Edward Reed Fields | |
|---|---|
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| National Director of the National States' Rights Party | |
| In office 1958–1983 | |
| Preceded by | Position established |
| Succeeded by | Expelled |
| Personal details | |
| Born | September 30,1932 Chicago,Illinois |
| Political party | National States' Rights (1958–1983) |
| Residence | Marietta,Georgia |
| Education | Palmer College of Chiropractic |
Edward Reed Fields (born September 30,1932) is an American white supremacist and anti-Semite.
Fields was born in 1932 in Chicago,Illinois,and moved at an early age to Atlanta,Georgia,where he graduated from Catholic school. It was during this time he became active in far-right politics,and associated himself with the Black Front,a local Nazi organization,serving as a recruiter. [1] Fields attended law school in Atlanta,but dropped out in 1953. Later,he attended the Palmer College of Chiropractic and graduated in 1957. Fields began practice as a chiropractor,although this occupation was soon overshadowed by his political activity. [2]
Fields was active in several white supremacist political organizations,joining the Columbians,an anti-black and anti-Semitic group,in high school,and joining J. B. Stoner's Christian Anti-Jewish Party in 1952;he later served as its Executive Director. He was also a member of the American Anti-Communist Society in 1950 and 1951. [1] [2]
In 1958,Fields founded the National States' Rights Party,which advocated racial segregation and white supremacy;he served as its National Director while Stoner served as its National Chairman. Fields edited the party's newspaper,The Thunderbolt. During this time period,he frequently wrote to print publications detailing his beliefs,for instance in 1969 a letter by Fields was published in Playboy ,alleging,"we will never have law and order in America until all Negroes are deported back to Africa and completely removed from this nation that was founded and built by the great white race." [1]
Fields and the National States' Rights Party in 1963 were enlisted by Alabama Gov. George Wallace and state public safety chief Albert Lingo to create pretexts that Wallace used to order closed public schools that were slated for integration and to deploy state troopers—over the objections of local authorities—in communities otherwise determined to comply with federal court orders to desegregate. [3]
On December 27,1963 Fields was brought to the United States Secret Service's attention as a possible threat against protected individuals. This was divulged as part of the John Fitzgerald Kennedy's assassination file release by the National Archives and Records Administration in 2017. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) considered that Fields was "one step removed from being insane." [4]
In 1976,following Alabama Attorney General Bill Baxley's opening of prosecution against Robert Edward Chambliss,who was one of the bombers of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham,Fields wrote a letter to Baxley,referring to him as an "honorary nigger" and threatening to assassinate him. Baxley responded with his own letter the following day,telling Fields,"My response to your letter of February 19,1976,is - kiss my ass." [5]
Following J. B. Stoner's imprisonment for his involvement in the 1958 Bethel Baptist Church bombing,Fields lost the trust of many party members,largely due to his increasing activity with the Ku Klux Klan and decreasing involvement with the party,and was expelled from the party in August 1983. He continued publishing The Thunderbolt,but changed the newspaper's name to The Truth At Last. Fields founded the white supremacist America First Party in 1993,and spoke at the Populist Party's 1994 convention. [2]
Fields attended the 2001 funeral of Klansman Byron De La Beckwith,who murdered civil rights activist Medgar Evers. [6]
COINTELPRO was a series of covert and illegal projects conducted between 1956 and 1971 by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed at surveilling,infiltrating,discrediting,and disrupting American political organizations that the FBI perceived as subversive. Groups and individuals targeted by the FBI included feminist organizations,the Communist Party USA,anti-Vietnam War organizers,activists in the civil rights and Black power movements,environmentalist and animal rights organizations,the American Indian Movement (AIM),Chicano and Mexican-American groups like the Brown Berets and the United Farm Workers,and independence movements. Although the program primarily focused on organizations that were part of the broader New Left,they also targeted white supremacist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and the National States' Rights Party.
The Ku Klux Klan,commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan,is the name of an American Protestant-led Christian extremist,white supremacist,far-right hate group. Various historians have characterized the Klan as America's first terrorist group. There have been three distinct iterations with various targets relative to time and place,including African Americans,Jews,and Catholics.
William Luther Pierce III was an American neo-Nazi,white supremacist,and far-right political activist. For more than 30 years,he was one of the highest-profile individuals of the white nationalist movement. A physicist by profession,he was author of the novels The Turner Diaries and Hunter under the pen name Andrew Macdonald. The former has inspired multiple hate crimes including the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. Pierce founded the white nationalist National Alliance,an organization which he led for almost 30 years.
