The First Bethel Bombing

The First Bethel Bombing. March Route for Moral Justice. In November 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed segregated buses in Montgomery, handing the bus boycott and the growing Civil Rights Movement a major victory. As a result, Rev. Shuttlesworth led the ACMHR to target Birmingham's segregated buses. When the transit company refused the ACMHR's request to change its seating policy, he announced that ACMHR members would test the system on December 26 by intentionally sitting in the White section of city buses. The night before, inside his parsonage, Shuttlesworth was talking with a church deacon while his children watched television and his wife worked in the kitchen. Then a bomb of 12 dynamite sticks exploded. , Paired marker , December 25, 1956 , The bomb, planted in the narrow alley between the church and the parsonage, blasted Rev. Shuttlesworth out of his bed and through the air. The powerful blast shattered the parsonage windows, caved in the front end of its roof and wrecked furniture. It also damaged the church and nearby houses. Worried church members and Collegeville neighbors surrounded the house, expecting the worse. Yet, no one was killed or even severely hurt. Shuttlesworth emerged from the house with a minor head injury. The people believed his miraculous survival was proof that he was called to lead the Birmingham Movement., "God saved the Reverend to lead the fight!", Unidentified Woman , Shouted outside the bombed parsonage on December 25, 1956., Lesson 46: What did segregationists believe about the Movement? Why do you think so many Black people believed that God prevented Rev. Shuttlesworth and his family from dying in the explosion?