29. Jack Nelson, “Sam Bowers, 43, Grim Bachelor, Under $50,000 Bonds,” Meridian Star, July 30, 1968, A10.
30. Prospere, “Background History of the White Knights.”
31. Ibid.
32. “Whitley—Alfred—Whipping of the Same,” Adams County Sheriff’s Office, Natchez, Mississippi, February 7, 1964, Mississippi Sovereignty Commission, Mississippi Department of Archives and History (MDAH) Digital Collections, Jackson.
33. Ibid.
34. “Negroes Describe Beatings to CRC: Officials Questioned About Prosecution,” Daily News, February 18, 1965, A1.
35. Investigator John Sullivan, “A Discussion of Violence in Natchez, Mississippi, and Vicinity in Date, Order, Most of Which is Attributed to Klan Activities,” House Un-American Activities Committee, July 30, 1965, NARA, Washington, DC, 3.
36. Ibid.
37. Ibid.
38. “Beating of Archie Curtis and Willie Jackson,” Adams County Sheriff’s Office, Deputies David Blough and Guy Smith, February 16, 1964, Mississippi Sovereignty Commission, MDAH Digital Collections.
39. A. V. Davis to Albert Jones, June 17, 1961, Mississippi Sovereignty Commission, MDAH Digital Collections.
40. Mary Curtis, interview by Stanley Nelson, August 18, 2009.
41. Sullivan, “A Discussion of Violence.”
42. Stanley Nelson, “FBI Can’t Disprove Self-Defense Claim in 1965 Fayette, Miss., Shooting,” Concordia Sentinel, March 6, 2013, A1.
43. Investigator Rex Armistead, Mississippi Highway Safety Patrol, 1964, NARA, Washington, DC, 5.
44. Natchez City Directory, 1964.
45. MHSP Investigators D. B. Crockett and Ford O’Neal, “Clifton Walker Murder Report,” March 2, 1964, NARA, Washington, DC, 4–6.
46. Dunbar Rowland, Encyclopedia of Mississippi History, 2 vols. (Madison, WI: S. A. Brant, 1907), 2:964–67.
47. Ibid., 1:611.
48. Ben Greenberg, “Decades after Slaying, Mississippi Family Seeks Justice,” Clarion-Ledger, July 22, 2012.
49. Crockett and O’Neal, “Clifton Walker Murder Report,” 4.
50. Mary G. Armstrong, “Memoirs of George Armstrong” (self-published, 1958), 369.
51. Crockett and O’Neal, “Clifton Walker Murder Report,” 4.
52. Update on Clifton Walker Murder, October 20, 1964, MHSP, NARA, Washington, DC.
53. Crockett and O’Neal, “Clifton Walker Murder Report,” 1–2.
54. Greenberg, “Decades after Slaying.”
55. Crockett and O’Neal, “Clifton Walker Murder Report,” 4–6.
56. Ibid., 1–4, 6.
57. Ibid., 2.
58. MHSP, “Continuation of Investigation of Murder Case, Wilkinson County, Miss., Victim, Clifton Walker, N/M,” March 5, 1964, 4, MDAH.
59. Special Agent in Charge, New Orleans, Airtel to FBI Director, The White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi, March 7, 1964, 1, 24, FBI Civil Unrest, White Knights file 157-HQ-1552, NARA.
60. Silver Dollar Group and Minutemen Report by SAC, Alexandria, La., April 15, 1964, 4, FBI Civil Unrest, Silver Dollar Group file 157-HQ-4717, NARA.
4. SUPERIOR BY BLOOD
1. Thomas Moore and Thelma Collins v. Franklin County (U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi, Western Division, Jackson, Mississippi, August 5, 2008), 7.
2. David Ridgen, “Filmmaker David Ridgen Recounts Final Hours for Dee and Moore,” Concordia Sentinel, October 22, 2009.
3. Moore and Collins v. Franklin County, 7.
4. Clyde Seale Testimony, Hearings Before the Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC), U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, DC, January 1966, 2807–2812 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1966).
