In August 1964, after almost a year in the radical movement in Mobile, I got into serious trouble for the first time. Late one night I was driving through the black section of town with the local NSRP leader. I don’t remember why we were there, but the police saw us and pulled us over for a routine search. They found a .38-caliber revolver and my sawed-off shotgun. I was arrested and charged with violation of the Federal Firearms Act. This was a serious offense.
Before this, I had been questioned several times by the Mobile Police Department about violence in the area. The detective who questioned me on these occasions was a friend of my dad’s. He tried to warn me about what I was getting myself into. But I shrugged it off. Now his prediction had come true.
From the time of my arrest until the sentencing in May 1966, a period of almost two years, I was more active than ever—but also much more cautious. Through the efforts of my attorney and the mercy of the U.S. district court judge, I was placed on probation until my twenty-first birthday. The judge said, “If I ever hear of you associating with another radical or touching another gun—even a shotgun for dove hunting—I will revoke your probation and send you to prison.” After the sentencing, I had no choice but to discontinue most of my activities and meet less frequently with my friends.
During this period, I read about another murder in Mississippi. Vernon Dahmer, president of the Hattiesburg, Mississippi, NAACP chapter, had been killed. His home was firebombed and riddled with gunfire by a large group of men. Dahmer returned fire and fought back, allowing his wife and children to escape, but he was seriously burned and died the next day. Fourteen Klansmen were indicted. In spite of the arrests in the Philadelphia, Mississippi case a couple of years earlier, this showed that the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan were still active. This attracted my attention and increased my interest in making contact with them.
Early in the summer of 1967, I noticed that the FBI and police no longer watched me as closely as they had been. By now my thinking had matured some—at least to the extent of thinking more strategically rather than just tactically. Two things seemed clear to me. First, the part of the Far Right I knew about could never hope to achieve its goals without high-level unity. That was practically nonexistent as far as I could tell. Second, rank-and-file radicals around the country needed to have a common identity. I was now almost twenty-one and considered myself an effective freedom fighter. I also knew some of the top leaders of the movement and had access to others. By developing my relationships with these leaders while at the same time conducting a major anti-Jewish terrorist operation, I thought I could promote unity. In any case, I would be advancing my position and power within the movement. It never occurred to me that it would take years for someone as young as I was to accomplish such a thing, if, indeed, it could be accomplished at all.
Sooner or later, in every battle, lines are drawn. Mississippi had become the front line in the battle against the civil rights movement. And it was on the front lines that I belonged.
7
INTO THE THICK OF BATTLE
Fully immersed in conspiracy theories and ideology, and convinced that I knew the truth, I was now ready to make contacts among Ku Klux Klan leaders, starting in Alabama and moving out from there. I contacted Robert Shelton, imperial wizard of the United Klans of America, the largest of the various independent Klan organizations around the country and headquartered in Alabama. Because I had the recommendation of a longtime Klan leader in south Alabama, it was a relatively simple matter to arrange a meeting. I was hoping to establish a good relationship that might lead to other things in the future.
I drove to Tuscaloosa to meet with Shelton. After coffee at a downtown restaurant, we drove to his lakeside home, where he lived with his family. There, we conducted Klan business for about an hour, exchanging thoughts on a variety of issues related to the Communist-Jewish conspiracy. Then I returned to Mobile, promising to keep in touch. I felt good about the rapport that our time had established and was confident that our relationship would mature in the days to come (though it never did because I became involved with the Mississippi Klan instead).
A couple of months later, I drove to Laurel, Mississippi, to meet with Klan leader Sam Bowers. At that time, the Mississippi Klan was the most violent right-wing terrorist organization in America, according to the FBI. Bowers was the logical person to approach. Because Mississippi authorities had so many local suspects to investigate, I reasoned it would be a good place for an out-of-stater to operate without detection. I found Bowers to be articulate and intelligent, with a phenomenal memory and a mind for detail. Though initially suspicious, Bowers accepted me once I had proven my trustworthiness. We became close associates, even though I never officially joined the Mississippi Klan.
Sam Bowers was largely a closed person, and few knew him intimately. He and I had a working relationship based on common ideology and goals, but we never developed what you would call a real friendship. Strange as it may seem, Bowers was a religious man, as were many Klansmen in those days—religious in the sense that he believed God existed and occasionally attended church. However, the only time we ever talked about religion, I did most of the talking. It never was entirely clear to me just exactly what his specific religious beliefs were. I assumed they were the common views of most Southern racists in those days—a version of fundamentalism that held that black people were descendants of Noah’s son Ham, and were dark-skinned, less intelligent, and backward because they had been placed under a curse, and that the Bible forbade the mixing of the races.
