after the christmas night 1956 bombing, members of the congregation organized themselves into squausd. they took turns each night guarding bethel baptist church. in 1958 a young woman who lived across the street, lavern mcwilliams who was coming home from her job at a sandwich shop noticed smoke coming up beside the church building. she went over to wake up some of the guards and found they had actually fallen a sleep on the porch of the house next door. one of the guards, a man named will hall, walked over to investigate. what mr. hall found was not a fire but, in fact, a metal bucket filled with dynamite and the fuse had been lit. now, mr. hall had worked in mining and had experience with explosives. so, he looked at the fuse and calculated that he probably had a minute before the bomb exploded. rather than running for cover, mr. hall picked up that metal bucket. he set it in the street, turned, ran, jumped into the ditch and the bomb exploded. it blew a crater two feet wide and 15 inches deep in the middle of the street. it also blew windows out of houses in the area and blew the w