In the middle of the night on Sunday, October 12, 1958, fifty sticks of dynamite exploded in the entryway of an Atlanta synagogue. The blast took place at the Hebrew Benevolent Congregation, the oldest and most prominent synagogue in Atlanta. Its rabbi was an outspoken integrationist.
Parts of the temple were blown apart. Not long after, staff at the news agency United Press International received a call from someone identifying himself as "General Gordon of the Confederate Underground." "We bombed a temple in Atlanta," he said. "This is the last empty building we will bomb.… Negroes and Jews are hereby declared aliens."
