White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan
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The White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan was considered the most militant as well as violent Ku Klux Klan in history. They originated in Mississippi in the early 1960s under the leadership of Samuel Bowers, its first Imperial Wizard.
The White Knights were responsible for many bombings, church burnings, beatings, and murders. In 1964, they murdered three civil rights workers, Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and Michael Schwerner. The victims were members of the Congress Of Racial Equality. Neshoba County Deputy Sheriff Cecil Price, along with Edgar Ray Killen, Wayne Roberts of Meridian, Mississippi and several other members of the Klan, shot them to death and buried their bodies in a dam outside of Philadelphia, Mississippi. Edgar Ray Killen was convicted of these murders in 2005, 40 years after they occurred. Price and Roberts are now deceased. The film Mississippi Burning (1988) is based on these events.
In 1989, The White Knights of Mississippi went national, and appointed Professional Wrestler "Johnny Angel", a.k.a. Johnny Lee Clary as its new Imperial Wizard, to succeed Sam Bowers who had retired. Clary appeared on many talk shows including Oprah and Morton Downey Jr., in an effort to build a new modern image for the Ku Klux Klan. It was thought that Clary could build membership in the Klan due to his celebrity status as a professional wrestler. Clary tried to unify the various chapters of the Klan in a meeting held in the birthplace of the Ku Klux Klan, Pulaski, Tennessee, only to have it fall apart by infighting which occurred when the Klan came together. Clary's girlfriend was revealed to be an F.B.I. informant, which resulted in mistrust of Clary among the different Klan members. Clary resigned from the Klan and later became a born again Christian and a civil rights activist.
With the conviction of Killen in 2005, the bloody chapter of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan came to a close.
[edit] Sources
- Jack Nelson, Terror in the Night, The Klan's campaign against the Jews. Simon and Schuster, 1993.
- Former KKK leader convicted of 1966 murderCNN.com, August 21, 1998.
- Biography of Sam Bowers
- Handbook of Texas
- Johnny Lee Clary speaks against racismFormer Imperial Wizard of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan
- Alexander, Charles C. The Ku Klux Klan in the Southwest. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1965.
