Two neighbors offer their support to a grief stricken woman following the blast at Gates City Daycare. Photograph courtesy of the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
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Gate City Bowen Day Care Explosion, 1980
Gate City Bowen Day Care Explosion, 1980
On October 13, 1980, a tragic incident occurred at the Gate City Bowen Homes Day Care in which four preschool children and one teacher lost their lives in an alleged gas-fired boiler explosion. The daycare was occupied by eight adults and 82 children at the time of the blast, resulting in the death of 52-year-old teacher Neil Robinson, as well as three-year-old children Kevin Snelson, Andre Standford, Ronald Brown, and Terrace Bradley. Seven other individuals were injured in the explosion.
3-year old Terrence Bradley, a victim of the Bowen Homes Day Care Center blast, October 13, 1980. Photograph courtesy of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Reverend Joseph Lowery, head of the SCLC, declared that "There is an organized assault on black people across the country. We are tired of our children being killed." Many people refused to accept that the explosion at the day care center resulted from a faulty boiler. Some believed this was orchestrated to pacify a city on the edge of a turbulent period of racial violence. The explosion occurred just 24 hours after J.B. Stoner held a conference of international white supremacists in the neighboring county. Stoner had a reputation for bombing black targets since the late 1950s. These events heightened the belief that the explosion at the Gate City Bowen Homes Day Care was no accident. Allegations were also made that the explosion had been created by the KKK. On that same day, a bomb threat was called in to A.D. Williams Elementary School, located just across the street.
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