Bomb threats against the EJI office

The bomb threats against the Equal Justice Initiative office turned the danger surrounding its work into a direct, repeated threat against its staff. The third threat in two months forced an evacuation, but the search found no bomb; the office returned to its cases under the shadow of a warning that the next call might not come in time.

A History That Made the Threats Credible

Two years earlier, a bomb sent to the law office of Robert “Robbie” Robinson, an African American civil rights lawyer in Savannah, Georgia, had killed him. Around the same time, a mail bomb killed federal appeals court judge Robert Vance in Birmingham. A third bomb was sent to a civil rights office in Florida, and a fourth to a courthouse in Atlanta. The apparent targeting of legal professionals connected to civil rights work made warnings that the Equal Justice Initiative might also be a target difficult to dismiss.

For weeks, staff carried mail packages to the federal courthouse for X-ray screening before opening them. Against that history, the office’s third bomb threat in two months was not treated as a prank, even though the caller offered no proof that an explosive had been planted.

The Third Call

The threat came after a month of heightened tension following a hearing in Walter McMillian’s case. Staff cleared the building while discussing whether the caller might actually bomb it. Sharon, the receptionist, had challenged the caller directly, asking, “Why are you doing this? You’re scaring us!” She described him as sounding middle-aged and Southern, but could provide no further description.

The caller answered, “I’m doing you a favor,” then ordered the staff to stop their work: “I want y’all to stop doing what you’re doing. My first option is not to kill everybody, so you better get out of there now! Next time there won’t be a warning.” The precision with which he described the building, together with the explicit threat of a future attack without notice, made the evacuation urgent.

The Search and Return

Police searched the office with dogs. They found no bomb, and after an hour and a half without an explosion, the staff filed back inside. The threat interrupted the work but did not end it: as the narrator put it, “We had work to do.” At the time, the organization had five attorneys, an investigator, and three administrative staff members; law students had also begun arriving for short-term internships that supplied legal and investigative assistance.

The McMillian Case and the Continuing Threats

The book places the office threats within a broader pattern of intimidation surrounding the defense of Walter McMillian. The first office threat had included racist remarks about teaching the staff a lesson. Bryan Stevenson also received threatening calls at home, including one caller who threatened that Stevenson and his client would be killed if they helped McMillian. During investigative work in Monroe County, Stevenson and Michael O’Connor had been followed; another caller told Stevenson that someone had offered money to kill him, though the caller said he would not do it because he respected their work.

Stevenson believed the threats were responses to the McMillian case, although he could not know how seriously to take each one. The bomb calls therefore operated on two levels: they threatened physical harm, and they sought to make the legal work itself feel dangerous. The immediate search ended without an explosion, but the warning that there would be no notice next time remained unresolved as the staff returned to their work.