The Second Bethel Bombing

The Second Bethel Bombing. March Route for Moral Justice. June 1958 , Rev. Shuttlesworth called 1958 “a year of harassment” as terrorist violence against the ACMHR's movement grew worse. Bethel Baptist Deacon James Revis offered his home near the new parsonage as a guardhouse. Other men from the church and the Collegeville community armed themselves and stood watch during two night shifts at the guardhouse and in the rear of the parsonage, all to protect their leader and the church. Around 1:30 a.m. on Sunday, June 29, 1958, the guards found a smoking bomb in a bucket next to the church and ran to put it in the street. It exploded, blowing a deep hole in the street and knocking out some windows in the church and nearby homes. But the blast caused no structural damage to the church or the new parsonage. , "To be a meeting church was to invite terror from the police and the Klan.", Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth , Bethel Baptist's pastor from 1953 to 1961., Lesson F11: If the Movement was such a nonviolent Movement, why did Rev. Shuttlesworth and Bethel Baptist Church need to be guarded?