5. James Ford Seale Testimony, HUAC, 2807–2812 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1966).
6. “Ex-Minister Testifies He Saw Reputed Klansman Saw Off a Shotgun,” Picayune Item, June 8, 2007.
7. Hollis Clay and Marilyn Posey, interviews by FBI Special Agents William D. Hoskins and Billy Bob Williams, September 11, 1965, FBI Civil Unrest, Earl Hodges file 157-JN-3830, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), College Park, MD.
8. Moore and Collins v. Franklin County, 6–7.
9. Matt Saldana, “Day 5 Seale Trial: Profile of a Klansman,” Jackson Free Press, June 6, 2007.
10. Ridgen, “Filmmaker David Ridgen Recounts Final Hours for Dee and Moore.”
11. “James Ford Seale, Charles Marcus Edwards-Henry Hezekiah Dee-Victim, Charlie Eddie Moore-Victim,” FBI Memo, January 12, 1965, 4–5, FBI Civil Unrest, James Ford Seale file 157-HQ-3676, NARA.
12. Ibid., 5.
13. Ridgen, “Filmmaker David Ridgen Recounts Final Hours for Dee and Moore.”
14. United States v. James Ford Seale, Brief for the United States As Appellee, U.S. District Court of Appeals, Fifth District, New Orleans, Louisiana, March 14, 2008, 8.
15. Ibid.
16. “James Ford Seale, Charles Marcus Edwards,” 2.
17. County Attorney Edwin E. Benoist Jr. Memo, Natchez, Mississippi, State of Mississippi vs. M. W. (Jack) Seale, Carrying Concealed Weapon, February 14, 1967.
18. FBI Special Agent Clarence C. Prospere, Ernest Buchanan Parker Report, October 28, 1966, FBI Civil Unrest, Ernest Parker file 157-HQ-3437, NARA.
19. “James Ford Seale, Charles Marcus Edwards,” 2.
20. Link Cameron, interview by FBI Special Agents William F. Dukes and J. L. Martin, September 9, 1965, FBI Civil Unrest, Earl Hodges file 157-JN-3830, NARA.
21. Prior to that, the area was known as Davis Bend, a twenty-five-mile horseshoe-shaped turn in the Mississippi River twenty miles south of Vicksburg. In the years prior to the Civil War, Jefferson Davis and his brother Joseph owned the property. There, Jefferson Davis ran Brierfield, a 1,000-acre cotton plantation. The Mississippi changed course in 1867, cutting through the narrow neck of the bend and turning the Davis property into an island. While the island legally remains a part of Warren County, Mississippi, it is located on the Louisiana side of the river. Now an oxbow lake, the old channel—like other former old channels of the Mississippi—is often referred to as Old River. Marion Bragg, Historic Names and Places on the Lower Mississippi River (Vicksburg: Mississippi River Commission, 1977).
22. Fourth Davis Island Land Company, et al., v. Ernest B. Parker and Bobby Earl Parker (Supreme Court of Mississippi, January 16, 1985).
23. JN 30-R (Ernest Gilbert), interview by FBI Special Agent Clarence Prospere, September 14, 1964, FBI Civil Unrest, Ernest Parker file 157-HQ-3437, NARA.
24. U.S. v. James Ford Seale, 10.
25. “James Ford Seale, Charles Marcus Edwards,” 1.
26. Ibid., 6.
27. Ibid.
28. U.S. v. James Ford Seale, 5.
29. “Two from Franklin County Are Charged in Murder of Town Men,” Natchez Democrat, November 7, 1965, A1.
30. U.S. v. James Ford Seale, 69–70.
31. Special Agent in Charge, Jackson, Miss., Memo to FBI Director, “Henry Hezekiah Dee, Charles Eddie Moore, Miscellaneous,” October 10, 1964, November 7, 1964, FBI Civil Unrest, James Ford Seale file 157-HQ-3676, NARA.
