FEATURES
The KKK: A Struggle for Survival in North Carolina
By LONZA HARDY, JR.
Former Black Ink Co-editor
On the outskirts of a Greensboro corn
field a huge bonfire once blazed. A
phonograph which had been playing “Old
Rugged Cross” now played a militant
version of “Dixie.” Later this tune was
changed to a chorus of the U.S. National
Anthem.
“This is a Christian organization,” one
man soon exclaimed. The masses flocked
in white-hooded robes, called him a
“Grand Dragon.” “We admit that we do
not let niggers, Catholics or Jews into our
membership. It’s not that we have
anything against the niggers, not that we
are opposed to the Jew, not that we hate
the CathoUcs, but this is a Christian
organization, made up of Christian
people.”
This organization—the Ku Klux Klan—
has faced much opposition and criticism
throughout the years. Yet, despite all the
adversity encountered since its creation,
the Klan in North Carolina, and most other
states, still survives.
The Ku Klux, as the KKK was originally
called, was formed in 1897 at a convention
in Nashville, Tenn., and it was introduced
into North Carolina in 1898. Patriotism and
Christianity preeminently became the
moving principles of the Knights of the
KKK. The flag, the Constitution and the
Holy Bible became the keystone of Klan
principles.
The Klan has become most widely
known because of its extreme support of
the theory of white supremacy. KKK
members have continuously argued that
hites are superior while Catholics, Jews,
Blacks and other non-white races and
sects are inferior.
“Someone once asked me if I thought the
nigger is inferior,” an N.C. Klan leader of
the late sixties, Robert Sheldren, once
said. “You know what I told him? ‘Yeah.”’
A report by the House Un-American
Activities Committee released in 1965
showed that there were more than 100 local
Klan units scattered in eastern bounties
and around the large piedmont cities of
North Carolina. An on-again-off-again
membership was said to have ranged from
a half-dozen in some local units to as many
as 70 in others.
The KKK today is reported to have a
group of leaders composed of former
housepainters, traveling salesmen,
members of older Klan units, once defunct
Assurance agents and convicted gamblers.
Reports also say that it has a fundraising
technique built around the familiar corn
field rally, complete with burning cross
and a pitch for money to augment a team
of “organizers” who compose the staff of
the “Grand Dragon.”
Yet, the path of the Klan hasn’t been
made any easier by government officials
of North Carolina. One of the most advent
anti-Klanners, for example, was former
Gov. Dan K. Moore.
“I am opposed to the Ku Klux Klan. It is
a sorry organization. It has no place in
North Carolina. It stirs up trouble, it stirs
up bitterness, it stirs up hate,” Moore said
to a Daily Reflector reporter in 1967.
He repeated, “I am unalterably opposed
to the Ku Klux Klan. It has no place in
North Carolina.”
One of the largest campaigns against
KKK activity in the state was staged by
the Raleigh Ministerial Association, which
in 1950 was responsible for the capital
city’s anti-masking ordinance, llie
association attacked the Klan on four
points, charging that the KKK promotes
racial and religious bigotry; that it con
tradicts the Christian principles of the
fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of
man; that it presumes to administer
justice outside the law; and that it violates
the rights and freedom of individuals
under our democratic system of govern
ment.
Immediately following this attack the
Klan retaliated, saying the ministers had
forsaken their duties. One Klan leader was
reported as saying, “These vain ones,
back scratching, compromising, pussy
footin’, bermuda-short wearing breachers,
that say that God intended for the races to
mix are hypocrites.”
Numerous measures have been taken to
halt Klan activities throughout North
Carolina. The state has adopted an anti-
masking ordinance similar to the one
passed in Raleigh in 1950.
Section 1 of Raleigh’s anti-masking
ordinance states, “The City Council ex
pressly declares that public appearances,
whether in motor vehicles or otherwise, of
men who are masked or hooded and
unidentifiable threaten the supremacy of
the law and cannot be permitted in the city
of Raleigh.”
While this ordinance does not stop
groups from parading around towns
burning crosses if they are unmasked, it
still has slowed down such occurrences. As
former Raleigh Mayor P.D. Snipes said,
“As long as they’re unmasked, then we’ll
at least know who they are.”
Newspapers, such as the Durham
Morning Sun, readily supported such
ordinances. An editorial in the Sun
following passage of the Raleigh city or
dinance stated, “Men who conceal their
identity and masquerade behind masks
are always mischief makers, if not worse
than mischief makers. Such actions should
always be illegal.”
Many people thought for sure that the
Klan would ^e in North Carolina after the
adoption of legal measures as the anti-
masking ordinance. To the contrary, more
recent activities indicate that there may
be a resurgence of Klan activities in the
state.
