Original Ku Klux Klan of the Confederacy

Last updated

The Original Ku Klux Klan of the Confederacy was a Klan faction led by Asa Carter in the late 1950s. Despite the group's brief lifespan, it left its mark with a violent record, including an assault on Nat King Cole, participation in a riot in Clinton, Tennessee, and one of the few documented cases of castration by the Klan.

Contents

As the North Alabama Citizens Council

Origins

The group began as the North Alabama Citizens Council, which broke away from the Citizens' Councils of America in October 1955. The new organization was based in Birmingham, while the mainstream group was headquartered in Montgomery and led by State Senator Sam Englehart. The split apparently centered around the Birmingham group's embrace of antisemitism and exclusion of Jews from membership, while the Montgomery faction professed no other aim than the defense of segregation. Carter also insisted that "the mountain people – the real redneck – is our strength". [1] [2]

Rock music and Cole assault

The group had a particular disdain for black music and rock'n'roll, campaigning for boycotts of black singers and the removal of rock'n'roll records from local juke boxes. [3] A sign outside Carters office proclaimed "Be-bop promotes Communism". [4] On April 10, 1956 seven members of the group assaulted Nat King Cole while he was singing to a white audience at the Municipal Auditorium in Birmingham. [5] The assault was supposed to be part of a much larger attack involving one hundred members who were supposed to overpower the band and the police, but only seven showed up. [6] On April 18, four of the assailants were sentenced to 180 days in jail and a $100 fine, the maximum for their assault charge, and three others were fined for conspiracy and weapons charges. [7]

Clinton, Tennessee

Also that April, Adm. John Crommelin, introduced Carter to John Kasper who set up an affiliate of the NACC in Washington, D.C. [4] that June called the Seaboard White Citizens Council. [8] In August and September 1956, both groups converged on Clinton, Tennessee, to prevent the court ordered integration of Clinton High School. Kasper was arrested on August 27 for inciting a riot and vagrancy, but released the next day for lack of evidence.

The local school board then petitioned Federal Judge Robert Love Taylor to issue a restraining order against him for interfering with school integration. [8] The order was served to him while he was in the middle of a speech on the courthouse lawn. After being served, Kasper went on with his speech, telling the audience of about 1,000 people that the injunction did not matter. He was promptly arrested for violating the order. [9] [10] [11] He was found guilty, but held over for an appeal. While a judge mulled whether or not to grant Kasper bail, Asa Carter arrived on the scene and the crowds he gathered grew to a reported 1,500.

On September 1–2, full scale riots broke out, with mobs attacking black motorists, shots being fired at the court house, and a dynamite blast in the black section of nearby Oliver Springs. The small police department deputized a posse "home guard" which used tear gas to disperse the crowds. Governor Frank G. Clement sent in the National Guard and Tennessee Highway Patrol to restore order. [12] Bail was granted on a $10,000 bond with an injunction that Carter cease his activities. [13] [14] Nevertheless, later that month Kasper addressed a gathering of the North Alabama Citizens Council, welcoming robed Klansmen and stating "We need all the rabble-rousers we can get, We want trouble, and we want it everywhere we can get it." He also called for "roving bands of patriots" to descend on any city threatened with integration. [4] Carter and his group went to Clinton in September 1957. [15] [16]

As the Original Ku Klux Klan of the Confederacy

Reorganization

In November 1956, the Northern Alabama Citizens Council was replaced by the Original Ku Klux Klan of the Confederacy. Thirty-five Klansmen were initiated in a ceremony in Birmingham on Nov. 15 before a bonfire of skulls where they pledged to "fight the enemies of Jesus Christ to the bitter end and after". The new organization was organized along military lines, being divided into "squads and platoons with areas of responsibility" and Nazi-style brownshirt uniforms. [17] The group was incorporated in Birmingham the next month. [18] On 27 December 1956, during the Montgomery bus boycott, Carter announced plans to send in troops of "Minutemen" to patrol city buses to enforce segregation. [19] In January 1957 Carter and four of his followers were arrested for a shoot out that occurred between different members of the group after one member, J. P. Tillery, made accusations about administrative and financial irregularities. [20] [21] At the time of the shooting the group had fewer than 100 members. [18]

Aaron castration and dissolution

The group's most infamous attack came on September 2, 1957. In a move to counter attempts by the Rev. F. L. Shuttlesworth to desegregate Birmingham schools [22] six members of the group (Bart Floyd, Joseph Pritchett, James N. Griffin, William Miller, Jesse Mabry, and Grover McCollough) abducted Judge Edward Aaron from Birmingham and took him to their "lair"—a small dirt-floor house outside of Clarkesville, Alabama. There, by the glow of lamplight they performed a castration on him. The event was supervised by Exalted Cyclops Joe Pritchett, wearing a red-trimmed Klan robe. The scrotum was preserved as a souvenir, while turpentine was poured on Aaron's wounds. [23] Aaron was left for dead on the side of the road until a motorist found him and drove him to a local hospital.