Bowers was often under surveillance by the FBI, so we had to meet under the most careful of security procedures. We nearly always met at prearranged rendezvous points at night—usually in remote wooded areas. To assure that our meeting places were safe, we changed them each time. We feared the FBI’s sophisticated electronic monitoring equipment. Even in clandestine meeting places, our conversations were extremely guarded. Often, we would leave our cars and walk somewhere so our conversations could not be detected by electronic bugs. On one occasion, we met at his office to discuss some important matters. Instead of talking, we sat at a table and wrote out our thoughts on notebook paper and exchanged them. When we finished, he burned the papers, ground the ashes, placed them in a bucket of water, and then flushed them down the toilet in his washroom.
The FBI’s Counterintelligence Program, though unknown to us at the time, was quite effective. Our great fear of FBI undercover agents, phone taps, and listening devices produced a near epidemic of paranoia in the Klan. We were suspicious of nearly everyone. There were many ideas for acts of violence and many people who would have carried them out. But everyone was reluctant to develop and implement them due to the ever-present possibility of being overheard by FBI devices or betrayed by an undercover agent or informer, of which there were many. This was part of the bureau’s strategy. And it was quite effective. Had it not been for this fear of the FBI and its infiltration, and the internal paranoia and distrust it generated, I believe there would have been a much higher level of violence in the sixties than actually occurred.
Because of the FBI’s effectiveness in paralyzing Klan operations through fear and distrust, and because of the convictions in the highly publicized Philadelphia case and Dahmer case, the Klan was now reeling. The enemy had gained the upper hand, and the future looked dismal.
In the fall of 1967, the Klan’s resistance shifted in a different direction. In addition to targeting African Americans and white civil rights activists, it expanded its terror campaign to Mississippi’s Jewish population as well. A string of bombings in rapid succession against Jews along with these other groups created a climate of fear.
The Klan’s terror campaign was succeeding beyond its hopes. After five bombs in two months, terror was rampant among Mississippi’s Jewish and black communities. The national news media were focused on Mississippi. Frustrated and paralyzed Klansmen around the state were encouraged by these acts of violence, and so was I. Maybe
the Klan could make a comeback, I hoped.
But these acts drew intense attention from national law enforcement. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover ordered additional FBI agents into the state to assist the widening investigations. These agents would form the lead elements of a massive, coordinated interagency effort dedicated to halting the Klan’s reign of terror. No effort would be spared to bring the new outbreak of terror to a halt and the guilty to justice.
* * *
On December 20, 1967, on a cold, rainy afternoon in Laurel, I met with Sam Bowers for one of our periodic strategy sessions. That night we drove west on Highway 84 about twenty miles to Collins, Mississippi. We intended to machine-gun the home of a local black man who had fired on a police officer some days earlier. However, we couldn’t find his house. After driving around the darkened town, we pulled into a closed service station to recheck our directions. A local police car pulled in behind us.
The officer approached my car with a big flashlight and asked for my driver’s license. After inspecting it under his beam, he commented on my Alabama license plates. He asked why I was in that little town on a rainy December night. Various thoughts were racing through my mind as I tried to assess our options in a split second and decide what to do. Can I talk my way out of this? What if he decides to call for help or take us in for questioning? Should we take him captive, handcuff him to a nearby lamppost, and make a fast getaway? I could not quickly come up with a convincing answer. He shone the light over to Sam and asked if he had identification. Sam pulled out his wallet and presented his driver’s license.
The officer’s eyes registered his recognition of Sam Bowers’s name. He decided to take us down to the station “just to ask a few questions,” then returned to his car and radioed for backup. We stayed put.
At the Covington County Jail, the officer conducted a “routine search” of my car and found my loaded .45-caliber submachine gun under a sweater on the front seat. The policemen on duty became very excited. The desk clerk started dialing the telephone and covered the mouthpiece when he talked. The FBI and Mississippi state police immediately answered those calls. We were arrested and placed in a holding cell.
This was bad—really bad. My cover was blown. Bowers and I had now been publicly linked. Soon the federal government would be seeking an indictment against me for possession of a submachine gun, a federal offense. Ironically, I had just turned twenty-one, so my previous illegal gun charge could not be held against me.
I was really worried. Sam and I were preparing to commit a federal crime when we had been caught red-handed with all the evidence necessary to prove intent and conspiracy to commit that crime.
The FBI ran a check on the serial number of my car and discovered it had been stolen several months before I bought it—one of the many cars “dumped” in Mississippi before title registration was required. This could potentially lead to a charge of possession of stolen property.
Somehow, despite the ongoing high-profile reign of terror in the state and being caught with an illegal, fully loaded submachine gun, Imperial Wizard Sam Bowers of the Mississippi Ku Klux Klan and I were released on bond the next day. I decided this might be a good time to leave Mississippi before my luck ran out altogether.
In a few weeks, a federal grand jury would release its indictments. I calculated my chances of beating those charges were pretty slim. If convicted, I would simply run from the law and become a fugitive. The Cause demanded both service and sacrifice. I made preparations to flee and to live underground for as long as it took.
I returned to Mobile. Hoping to present a better image to the authorities, I took—and passed—the GED test, and enrolled in classes at Mobile College. I kept a low profile and gave every appearance of diligence in my studies.
