ARREST IN A 1964 MISSISSIPPI COLD CASE
Introduction
Focus
This CBC News in
Review story focuses on the remarkable investigative
documentary of a
CBC reporter. It also
profiles the courageous struggle of
the brother of an
African American
who, along with
his friend, was
brutally murdered
in Mississippi in
1964. Together they
expose the racist
terror that led to
the killings and the
40-year cover-up.
YV
Sections
marked with
this symbol indicate
content suitable for
younger viewers.
The Southern U.S. state of Mississippi
was a seething cauldron of racial tension
and violence in the late spring of 1964. It
was the beginning of Freedom Summer,
a determined effort by local black civil
rights organizations and their Northern
supporters to flood the state with activists from all over the country. Their
non-violent campaign’s purpose was to
achieve racial equality and bring an end
to the system of segregation (enforced
separation of races) that had denied local
African Americans basic rights such as
voting for almost a century.
Pitted against them were the state’s
entirely white political power structure,
racist police forces, federal authorities
reluctant to act, and most importantly,
an even more dangerous, hidden enemy.
This was the proudly racist Ku Klux
Klan (KKK), a secret white-supremacist
organization that had been terrorizing
blacks brave enough to demand their
rights across the South since the end of
the U.S. Civil War. These forces were
extremely powerful and totally resistant
to any change in the Southern way of
life that included complete white dominance of the region’s economic, social,
and political life and the total subservience of African Americans to a fundamentally unjust and undemocratic state
of affairs. This is what the civil rights
movement, under the inspirational leadership of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,
was determined to end.
On May 2, 1964, the eve of Freedom
Summer, two Mississippi black youths,
Charles Moore and Henry Dee, who had
absolutely no involvement in the civil
rights struggle, were hitching a ride near
the ice cream store in the small town of
Meadville. Local members of the Ku
Klux Klan, including James Ford Seale
and Charles Marcus Edwards, allegedly
picked up the young men and took them
to a remote wooded area in the Homochitto National Forest. Here they were tied
to trees and brutally beaten and tortured,
while the perpetrators demanded information about an alleged black plot to
smuggle firearms into the area in order to
foment a violent uprising. Neither Moore
nor Dee knew anything about such a
plan, which proved to be completely fictitious. Despite their denials, their violent
ordeal did not end. Nearly dead, Moore
and Dee were thrown into the trunk of
a car, while the perpetrators drove them
across the Mississippi River to an island.
At this point, their nearly lifeless bodies were tied to an army jeep engine and
some old train rails and flywheels, and
dumped into the river. Six months later,
Navy divers found their remains, with
obvious marks of the brutal torture to
which they had been subjected.
Despite the fact that Seale and Edwards were arrested within days of
the deaths of Moore and Dee, and that
Seale actually confessed to the crime, no
charges were ever laid against them, and
the killings of these two young AfricanAmerican men went unpunished. There
was almost no media or public attention
directed at this crime at the time. The
two white KKK members believed to
have been responsible for the murders
were allowed to go free and never stood
trial for their brutal acts. One reason for
this almost incredible lapse in the U.S.
judicial system is the likelihood that the
murders of Moore and Dee were soon
overshadowed by a similar crime: the
killings of three civil rights workers, two
of them whites from New York. Their
deaths in Mississippi, just over a month
later, formed the basis for the 1988
film Mississippi Burning and aroused
a national and international outcry. By
CBC News in Review • April 2007 • Page 33
contrast, the brutal torture and murder
of two Mississippi black men, neither of
whom had any association with the civil
rights struggle, quickly became forgotten. Their deaths were relegated to the
“cold case” files of unsolved crimes that
law enforcement agencies were no longer actively investigating.
However, over four decades later, in
2006, Thomas Moore, a retired U.S.
army sergeant-major, and CBC reporter
and documentary filmmaker David Ridgen collaborated in an effort to crack this
long-unsolved and forgotten cold case.