32. Ibid.
33. U.S. v. James Ford Seale, 47–48.
34. Ibid., 48.
35. MHSP Investigator Gwin Cole, Dee-Moore Murder Case Report, HUAC, November 6, 1964, 2, NARA, Washington, DC.
36. MHSP Investigator Gwin Cole, “Behavior of Mr. Bob McCain, Game Warden, State Games and Fish Commission, During the Search of Palmyra (Davis) Island,” HUAC, November 9–10, 1964, NARA, Washington, DC.
37. “James Ford Seale, Charles Marcus Edwards,” 6–8.
38. Frances Preston Mills, ed., The History of the Descendants of the New Jersey Settlers of Adams County, Mississippi, vol. 2 (Jackson, MS: self-published by “the society,” 1981), 245.
39. Mary G. Armstrong, Memoirs of George W. Armstrong (self-published, 1958) 85–103.
40. Ibid., 372.
41. Ibid., 200.
42. Statement of Richard Joe Butler, Mississippi Highway Safety Patrol, HUAC, April 7, 1967, 1–15, NARA, Washington, DC.
43. MHSP Investigators D. B. Crockett, Ford O’Neal, George Woodard, “Shooting at Natchez, Mississippi, Victim: Richard Butler, N/M,” HUAC, April 14, 1964, 1, NARA, Washington, DC.
44. Bill West, interview by Mississippi Highway Safety Patrol Investigator Gwin Cole, HUAC, November 5, 1964, NARA, Washington, DC.
45. Mrs. Haywood Benton Drane, re-interview by Mississippi Highway Safety Patrol Investigators Rex Armistead and H. T. Richardson, HUAC, October 10, 1964, NARA, Washington, DC.
46. John D. Sullivan to Donald T. Appell, Memo Concerning Sheriff Odell Anders, House HUAC, August 4, 1965, 1–3, NARA, Washington, DC.
47. FBI Special Agent Samuel N. Jennings, Informant Report to SAC, Jackson, MS, September 9, 1964, FBI Civil Unrest, White Knights file 157-HQ-1552, NARA.
48. Marvin McKinney Trial, FBI Special Agent in Charge, New Orleans, July 1, 1964, 1–2, FBI Civil Unrest, White Knights file 157-HQ-1552, NARA.
49. Stanley Nelson, “Gunshots in Morgantown Signaled Changes in Klan Membership,” Concordia Sentinel, January 9, 2008, A1. Ernest Avants, interview by FBI Special Agents John Dennis Miller and Benjamin Graves, September 9, 1967, FBI Civil Unrest, Ernest Avants file 157-HQ-3701, NARA.
5. A GREAT STORM GATHERING
1. John Doar and Dorothy Landsberg, “The Performance of the FBI in Investigating Violations of Federal Laws Protecting the Right to Vote, 1960–67,” Attachment 4, Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities of the U.S. Senate Hearing, vol. 6 (Washington, DC: U.S. Printing Office, 1975), 888–991.
2. Ibid.
3. The Klan Ledger, May 10, 1964, FBI Civil Unrest, White Knights file 157-HQ-1552, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), College Park, MD.
4. Joseph Alsop, “Murder by Night,” Washington Post, June 17, 1964, A1.
5. Doar and Landsberg, “The Performance of the FBI,” 935.
6. “Senator Long Sums up Civil Rights Bill,” Concordia Sentinel, June 26, 1964, 2.
7. “May Be Publicity Hoax, Winstead Tells House,” Meridian Star, June 25, 1964, A1.
8. Florence Mars, Witness in Philadelphia (Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 1977), 85.
9. “The Pow Wow,” Concordia Sentinel, July 3, 1964, 1.
10. Adam Faircloth, Race and Democracy: The Civil Rights Struggle in Louisiana, 1915–1972 (Atlanta: University of Georgia Press, 1995), 300–301.