The first of many such activities was the
Klan “walkabout” in Durham in 1973. This
parade down a Durham sidewalk was a
preview to a mass meeting held on a field
later that evening. The crowd that
gathered for the parade “laughed not in
contempt or derision,” reported Henry
Frairlie, a New York Times Magazine
writer, “but simply at the forlorn joke of it
all.”
In response to the jeering crowd of both
Blacks and whites, P.F. Ellis, a Durham
Klan leader, exclaimed, “If I had nigger
blood in me. I’d cut it out.” To
photographers he said, “Go on, take a
picture of me. I’m not ashamed to be a
white man.”
One of the largest gatherings of people to
hear a KKK speaker in recent years oc
curred on the evening of Jan. 16, 1975 in
Memorial Hall on the campus of UNC-
Chapel Hill. While many groups had an
nounced plans to protest the speech, such
as the United Farm Workers and the New
American Movement, the campus’ Black
Student Movement (BSM) had said that it
was opposed to the speech but was not
planning an organized protest.
On the night of the speech, however,
approximately 200 to 250 black students
marched from South Campus of the
University to Memorial Hall, where the
Klan National Information Director David
Ernest Duke was to give his speech. But
Duke was unable to give his presentation
as each time he approached the
microphone the Black students yelled
chants of “Power to the People.”
Dean of Student Affairs Donald Boulton,
Chancellor N. Ferebee Taylor and Student
Body President Marcus Williams, a black
student, were all called to the scene to try
to persuade the protestors to go home.
These attempts failed, however, and about
2,000 anxious people left the auditorium
with mixed reactions as to whether student
fees should have been spent to pay for a
speaker of the KKK.
At a reception in the Morehead
Planetarium after his aborted ap
pearance, Duke gave the speech he said he
would have given in Memorial Hall. Duke
commented, “I believe in the white people.
We have never been defeated and we will
not all this time.
“As long as I have blood in my body and
a breath of air in my lungs, I shall see to it
that this country becomes a nation for my
people, for whom it was intended. There
was not one Black or Jew who wrote or
signed the Declaration of Independence or
the Constitution. In fact, the First Article
of the Constitution equates the Negro as
three-fifths of a person. This is what our
founding fathers felt. . .The founding
fathers of the country were racists. This
country was built on racism.”
The next year was a fairly quiet one for
the Klan. TTiere were few reported mass
meetings, rallies and marches. The cross
burnings seemed to have become a thing of
the past.
With the onset of 1977, the Klan took on a
new vitality. Early in the year it staged a
walkabout in Siler City. During the week of
the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC)
basketball tournament in Greensboro, the
Klan reportedly had yet another march.
Several witnesses have reported seeing
cross-burnings in both Raleigh and
Durham.
One of the most direct threats from the
KKK in 1977 again occurred on the campus
of UNC-CH. Two Black students, both BSM
members, reportedly received threats
from the Klan in the form of letters, phone
calls and racial slurs on the doors of their
dorm rooms. One of the letters. In part,
read;
Dear Niggers;
We hope you are presently doing fine,
because in the next few weeks you will be
beaten on, raped, cut up and other nice
things. We would like to congradulate (sic)
you on your selection by our outstanding
organization to receive these honors. . .
What is the future of the Ku Klux Klan in
the United States? Is it really dying out in
North Carolina?
To be eligible for membership in this
“all-American order,"" as it has been
called, one must have been born in the
U.S., of white parentage, be over 18 years
of age, and of the Protestant Christian
faith. Even though the majority of
Americans meet these qualifications,
membership in the KKK has steadily
decreased.
In 1923, the North Carolina 'mperial
Wizzard, H.W. Evans, set the KKK
membership goal at 10,000,000. By 1944, the
membership figure had reached 25,000, the
largest number of Klansmen in the state
this century. Since that time, the figure
has been taking steep cuts.
A spokesperson for the State Bureau of
Investigation (SBI) said that as late as
1965 and 1%6 there were an estimated
12.000 to 14,000 active Klansmen in the
state. This figure dropped by the end of
1966 to 600 hardcore members and 6000
jnembers in general. In 1974, the FBI
estimated the membership of the United
Klans of America, by far the largest Klan
in North Carolina had dropped to a meager
1.000 nationwide. Current membership
figures were unir(f£lilable.
A spokesman for the FBI branch in
Raleigh once warned that when the KKK’s
membership is at its lowest, it is at its
most dangerous point. Then, he said, the
members are what could be considered
hardcore.
“It could continue to die,” the FBI
spokesman pointed out. “On the other
hand, it could become more militant. It
could become more vocal.”
In newspapers and on television ap
pearances, David Duke has denied rumors
that the Klan is dying. He says, “It’s
growing especially on college campuses
and urban areas. College students are
becoming interested because they have
been exposed to integration in high shchool
and they know how it doesn’t work.”
112 North Graham St.
Chapel Hill
North Carolina
27514
[919] 929-7177
The Chapel Hill Crisis Center
Alternative Community Counseling
& Educ. Services Systems