20 Years Later: Hatewatch Looks Back at the Oklahoma City Bombing

On April 19, 1995 – 20 years ago Sunday – a truck bomb brought down the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people, including 19 children in a day care center.

The bombing by antigovernment zealot Timothy McVeigh and several co-conspirators shocked the nation, awakening it to the threat of terrorism from far-right extremists. It remains the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in U.S. history.

Today, the threat from extremists like McVeigh remains very real.

The SPLC has documented a powerful resurgence of the extremist movement that motivated McVeigh. In fact, the movement has spawned numerous acts of terror and violence in recent years.

The SPLC today offers both a look at the movement’s history and an assessment of the current threat:

• MSNBC: “20 years after Oklahoma City bombing, domestic terror threat remains,” by SPLC President Richard Cohen.

• POLITICO: “Don’t Ignore the Homegrown Terror Threat,” by SPLC Senior Fellow Mark Potok.

• An SPLC timeline of the militia movement.

• Terror from the Right, a list of more than 100 domestic terrorist attacks, plots and racist rampages since Oklahoma City.

Also, here’s SPLC Senior Fellow Mark Potok discussing his personal experience as a reporter on the scene in Oklahoma City, as well as the current state of the militia movement:

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