Grace McKinley walking her daughter, Linda Gail McKinley, to Fehr Elementary School on Sept. 9, 1957.
Sept. 10 marks the 60th anniversary of the first day of integrated first grade in Nashville’s public schools — and therefore the 60th anniversary of the unsolved bombing of Hattie Cotton Elementary School.
Trouble had been brewing throughout August of 1957. John Kasper, a well-known segregationist had come to town early in the month, high off instigating race riots earlier in Clinton, Tenn. He and his followers, many of whom were locals in the Ku Klux Klan, repeatedly fought with the police about holding rallies in Centennial Park and then held rallies out in a field in The Nations. Kasper urged his followers to pressure white Nashvillians into keeping their kids out of school until the integration of first grade was halted.
Since Kasper had come to town at war with Donald Davidson’s Tennessee Federation for Constitutional Government and portions of the Klan — due to his flamboyant rabble rousing and, probably, his penchant for sticking his dick in racist women who were married to his Klan buddies — and since his crowds usually broke up right about the time he started asking for money, I think it’s fair to say that the police didn’t immediately recognize Kasper as a serious problem.
But after 13 black families had registered their children for first grade at previously all-white schools at the end of August, things began to escalate. Racists called the first graders’ homes and threatened the families. The Memphis Press Scimitar reported that Kasper “said his followers would visit each of the 13 Negro families. He said the parents would be warned that unless they withdrew their children from white schools they would be shot, hanged or have their homes dynamited.”
On Sept. 6, segregationists lost their last effort to get the court to halt integration. Z. Alexander Looby represented the family who sued to integrate Nashville schools.
On Sept. 7, City Police Chief Douglas Hossee promised all Nashville parents that their children could go to school safely. On that same day, John Kasper supposedly showed up at the home of Klansman, Charles Reed, who had been collecting Kasper’s mail for him, with some sticks of dynamite and, as the FBI recorded, “four quart fruit jars of powder in his possession. By innuendo, Kasper allegedly indicated to Reed that the dynamite and powder would be used on a school.” Reed told FBI agents that Kasper wanted to leave the bomb at Reed’s house, but ended up leaving it at an abandoned house near St. Cecilia’s.
Sunday, Sept. 8, saw Kasper holding a series of rallies around town, calling for students to boycott schools. At some point, either on this day or early on Sept. 9, the FBI heard Reed’s story from him. They reported his story to the police, but kept his identity secret from them. The FBI investigated the empty house, but found no trace of a bomb. Still, before school started, the police had heard that Kasper had a bomb and intended to use it.
Sept. 9, 1957, was the first day of school. The front of The Tennessean again proclaimed that children would be safe. This time the promise was made by Elmer Pettit, the chairman of the school board, and the assistant superintendent.
The schools that desegregated first grade that day were Glenn, Jones, Buena Vista, Fehr, Hattie Cotton, and Clemmons. The black students who tried to go to Caldwell were turned away for technical reasons, and the little girl who was supposed to go to Bailey was transferred to a black school by her parents at the last minute.
The protests at most of the integrating schools were heated. White women led crowds of angry segregationists as they screamed at children and threw rocks at anyone trying to enter the schools. At least three cars full of Klansmen drove around town with KKK painted on their doors. Kasper visited most of the schools and urged angry whites to come to his rally that evening on the steps of War Memorial Auditorium.
There were few, if any, protesters at Hattie Cotton, because the one black child in first grade hadn’t pre-registered. The racists didn’t know Hattie Cotton was going to be integrated until it was.
That evening, Kasper held his largest, angriest rally. The crowd marched from War Memorial Auditorium to the steps of the Tennessee State Capitol. John Kasper had a rope, which he formed into a noose and, according to a policeman at the scene, Kasper told the crowd it would fit Looby’s neck.
As the rally broke up, white people, especially young white men, poured into the city and began rioting all over town. According to the FBI, when Reed got home that night, at about 11 p.m., he “found Kasper waiting for him in a distraught emotional state. Kasper asked him ‘where the hell’ he had been when he needed him. Kasper indicated that he wanted Reed to go with him, but Reed refused.” Kasper left.
Meanwhile, a rumor that Fehr would be blown up at midnight spread throughout the rioters. They made their way to the school. Midnight came and went.
Then, at 12:33 a.m. Sept. 10, 1957, Hattie Cotton exploded. The bomb went off at the east end of the main hallway, between the library and a classroom. Walls crumbled. Ceilings fell. Every window was knocked out.
According to The Tennessean, the police investigators “believe approximately a case of dynamite, possibly still in its box, was placed outside the building in the porchway.” It was detonated with an electric cap. The state fire marshal estimated “that approximately 100 sticks of dynamite caused the explosion.”
Kasper had acquired a room on Scott Avenue shortly before the start of the school year. Within 10 minutes of the blast, police were rousing him out of bed there. He had apparently been asleep. The noise hadn’t woken him.
The bomb the police theorized blew up the school was clearly not the bomb Kasper allegedly had — the handful of sticks of dynamite and the jars full of powder.
Kasper’s bomb, if indeed Reed was telling the truth, was never found. No one was ever charged in the Hattie Cotton bombing. The identities of the bombers remain unknown.
