Bombing of the Z. Alexander Looby Home

Z. Alexander Looby (1899-1972) was a prominent civil rights lawyer from the late 1930s until the late 1960s. He also served on the Nashville City Council and the Metropolitan Council. In the pre-dawn hours of April 19, 1960, during a boycott of white-owned businesses to protest segregation in Nashville, this house, occupied by Looby and his wife, Grafta, was bombed. They survived, but later that day, in solidarity with the Looby family, approximately 3,000 civil rights activists, including many students from the city's four Black colleges and universities, marched on the Davidson County Courthouse, By June, the seven downtown Nashville stores originally targeted with sit-ins and other protests desegregated their lunch counters. Concern over the bombing of the Looby residence and the economic boycott helped achieve that result.