11. Don Whitehead, Attack on Terror: The FBI against the Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1970), 45.
12. Florence Mars, Witness in Philadelphia, 98–99.
13. Doar and Landsberg, “The Performance of the FBI,” 888–89, 939. Jackson had been the site of an office in 1941 but had closed in 1946 due to a low caseload. Since that time, Mississippi cases had been split between division offices in Memphis and New Orleans. In 1964, before the Jackson office was reopened, there were thirteen resident agents in the state—six in northern Mississippi (Oxford, Clarksdale, Tupelo, Greenwood, Columbus, and Greenville) who reported to the field office in Memphis, and seven resident agents in southern Mississippi (Natchez, Biloxi, Gulfport, Hattiesburg, Laurel, Meridian, and Jackson) who reported to New Orleans. Some of the offices were two-person operations, while others were staffed with a lone agent.
14. Stanley Nelson, “1964 Case Closed: DOJ Identifies Seven Suspects; Location of Body Unknown,” Concordia Sentinel, July 17, 2013, A1.
15. Ibid.
16. Paige Fitzgerald, Deputy Chief in Charge of the U.S. Department of Justice Cold Case Initiative, Notice to Close Joseph Edwards File, February 17, 2013, Civil Rights Division, Department of Justice, Washington, DC.
17. Ibid.
18. Stanley Nelson, “Cold Case Witnesses, Retired Agents Ignored by the FBI,” Concordia Sentinel, June 6, 2012, A1.
19. Carl Ray Thompson, interview by Stanley Nelson, December 13, 2007.
20. W. T. Benson and John Dunlap, interviews by FBI Special Agents Merriman D. Diven and George F. Benz, August 23, 1967, FBI Civil Unrest, Joseph Edwards file 44-NO-2293, NARA.
21. Robert Wesley Easley and Dr. E. L. McAmis, interviews by FBI Special Agents Diven and Benz, August 23, 1967, FBI Civil Unrest, Joseph Edwards file 44-NO-2293, NARA.
22. Clara Dunlap, interview by FBI Special Agents Diven and Benz, September 8, 1967, FBI Civil Unrest, Joseph Edwards file 44-NO-2293, NARA.
23. Stanley Nelson, “Klansman’s Son Recalls Shamrock, Silver Dollar Group and Joe Edwards,” Concordia Sentinel, A7.
24. Stanley Nelson, “A Drowning, a Kiss Triggered Edwards Murder,” Concordia Sentinel, May 5, 2010, A1.
25. FBI Special Agent George P. Gamblin, Silver Dollar Group Report, September 12, 1969, FBI Civil Unrest, Silver Dollars Group file 157-HQ-4717, NARA.
26. Ibid.
27. Ibid.
28. Stanley Nelson, “Witness Saw Edwards’ Buick Pulled Over by Police,” Concordia Sentinel, July 22, 2009, A8.
29. Nelson, “A Drowning, a Kiss,” A1.
30. Ibid.
31. Ibid.
32. Ibid.
33. Nelson, “1964 Case Closed,” A1.
34. Ibid.
35. Paige Fitzgerald, Notice to Close Joseph Edwards File.
36. Dewey White, interview by FBI Special Agent William E. Dent Jr., September 22, 1967, FBI Civil Unrest, Wharlest Jackson file 44-JN-2044, NARA.
37. MHSP Investigators Rex Armistead and H.A. Richardson, Informant Report on B. J. Pike, October 2, 1964, Hearings Before the Committee on Un-American Activities, U.S. House of Representatives, NARA, Washington, DC.
38. Nelson, “1964 Case Closed,” A1.
39. Ibid.
40. Ibid.
41. Billy Bob Williams, interview by Stanley Nelson, January 25, 2014.
42. Patricia Sullivan, “Roy K. Moore, 94: FBI Agent Probed Civil Rights Killings,” Washington Post, October 20, 2008.
43. Billy Bob Williams, interview by Stanley Nelson, January 25, 2014.
44. Ibid.
45. Doar and Landsberg, “The Performance of the FBI,” 931–32.
46. Billy Bob Williams, interview by Stanley Nelson, January 25, 2014.
47. Doar and Landsberg, “The Performance of the FBI,” 941, 943.
48. Jefferson College Records, January 22, 1949, through April 17, 1956, Jefferson College, Washington, Mississippi.
49. Billy Bob Williams, interview by Stanley Nelson, March 8, 2011.
50. Tommy Ferrell, interview by Stanley Nelson, October 10, 2013.
51. FBI Special Agent Clarence Prospere, White Knights Informant Report, February 17, 1964, FBI Civil Unrest, White Knights file 157-HQ-1552, NARA.