I decided to take a trip by car to Los Angeles to deepen my ties with Dr. Wesley Swift, whose recorded sermons I had listened to back in Mobile. I also wanted to meet with other radical leaders on the West Coast. I talked with Dr. Swift by phone, and he invited me to come to California and serve as his understudy for a time. That was a surprising and flattering invitation, considering that I had never met him. But it would not be possible with federal firearms charges hanging over my head; a short visit would have to suffice.
I spent a fruitful week and a half getting acquainted with Dr. Swift and his aide, who was also the West Coast coordinator of the Minutemen, an anti-Communist organization. I had detailed discussions with them on ideology, strategy, and tactics—essentially how to organize resistance and conduct a terror campaign. We forged deep ties in the process.
Before returning home to Mobile, I went to San Diego to visit my favorite uncle, a former corporate vice president who now had his own business. He and his family visited Mobile every couple of years for summer vacation, and we all had a great time together. I had always enjoyed our visits. But this time it was very different. I had become so preoccupied with the Cause that it occupied all my thoughts and conversation. Nothing else interested me, and I had little else to talk about. Those who did not share my ideology and commitment were no longer a significant part of my life. I found that I had changed so much that my uncle and I had nothing in common anymore and could hardly communicate. I stayed only a day or two before driving back to Mobile.
* * *
On March 23, 1968, a warm, sunny day in Mobile, I decided to go down to Dauphin Island on the Gulf of Mexico to swim and get some sun. As I was returning home late that afternoon, I spotted FBI agents parked down the street, watching my parents’ house. I had practiced for this, and now that training began to pay off. I quickly deduced that the federal indictment had come out and the agents were there to arrest me. My heart began to race wildly.
Instead of turning in to our driveway, I continued straight ahead as though I was just another neighbor on my way. Their car was facing mine, with the engine off, so I had to drive right past them. I looked straight ahead as if I hadn’t noticed them.
But they recognized me. They jumped as though shocked by a cattle prod. I remember being surprised at how quickly their unmarked car started up. I punched the accelerator and sped away, my heart nearly in my mouth. They lost valuable time getting turned around on the narrow street. I made the corner well before they got their car straightened out. I made several fast turns, just as I had been trained, and I never saw them again.
The day I had long anticipated had arrived. I knew the entire Mobile police force would be looking for my car. I immediately went to the house of a close friend and changed cars. Then I made preparations for leaving the area quickly. Meanwhile, I learned that a team of FBI agents was searching my parents’ house and questioning my family concerning my whereabouts, my plans, my friends, and my acquaintances. I knew the FBI would have needed a search warrant. That meant the agents were prepared to take me in. Knowing that steeled my resolve.
I had crossed over into a dark and darkening world. I was going underground. There was no going back now.
A few days later I was at a safe house in the mountains of North Carolina, where I could wait for the heat to subside. I stayed with a couple who were dedicated to the Cause. They were part of the Miami group that had scattered throughout the South. Like the others, they said little about what they had left behind or why. I fit right in.
I was no longer just a college student from Mobile. I was now a fugitive from justice.
* * *
While I was in North Carolina, news broke that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated. This was a cause for celebration for many white Southern segregationists, for he was widely hated. For racists like me it meant that somewhere out there were others who were willing to take action. My North Carolina hosts and I watched the news with great interest as details emerged and law enforcement agencies searched for the killer. We were curious about who did it. We also hoped the killer would not be caught.
After several uneventful weeks, I decided to return secretly to Mississippi to meet with Sam Bowers. We discussed t
he political situation in the state and what the Klan’s response should be. Over the course of a few days, I met with key people before returning to my hideout in North Carolina.
A few months later, during one of those meetings with a friend in a Jackson area restaurant, we heard news that Attorney General Robert Kennedy had been assassinated in Los Angeles. This provided further encouragement to all who hated the Kennedys. It showed that there were people outside of the South who were willing to take violent action against America’s enemies. And it fed the tattered hope that we might win this struggle after all.
Throughout this time the Klan’s reign of terror continued with machine-gun and bombing attacks on Jews and blacks. In Meridian alone there had been eleven terrorist acts since January, including the burning of eight black churches. May and June were particularly eventful months, and the state of Mississippi was crawling with federal agents. Thus, I spent most of that time in North Carolina.
Then in May of 1968, the Jewish synagogue in Meridian, Mississippi, was bombed. Tension and fear were at an all-time high. The FBI was intensely involved in investigating the situation, with J. Edgar Hoover receiving daily progress reports from the Meridian field office.
The Klan decided it was time for one very special operation. With great caution I returned to Mississippi in late June to coordinate the bombing of Meyer Davidson’s house. The Cause was progressing, and this event would add to the work of others and advance it even more.
8
OFF TO PRISON
The bombing of the Davidson home might have advanced the Cause at least temporarily had it succeeded. But its monumental failure turned out to be the death knell of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi. And that death knell was symbolized by my conviction.
Consumed by Hate, Redeemed by Love Page 7