Thread by @DonnerKay

Reading House Un-American Activities Committee's Klan hearing transcripts again (here with Grand Klucker Sam Bowers (Laurel) refusing to answer questions), it's really not hard to spot what we could today call "Twitter logic" among grown men red-baiting as an excuse for terrorism

BTW, if you're white from Mississippi and ever wondered if your dad, granddad, uncles were in prominent KKK positions in the 1960s in the state, this report names a lot of names. Not all or rank-and-file members, but many leaders. Steel yourself and look.

archive.org/stream/activit…

If your family was part of a white-terrorist org, you don't have to collapse into guilt, shame or denial. BUT understand this wasn't long ago, and that the terrorism and barrier creation still affects Black Mississippians today. Decide to be part of the solution. Start with facts

Many more names listed. That's just the kleagle level (like my distant-y kin Edgar Ray Killen in Neshoba County). Kleagles organized violence. He finally went to prison, but most did not. And I rather doubt most Kluckers changed what taught their children to carry racism forward.

OK, here's another Bowers/Klucker logic section y'all need to read. And you know, old racist grandpa was a fine Christian, too, leading his Christian soldiers to the promised white land or some such bullshit. Because God (only) loves white supremacists, the illogic goes.

Never forget KKK, Citizens Council and other terrorist orgs (some of them more business-suited than others) REALLY HATED white people participating in anti-racist activity, or just, say, letting a Black man pee in his gas-station bathroom or such. They terrorized white traitors.

Before any racism apologist tries to tell you that "all that" was done by crazy, uneducated rednecks, look into the bios of the KKK leaders since Reconstruction. You're being lied to. Many were wealthy and passed wealth forward after destroying Black wealth-building.
Like Bowers:

Here, back to the Laurel/Jones County Klan and the strategy for Kluckering up the whole state to terrorize Black people and any white folks who supported them—just like KKK did back in the 1860s, 1870s: mississippifreepress.org/17323/kkk-whit…

Sorry, went down the rabbit hole of figuring out where this Greaves Plantation near Jackson was where this big-ass Klucker confab happened. The Greaves were huge slavers here, apparently. This, btw, was three days after KKK killed Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner in my county.

Re that rabbit hole: The Greaves fam history, which passed through Mississippi in a horrific way, is interesting: collections.msdiglib.org/digital/collec…

Y'ALL: "The White Christian Protective and Legal Defense Fund."
Recall: Americans for the Preservation of the White Race (APWR) launched in Mississippi: upstanding citizens collecting legal funds to defend Kluckers.

Also: paranoia over African troops in Cuba 🤪

Note J.K. Greer there. That's former KKKman James Greer, whom I interviewed in his home while I was investigating 1964 Dee-Moore murders in 2005. He told us James Ford Seale still alive though media had reported him dead for years. My piece on him:
jacksonfreepress.com/news/2005/oct/…

More on that White Christian Defense Fund (feels a bit like we've heard of this happening more recently, too, eh?):

More Laurel + King Edward Hotel has entered the chat. As has Florence in Rankin Cty (our guv attended Florence High). King Edward would soon close to avoid integration and be bombed-out eyesore in cap city for decades. Many white Jacksonians fled to Rankin Cty post-integration.

Allow me to put fine point on this Jones County terrorism (in towns/rural areas around "Smokestack City" when I was 4.

BTW, KKK bombings were huge especially in south Mississippi. That doesn't get talked about enough. McComb was called bombing capital of the US—when I was a kid

I'm organizing KKK research from yesterday. Should anyone have a direct interest in the "especially active and violent" white terrorism in Jones County (Laurel, Ellisville, smaller towns) in the 1960s, you might check out this research at USM: lib.usm.edu/spcol/collecti…

My periodic reminder that white terrorism—massacres, lynchings and intimidation—happened across US through our history. Don’t read what I’m posting, shake your head at Mississippi and move on. Research your own damn postage stamp. It’s not hard with Internet. Use your keywords.