Joe Pritchett was found guilty of the crime and sentenced to 20 years in prison on October 31. The jury only took 40 minutes to deliberate the case. Judge Alta King gave him the maximum penalty, 20 years in prison. The judge stated the offense was one of the worst crimes he had encountered in his 35 years of experience. [23] Klabee Jesse Mabry, who had participated in the assault on Nat King Cole; Bart Floyd, who was the one who actually performed the castration in order to become a captain within the group; and Grover McCullough drew identical sentences. William Miller, another recently appointed captain, and John Griffin, who stood guard outside the shack and did not know the details of what happened until after the fact, turned state's evidence and got terms of probation. [24] Those sentenced to jail exhausted their appeals and began their prison terms in 1959.

In 1960, the parole board ruled that they would have to serve one third of their sentence – six years and eight months – before they could be considered for parole. However, the inmates began receiving preferential treatment after George Wallace became governor, and the parole boards decision was reversed in July 1963, after Wallace had made his first appointment to the board. Mabry was released in February 1964, and the others in 1965. [25]

The organization itself dissolved sometime in early 1958. Asa Carter went on to become a speechwriter for George Wallace. [17]

Publications

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ku Klux Klan</span> American white supremacist terrorist hate group

The Ku Klux Klan, commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is the name of several historical and current American white supremacist, far-right terrorist organizations and hate groups. Various commentators, including Fergus Bordewich, have characterized the Klan as America's first terrorist group. Their primary targets, at various times and places, have been African Americans, Jews, and Catholics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Knights of the White Camelia</span> American political organization

The Knights of the White Camelia was an American white supremacist organization that operated in the Southern United States in the late 19th century. Similar to and associated with the Ku Klux Klan, it opposed freedmen's rights.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Citizens' Councils</span> American segregationist organizations

The Citizens' Councils were an associated network of white supremacist, segregationist organizations in the United States, concentrated in the South and created as part of a white backlash against the US Supreme Court's landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling. The first was formed on July 11, 1954. The name was changed to the Citizens' Councils of America in 1956. With about 60,000 members across the Southern United States, the groups were founded primarily to oppose racial integration of public schools: the logical conclusion of the Brown v. Board of Education ruling.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Asa Earl Carter</span> American activist, speechwriter and novelist (1925–1979)

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.

<i>The Clansman: A Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan</i> Book by Thomas Dixon

The Clansman: A Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan is a novel published in 1905, the second work in the Ku Klux Klan trilogy by Thomas Dixon Jr.. Chronicling the American Civil War and Reconstruction era from a pro-Confederate perspective, it presents the Ku Klux Klan heroically. The novel was adapted first by the author as a highly successful play entitled The Clansman (1905), and a decade later by D. W. Griffith in the 1915 movie The Birth of a Nation.

This is a partial list of notable historical figures in U.S. national politics who were members of the Ku Klux Klan before taking office. Membership of the Klan is secret. Political opponents sometimes allege that a person was a member of the Klan, or was supported at the polls by Klan members.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Kasper</span> American politician

John Kasper was a Ku Klux Klan member and a segregationist who took a militant stand against racial integration during the civil rights movement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr.</span> American convicted murderer

Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr. was an American terrorist and convicted felon, formerly serving four life sentences for his role as conspirator in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama, on September 15, 1963, which killed four African American girls. Blanton, along with Bobby Frank Cherry, was convicted in 2001 in a highly publicized trial of the cold case. Future United States Senator Doug Jones successfully prosecuted Blanton and Cherry.

Crime rates in Alabama overall have declined by 17% since 2005. Trends in crime within Alabama have largely been driven by a reduction in property crime by 25%. There has been a small increase in the number of violent crimes since 2005, which has seen an increase of 9% In 2020, there were 511 violent crime offenses per 100,000 population. Alabama was ranked 44th in violent crime out of a total 50 states in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">U.S. Klans</span> Ku Klux Klan organization

The U.S. Klans, officially, the U.S. Klans, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Inc. was the dominant Ku Klux Klan in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The death of its leader in 1960, along with increased factionalism, splits and competition from other groups led to its decline by the mid-to-late 1960s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ku Klux Klan titles and vocabulary</span>

Ku Klux Klan (KKK) nomenclature has evolved over the order's nearly 160 years of existence. The titles and designations were first laid out in the original Klan's prescripts of 1867 and 1868, then revamped with William J. Simmons's Kloran of 1916. Subsequent Klans have made various modifications.

The National Knights of the Ku Klux Klan is a Klan faction that has been in existence since November 1963. In the sixties, the National Knights were the main competitors against Robert Shelton's United Klans of America.

The Association of Georgia Klans, also known as the Associated Klans of Georgia, was a Klan faction organized by Samuel Green in 1944, and led by him until his death in 1949. At its height the organization had klaverns in each of Georgia's 159 counties, as well as klaverns in Alabama, Tennessee, South Carolina and Florida. It also had connections with klaverns and kleagles in Ohio and Indiana. After Green's death, however, the organization foundered as it split into different factions, was hit with a tax lien and was beset by adverse publicity. It was moribund by the time of the Supreme Court's "Black Monday" ruling in 1954. A second Association of Georgia Klans was formed when Charles Maddox led dissatisfied members out of the U.S. Klans in 1960. This group appears to have folded into James Venable's National Knights of the Ku Klux Klan by 1965. There is also a current Klan group by that name.

