SNCC Bombed

by

Fifth Estate # 55, June 4-18, 1968

The Detroit office of the Student Nonviolent Co-ordinating Committee (SNCC) was bombed on May 17. The office is located at 12322 Dexter.

Two SNCC members, Kinley Summers and Roy Swan were slightly injured by the blast and the flying glass. The police said they found the remains of what appeared to be a home-made bomb.

The landlord, Diamond Jim Riley said he saw three white men sitting in a car as he was leaving his office just before the bomb exploded.

“I thought those guys were cops since they are around here so much,” he said. The police have kept the office under constant surveillance since it opened three months ago.

The landlord has received numerous telephone threats since renting to SNCC. Mr. Riley believes that he was bombed because he refused to evict his tenants. “I will rent to whoever I choose and the SNCC people can stay as long as they pay their rent,” he said.

The SNCC office was only slightly damaged as was Riley’s car and his business next door. “It will be ‘business as usual’ when I get the place repaired, but if I catch anyone around here trying to bomb the place again, they will think a war has broken out.”

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