52. Billy Bob Williams, interview by Stanley Nelson, March 8, 2011.
53. Philip R. Manuel, Investigator, U.S. House of Representatives Committee of Un-American Activities, to Francis J. McNamara, Director, “Activity of the United Klans of America,” Washington, DC, May 18, 1964, 1, NARA, Washington, DC.
54. FBI Special Agent Steve M. Callender, White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan of Mississippi Report, May 25, 1964, 2, FBI Civil Unrest, White Knights file 157-HQ-1552, NARA.
55. FBI Special Agent Clarence G. Prospere, Background History of WKKKKOM Report, October 22, 1965, 5, FBI Civil Unrest, White Knights file 157-HQ-1552, NARA.
56. Manuel, “Activity of United Klans of America,” 1.
57. Stanley Nelson, “Deputy Seen with Stranger in Green Car on Night of Fire,” Concordia Sentinel, March 10, 2010, A1.
6. A DECLARATION OF WAR
1. “Mayor Nosser Announces for Re-Election,” Natchez Democrat, January 12, 1964, A1.
2. Tony Byrne, interview by Stanley Nelson, May 21, 2014.
3. “Former Police Chief Dies at Age 81,” Natchez Democrat, February 20, 2007, A1.
4. Billy Bob Williams, interview by Bryan R. Holstein, February 13 and 16, 2007,
Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI Inc., 2007.
5. Tony Byrne, interview by Nelson, May 21, 2014.
6. John Sullivan to Donald T. Appell, memo on Natchez Police Department Captain J. G. Wisner, U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Un-American Activities, Washington, DC, September 29, 1965, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).
7. Adams County Sheriff Odell Anders, interview by FBI, October 23, 1964, FBI Civil Unrest, White Knights file 157-HQ-1552, NARA, College Park, MD.
8. John Sullivan to Donald T. Appell, memo on Mayor John Nosser, U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Un-American Activities, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, December 18, 1965, NARA, Washington, DC.
9. Police Chief J. T. Robinson testimony, in Justice in Jackson, Mississippi: Hearings Held in Jackson, Miss., February 16–20, 1965 (New York: Arno Press, 1971), 157–58.
10. Nicholas Von Hoffman, “Anti-Antebellum Natchez: How Things Do Change,” Chicago Sun-Times, September 10, 1964, A1.
11. Ibid.
12. Bob Doyle, “Natchez Situation,” U.S. House of Representatives Committee on House Un-American Activities, Washington, DC, December 11, 1965, NARA, Washington, DC.
13. Ibid.
14. Drew Pearson, “Threats, Courage in Miss.,” Tuscaloosa News, November 10, 1965, A6.
15. Doyle, “Natchez Situation.”
16. “My Problems: How Much Should a Family Knuckle Under,” Good Housekeeping, June 1965, 62.
17. Doyle, “Natchez Situation.”
18. John Sullivan, “A Discussion of Violence in Natchez, Miss., and Vicinity,” U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Un-American Activities, July 30, 1965, 14, NARA, Washington, DC.
19. A Report on Equal Rights Protection in the South (Jackson, MS: U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 1965), 20.
20. Stanley Nelson, “Five Possible Motives for 1964 Morris Murder,” Concordia Sentinel, November 12, 2008, A8.
21. Sullivan, “A Discussion of Violence in Natchez, Miss.,” 15–18.
22. “No Injuries as Blast Rocks Home of Mayor John Nosser,” Natchez Democrat, September 26, 1964, A1.
23. “Mayor John Nosser Appeals to People,” Natchez Democrat, September 27, 1964, A1.
24. “Klan Denies Any Part in Bombing,” Natchez Democrat, September 27, 1964, A1.
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