Judge Edward Aaron was an African American handyman in Birmingham, Alabama, who was abducted by seven members of Asa Earl Carter's independent Ku Klux Klan group on Labor Day, September 2, 1957.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nancy MacLean</span> American professor of history (born 1959)

Nancy K. MacLean is an American historian. She is the William H. Chafe Professor of History and Public Policy at Duke University. MacLean's research focuses on race, gender, labor history and social movements in 20th-century U.S. history, with particular attention to the U.S. South.

Oscar Haywood was an American Baptist preacher, orator, and politician from North Carolina. He was a pastor at Baptist churches in Tennessee, Connecticut, and New York City and then travelled widely giving speeches advocating for the Ku Klux Klan. He was also a book collector and had first editions and correspondence with various influential people in his collection at the Haywood Plantation house.

The Democrat-Reporter is a local weekly newspaper in Linden, Alabama, United States. It was established in 1911 from the merger of the Linden Reporter and the Marengo Democrat. The newspaper was published by the Sutton family for over a century, with Goodloe Sutton running it from 1985 to 2019. The newspaper won national acclaim in the 1990s for its investigation of a corrupt county sheriff, but was met with criticism in early 2019 over an editorial from Sutton calling for the return of the Ku Klux Klan.

Kathryn Madlyn Ainsworth was an American Ku Klux Klan terrorist. She was killed by law enforcement in 1968 during her failed assassination attempt on a prominent Jewish Mississippian.

References

  1. ↑ Michael and Judy Ann Newton eds. The Ku Klux Klan: An Encyclopedia Garland Reference Library of the Social Science Vol.499, London and New York; Garland Publishing. 1991 p. 100
  2. ↑ Wayne Phillips (March 6, 1956). "White councils split in Alabama". The New York Times, p. 24.
  3. ↑ "Segregationist wants ban on 'rock and roll'". New York Times. Mar 30, 1956. p. 27. ProQuest   113509785.
  4. 1 2 3 Newton & Newton p.100
  5. ↑ The, A. P. (Apr 11, 1956). "Alabamans attack 'King' Cole on stage". New York Times. p. 1. ProQuest   113872978.
  6. ↑ "Negroes driven from Texas cafe". New York Times. Apr 12, 1956. p. 34. ProQuest   113633102.
  7. ↑ "Four get 6 months in King Cole attack". New York Times. Apr 19, 1956. p. 1. ProQuest   113852143.
  8. 1 2 "Hearing delayed on kasper bond". New York Times. Sep 5, 1956. p. 13. ProQuest   113734162.
  9. ↑ Newton & Newton p.119
  10. ↑ "Kasper gets hearing in tenn. jail sentence". The Washington Post and Times-Herald. Sep 6, 1956. p. 25. ProQuest   148855819.
  11. ↑ "Clinton Desegregation Crisis". Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture. Retrieved July 3, 2012.
  12. ↑ "Mobs mass in new Tennessee flareup". Los Angeles Times. Sep 5, 1956. p. 1. ProQuest   166992286.
  13. ↑ "Clinton agitator wins bail order". New York Times. Sep 7, 1956. p. 12. ProQuest   113753194.
  14. ↑ "Vigilantes break-up unruly segregation mob". Los Angeles Times. Sep 2, 1956. p. 1. ProQuest   167000048.
  15. ↑ Newton & Newton p.100, 120
  16. ↑ Forster, Arnold. Epstein, Benjamin R. Report on the Ku Klux Klan New York: Anti-defamation League of B'nai B'rith, 1965 pp.16-18
  17. 1 2 Newton & Newton pp.100, 445
  18. 1 2 Alabama Council on Human Relations Alabama Council Newsletter [ permanent dead link ] Vol. 3 #1 p.3
  19. ↑ Newton & Newton pp.100, 400
  20. ↑ "Alabama curbs violence". The Christian Science Monitor. Feb 5, 1957. p. 6. ProQuest   509570594.
  21. ↑ Newton & Newton pp.100
  22. ↑ National Register of Historic Places Multiple Property Documentation Form The Civil Rights Movement in Birmingham, Alabama, 1933–1979 [p.33]
  23. 1 2 Forster & Epstein p.20
  24. ↑ "Gets 20 years in castration of a negro, 33". Chicago Daily Tribune. Nov 1, 1957. p. B2-b2. ProQuest   180271407.
  25. ↑ Newton & Newton p.1
  26. ↑ "The Southerner; news of the Citizens' Council". The Southerner; News of the Citizens' Council. 20 March 2018. OCLC   17268614.
  27. ↑ "Auburn University Libraries Sign In". aubiecat.auburn.edu.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.