J. B. Stoner

Jesse Benjamin "J.B." Stoner (April 13, 1924 - April 23, 2005) was a convicted child molester and American segregationist who bombed the Bethel Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama in 1958. Stoner ran unsuccessfully for several political offices to promote a white supremacist agenda.

Stoner came from a family which had a sight-seeing company in Lookout Mountain, Tennessee and in nearby Chattanooga. Stoner's father Jesse Benjamin Sr. died when J.B. was five and his mother Minnie died when J.B. was 17.

At a young age, Stoner admired segregationist politician Theodore Bilbo. Stoner was active in white supremacist groups and traveled to Washington D.C. to support Bilbo.

A bad leg as a result of childhood polio kept him out of duty during World War II. After the war, Stoner rechartered a chapter of the Ku Klux Klan in Chattanooga. Stoner said that "being a Jew [should] be a crime punishable by death". Stoner also ran the National States' Rights Party.

Stoner earned a law degree, and served as a lawyer to James Earl Ray. The FBI also investigated Stoner in the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and for bombings of black churches, such as the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing.

Stoner ran for governor of Georgia in 1970. During this campaign, where he called himself the "candidate of love," he described Hitler as "too moderate", black people as an extension of the ape family, and Jews as "vipers of hell." The primary was won by civil rights supporter and future Preisdent Jimmy Carter. He then ran for the United States Senate in 1972, finishing fifth in the Democratic Party primary with over 40,000 votes.

During his Senate campaign, the FCC ruled that television stations had to play his ads due to the fairness doctrine. His ads included the word "nigger" and claims by Stoner that "The main reason why the niggers want integration is because niggers want our white women". Stoner also ran for lieutenant governor in 1974 and United States Senator in 1980. His best showing was receiving 73,000 votes (ten percent of the vote) in his campaign for lieutenant governor in 1974.

Stoner was indicted for the 1958 bombing of an empty church in Birmingham, Alabama. He was then convicted in 1980. Stoner appealed for three years, and when his appeals ran out, he was a fugitive for four months. After his release from prison in 1986, Stoner ran for lieutenant governor in 1990.

Prior to his death at age 81, he lived in northwest Georgia at a nursing home, with his left side partially paralyzed due to a stroke. Stoner is buried at Forrest Hills Cemetery in Red Bank, TN.