So in Song of Solomon, Guitar is part of the 7 Days society. You know, the one that revenges white acts of violence on black people by equal and opposite (sorry, Juniors) killings of white people. Notably, its whole thing was secrecy, so we don't know if it actually existed. In any case, Guitar is in charge of Sunday, and it's explicitly stated that what he's working on (and what he needs the inheritance money for) is revenging the Birmingham Church Bombing, which killed four young black girls in 1963.
The reason Guitar is so angry about stuff like this, and the reason he joined the 7 Days society was that nothing was being done. He laments that the people who set the bomb were not persecuted, and he is angry at how little society and the justice system really care about black people. And when Toni Morrison was writing this book pre-1977, still nothing had been done. But those (KKK members!!) did end up being prosecuted, albeit after a series of refusals by the government to look at it.
The bomb went off in 1963. Police knew the names of the four suspects mere days after the attack. In 1965 the FBI sent the names to J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI director. He overruled and blocked it, and the case remained closed until 1971, when Alabama Attorney General William Joseph Baxley II reopened it. Six years(!!) later, (and 14 after the bombing itself, if anyone is counting) the ringleader was sentenced to life in prison (but he was really old and would die 8 years later, at the age of 81.) This puts us at 1977, when Toni Morrison was writing Song of Solomon. From her point of view, and certainly from Guitar's, nothing had been done. Only one of the four violent white supremacists had been imprisoned, and by that point nothing more was going to be done.
Cue 1993 (30 whole years later), when civil rights leaders pressured the justice system enough for it to be brought up again. Rob Langford prosecuted, and U.S. Attorney Doug Jones helped go through the evidence, eventually finding enough usable evidence (from wiretaps, documents, etc) to convict two of the others (the fourth one died without being charged.) One's trial was delayed because he tried to fake a mental illness, but it was seen through. After it was all over, Jones told reporters that "justice delayed does not have to be justice denied.” It was probably pretty delayed for Guitar though.
* And yes, that's the same Doug Jones who just won the senate race in Alabama. Apparently he was a little better than a proven sexual predator, somehow. *
* Another note: I don't like using the bombers' names because I think it gives their names an unworthy place in history, a 15 minutes of fame gone on far too long, for all the wrong reasons. You can tell me if you agree with that or not in the comments.*