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George Corley Wallace Jr. was the 45th governor of Alabama,serving from 1963 to 1967,again from 1971 to 1979,and finally from 1983 to 1987. He is remembered for his staunch segregationist and populist views;however,in the late 1970s,Wallace moderated his views on race,renouncing his support for segregation. During Wallace's tenure as governor of Alabama,he promoted "industrial development,low taxes,and trade schools." Wallace unsuccessfully sought the United States presidency as a Democratic Party candidate three times,and once as an American Independent Party candidate,carrying five states in the 1968 election. Wallace opposed desegregation and supported the policies of "Jim Crow" during the Civil Rights Movement,declaring in his infamous 1963 inaugural address that he stood for "segregation now,segregation tomorrow,segregation forever".
The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing was a terrorist bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham,Alabama on September 15,1963. The bombing was committed by a white supremacist terrorist group. Four members of a local Ku Klux Klan (KKK) chapter planted 19 sticks of dynamite attached to a timing device beneath the steps located on the east side of the church.
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Morris Seligman Dees Jr. is an American attorney known as the co-founder and former chief trial counsel for the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC),based in Montgomery,Alabama. He ran a direct marketing firm before founding SPLC. Along with his law partner,Joseph J. Levin Jr.,Dees founded the SPLC in 1971. Dees and his colleagues at the SPLC have been "credited with devising innovative ways to cripple hate groups" such as the Ku Klux Klan,particularly by using "damage litigation".
Jesse Benjamin Stoner Jr. was an American lawyer,white supremacist,neo-Nazi,segregationist politician,and domestic terrorist who perpetrated the 1958 bombing of the Bethel Baptist Church in Birmingham,Alabama. He was not convicted for the bombing of the church until 1980.
Asa Earl Carter was a 1950s segregationist political activist,Ku Klux Klan organizer,and later Western novelist. He co-wrote George Wallace's well-known pro-segregation line of 1963,"Segregation now,segregation tomorrow,segregation forever",and ran in the Democratic primary for governor of Alabama on a white supremacist ticket. Years later,under the pseudonym of supposedly Cherokee writer Forrest Carter,he wrote The Rebel Outlaw:Josey Wales (1972),a Western novel that was adapted into a 1976 film featuring Clint Eastwood that added to the National Film Registry,and The Education of Little Tree (1976),a best-selling,award-winning book which was marketed as a memoir but which turned out to be fiction.
William Joseph Baxley II,is an American Democratic politician and attorney from Dothan,Alabama.
The National States' Rights Party was a white supremacist political party that briefly played a minor role in the politics of the United States.
Robert Edward Chambliss,also known as "Dynamite Bob",was a white supremacist terrorist convicted in 1977 of murder for his role as conspirator in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in 1963. A member of the United Klans of America,Chambliss also firebombed the houses of several African American families in Alabama.
In the United States,domestic terrorism is defined as terrorist acts that were carried out within the United States by U.S. citizens and/or U.S. permanent residents. As of 2021,the United States government considers white supremacists to be the top domestic terrorism threat.
The Alabama Democratic Party is the affiliate of the Democratic Party in the state of Alabama. It is chaired by Randy Kelley.
The United Klans of America Inc. (UKA),based in Alabama,is a Ku Klux Klan organization active in the United States. Led by Robert Shelton,the UKA peaked in membership in the late 1960s and 1970s,and it was the most violent Klan organization of its time. Its headquarters was the Anglo-Saxon Club outside Tuscaloosa,Alabama.
The Stand in the Schoolhouse Door took place at Foster Auditorium at the University of Alabama on June 11,1963. In a symbolic attempt to keep his inaugural promise of "segregation now,segregation tomorrow,segregation forever" and stop the desegregation of schools,George Wallace,the Democratic Governor of Alabama,stood at the door of the auditorium as if to block the way of the two African American students attempting to enter:Vivian Malone and James Hood.
Elections in Alabama are authorized under the Alabama State Constitution,which establishes elections for the state level officers,cabinet,and legislature,and the election of county-level officers,including members of school boards.
The 1968 United States presidential election in Mississippi was held on November 5,1968. Mississippi voters chose seven electors,or representatives to the Electoral College,who voted for President and Vice-President. During the 1960s,the Civil Rights Movement dictated Mississippi's politics,with effectively the entire white population vehemently opposed to federal policies of racial desegregation and black voting rights. In 1960,the state had been narrowly captured by a slate of unpledged Democratic electors,but in 1964 universal white opposition to the Civil Rights Act and negligible black voter registration meant that white Mississippians turned almost unanimously to Republican Barry Goldwater. Goldwater's support for "constitutional government and local self-rule" meant that the absence from the ballot of "states' rights" parties or unpledged electors was unimportant. The Arizona Senator was one of only six Republicans to vote against the Civil Rights Act,and so the small electorate of Mississippi supported him almost unanimously.
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