 1995.