Someone Detonated a Homemade Bomb Beside the NAACP Office in Colorado Springs

The FBI is looking for a "potential person of interest" in connection to the investigation of an improvised explosive device that detonated beside the Colorado Springs office of the NAACP on Tuesday morning, damaging the building slightly but causing no casualties.

The person of interest being sought is a balding white man in his 40s. He might be driving a dirty white pickup truck with paneling and a missing or covered license plate.

The FBI said it was not yet clear whether the NAACP was the intended target of the bombing, though the building otherwise only houses a barber shop.

"It's messed up, man. It's horrible," Gene Southerland, whose barber shop is in the same building as the NAACP, told reporters. "In broad daylight? Just goes to show there's always a threat."

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White ppl have bombed black churches, black wall street, black orgs {m.o.v.e.}, etc.— EMP?'?THY (@MrNikoG)January 7, 2015

The explosion brought to mind past attacks against the civil rights group, which was forced to shut down several local chapters following racially motivated attacks throughout the last century. Many of those incidents were tied to the Ku Klux Klan, an organization that became notorious for hatred and violence against minorities, particularly African-Americans. Some KKK members have lately claimed that racial tensions fanned by police killings of unarmed black men and corresponding protests have boosted the organization's recruitment.

The— Sean Jordan (@seanjjordan)January 7, 2015

The attack started getting national attention after critics pointed out that it had been followed by relative silence. Some even called it an instance of "deliberate domestic terrorism," while others compared the person who planted the bomb to the man who killed two NYPD officers in December.

A mentally ill man murders NYPD and an entire *non-violent* movement is publicly indicted.— Dave Zirin (@EdgeofSports)January 7, 2015

The NAACP said in a statement on Wednesday that it "looks forward to a full and thorough investigation into this matter by federal agents and local law enforcement." Cornell William Brooks, the organization's president, tweeted: "We remain vigilant."

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"We don't give up the struggle, apparently we are doing something correct," Colorado Springs NAACP President, Henry Allen Jr., told local reporters, adding that he wouldn't call the incident a "hate crime" until more details emerged.

"Apparently we have the attention of someone that knows we are working for civil rights for all," he added. "That is making some people uncomfortable, so therefore they feel the need to target."

"This won't deter us from doing the job we want to do in the community," he told the AP.

Follow Alice Speri on Twitter: @alicesperi