J. B. Stoner
| J.B. Stoner | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
April 13, 1924 La Fayette, Georgia |
| Died | April 23, 2005 (aged 81) La Fayette, Georgia |
| Occupation | Attorney |
| Parent(s) | Jesse Benjamin Stoner Sr. Minnie Stoner |
Jesse Benjamin "J.B." Stoner (April 13, 1924 – April 23, 2005) was an American segregationist convicted in 1980 of the 1958 bombing of the Bethel Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama.
He was a founder and long-time chairman of the National States' Rights Party and publisher of its newsletter, The Thunderbolt. Stoner unsuccessfully attempted to run as a Democrat for several political offices in order to promote his white supremacist agenda.
Stoner's family ran a sight-seeing company on Lookout Mountain, Georgia, and in nearby Chattanooga. At age two, Stoner contracted childhood polio, which impaired a leg, causing a lifelong limp. His father Jesse Benjamin Stoner, Sr., died when he was five; his mother Minnie died when he was 17.
Stoner admired segregationist politician Theodore G. Bilbo. Stoner became active in white supremacist groups and traveled to Washington, D.C. to support Bilbo.
Stoner rechartered a chapter of the Ku Klux Klan in Chattanooga when he was 18 years old. Stoner once said that "being a Jew [should] be a crime punishable by death". He ran the National States' Rights Party, which attracted such fringe political figures as Addison Roswell Thompson, a perennial Democratic candidate for governor of Louisiana and mayor of New Orleans.
Stoner earned a law degree, and served as the attorney for James Earl Ray. The Federal Bureau of Investigation also considered Stoner to be a suspect in the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. and in several bombings of synagogues and black churches during the 1950s and 1960s, such as the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing.
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