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-wing terrorist, and hate groups. Their primary targets are African Americans, Hispanics, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and Catholics, as well as immigrants, leftists, homosexuals, Muslims, atheists, and abortion providers.
Nathan Bedford Forrest was a Confederate Army general during the American Civil War and the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan from 1867 to 1869. Before the war, Forrest amassed substantial wealth as a cotton plantation owner, horse and cattle trader, real estate broker, and slave trader. In June 1861, he enlisted in the Confederate Army and became one of the few soldiers during the war to enlist as a private and be promoted to general without any prior military training. An expert cavalry leader, Forrest was given command of a corps and established new doctrines for mobile forces, earning the nickname "The Wizard of the Saddle". He used his cavalry troops as mounted infantry and often deployed artillery as the lead in battle, thus helping to "revolutionize cavalry tactics", although the Confederate high command is seen by some commentators to have underappreciated his talents. While scholars generally acknowledge Forrest's skills and acumen as a cavalry leader and military strategist, he is a controversial figure in U.S. history for his role in the massacre of several hundred U.S. Army soldiers at Fort Pillow, a majority of them black, coupled with his role following the war as a leader of the Klan.
The Deacons for Defense and Justice was an armed African-American self-defense group founded in November 1964, during the civil rights era in the United States, in the mill town of Jonesboro, Louisiana. On February 21, 1965—the day of Malcolm X's assassination—the first affiliated chapter was founded in Bogalusa, Louisiana, followed by a total of 20 other chapters in this state, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Alabama. It was intended to protect civil rights activists and their families, threatened both by white vigilantes and discriminatory treatment by police under Jim Crow laws. The Bogalusa chapter gained national attention during the summer of 1965 in its violent struggles with the Ku Klux Klan.
Byron De La Beckwith Jr. was an American murderer, white supremacist and a member of the Ku Klux Klan from Greenwood, Mississippi. He murdered the civil rights leader Medgar Evers on June 12, 1963. Two trials in 1964 on that charge, with all-white Mississippi juries, resulted in hung juries. In 1994, he was tried by the state in a new trial which was based on new evidence. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison.
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.
The Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission was a state agency in Mississippi active from 1956 to 1977 and tasked with fighting desegregation and controlling civil rights activism. It was overseen by the Governor of Mississippi. The stated objective of the commission was to "[...] protect the sovereignty of the state of Mississippi, and her sister states" from "encroachment thereon by the Federal Government". It coordinated activities to portray the state and racial segregation in a more positive light. Serving governors and lieutenant governors of Mississippi were ex officio members of the commission. The Sovereignty Commission spied on and conspired against civil rights activists and organized pressure and economic oppression of those who supported the civil rights movement in Mississippi.
The 1964 Louisiana gubernatorial election was held on March 3, 1964. Democrat John McKeithen won a highly-competitive primary and dispatched Republican Charlton Lyons in the general election, though Lyons made a historically good showing for a Louisiana Republican up to this point.
John Milliken Parker, Sr., was an American Democratic politician from Louisiana, who served as the state's 37th Governor from 1920 to 1924. He was a friend and admirer of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt.
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 Ku Klux Klan in Prophecy is a 144-page book written by Bishop Alma Bridwell White in 1925 and illustrated by Reverend Branford Clarke. In the book she uses scripture to rationalize that the Ku Klux Klan is sanctioned by God "through divine illumination and prophetic vision". She also believed that the Apostles and the Good Samaritan were members of the Klan. The book was published by the Pillar of Fire Church, which she founded, at their press in Zarephath, New Jersey. The book sold over 45,000 copies.
Iris Turner Kelso was a Mississippi-born journalist who worked for three newspapers in New Orleans, Louisiana, including the New Orleans Times-Picayune.
Fred Lee Banks Jr. is an American lawyer, politician, and former Mississippi Supreme Court justice, having served on the court from 1991 to 2001.
Joseph Eason Wroten was an American lawyer and politician in the state of Mississippi. He represented Greenville and Washington County in the Mississippi House of Representatives from 1952 to 1963. A progressive Democrat for that time and place, he was "an almost lone dissenter in the state's 'massive resistance' policies" in its fight against racial integration.
John Richard Rarick was an American lawyer, jurist, and World War II veteran who served four terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, serving Louisiana's 6th congressional district from 1967 to 1975.
John Julian McKeithen was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 49th governor of Louisiana from 1964 to 1972.
George M. Yarbrough was a newspaper owner and state legislator in Mississippi. He served in the Mississippi House of Representatives and Mississippi Senate.
The Message from Mississippi is a state-sponsored 1960 segregationist propaganda film produced by the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission, a state government agency established to promote and defend segregation in the wake of the Brown v. Board of Education U.S. Supreme Court decision desegregating public schools. In the film, Mississippi governor Ross Barnett says that Blacks in Mississippi preferred the state's segregated way of life.
Oxford, U.S.A. is a 16 mm documentary film about the integration of the University of Mississippi in 1962. It promotes the segregationist cause by arguing that the federal government violated the U.S. Constitution it prohibitted segregation in public schools. Three prints of the film were purchased by the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission, a state agency established to defend and promote Mississippi's segregation practices against federal intervention in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision. A leader of the commission was scheduled to speak after a showing of the film. The commission also funded the 1960 film The Message from Mississippi promoting the segregationist "way of life".
Florence Avalon Daggett (1907–2002) was an American filmmaker and philanthropist. She is associated with Avalon Daggett Productions, a film production company based in Los Angeles which specialized in short documentary films, and educational films. Many of her later films were produced for the state of Louisiana.
The Alabama State Sovereignty Commission was a government agency established in the U.S. state of Alabama to combat desegregation, which operated from 1963 to 1973. The agency doubled as an intelligence network, and kept files on civil rights activists.