They travelled to Mississippi, where
they tracked down Edwards, and even
more surprisingly Seale, who was widely
believed to have died. Using FBI documents from the time and the testimony of
eyewitnesses who had been reluctant to
come forward, they pressured local and
national law enforcement agencies to reopen the case. At the same time, Moore
spoke to black church groups in the area,
who staged peaceful demonstrations
reminiscent of the days of the civil rights
era, demanding justice and the laying of
charges against Edwards and Seale. At
long last, national media outlets such as
The New York Times and CNN started
reporting on the case, raising public
awareness of it and pressuring authorities
to act.
After months of determined investigation and many setbacks, Moore’s and
Ridgen’s efforts finally paid off. In early
2007, U.S. Attorney General Alberto
Gonzalez announced in Washington,
D.C., that Seale was to be indicted by a
federal grand jury on two counts of kidnapping resulting in the deaths of Moore
and Dee. Edwards, who was not indicted,
was believed to be co-operating with the
FBI in order to avoid criminal prosecution. After almost four decades of neglect
and inaction, the murders of two innocent 19-year-olds, whose only offence
was being black in the wrong place at the
wrong time, were receiving the attention they should have been given years
ago. And for Thomas Moore, whose life
has been haunted by the trauma of his
brother’s brutal killing and the 42-yearold cover-up that followed, justice was
finally achieved. It took the remarkable
efforts of a brave and determined African-American man and the journalistic
and investigative skills of a Canadian
reporter to achieve what local and federal
law enforcement agencies in the United
States had been unable or unwilling to
do over the course of four decades. The
Mississippi cold-case file of 1964 was
finally closed, and those accused of the
brutal, senseless murder of two young
men would at last face the justice system.
To Consider
1. Why were racial tensions at such a high pitch in the Southern U.S. state
of Mississippi in 1964? How did this situation affect what happened to
Charles Moore and Henry Dee?
2. Why were the murders of Moore and Dee not solved, despite the fact that
those allegedly responsible for them were well known locally and to lawenforcement agencies?
3. How did Thomas Moore and CBC reporter David Ridgen succeed in having
the case re-opened and the alleged perpetrators of the crime brought to
justice?
4. Before reading this News in Review story, how aware were you personally
of the deep racial hatred in the Southern U.S. during this period?
CBC News in Review • April 2007 • Page 34
ARREST IN A 1964 MISSISSIPPI COLD CASE
YV Video Review
Watch the video
and answer the
questions in the
spaces provided.
1. What were the names of two young African-American men who were kidnapped, tortured, and murdered in Mississippi in May 1964?
2. What are the names of the two white Mississippi residents who are believed to have been the ringleaders in the killings of these two young
men?
Further Research
To stay informed
about this case,
consider visiting the
official Web site of
the Attorney General of the United
States at www.
usdoj.gov/ag.
3. How did CBC reporter David Ridgen come to be involved in trying to solve
this cold-case file?
4. a) What is the name of the brother of one of the murdered young men?
b) Why was finding those responsible for his brother’s death so important
to him?
5. What motive could local whites have for killing these two young AfricanAmerican men? Why were their killings so brutal and cruel?
6. How did both local and national law-enforcement agencies work to stall
the case and prevent it from going to trial in 1964?
7. What remarkable discovery did Ridgen and Moore make shortly after arriving in Mississippi to investigate the case in 2006?
8. How did this discovery reawaken media interest and attention in the case?
CBC News in Review • April 2007 • Page 35
9. How did Thomas Moore confront one of the two men he believed was responsible for the murder of his brother? What effect did this confrontation
have on solving the case?
10. Where does the case stand as of spring 2007?
For Discussion
1. Why do you think a murder case such as this one could have remained an
uninvestigated cold case in Mississippi for over four decades? Do you think
a similar situation could have occurred in Canada? Why or why not?
2. The video contains a number of powerful scenes involving confrontations
involving Thomas Moore, the brother of one of the murdered youths.
Which of them do you find most dramatic, and why?
3. As a Canadian, how do you feel about the fact that it took the journalistic
efforts of a CBC reporter to crack a murder case that both local and federal
judicial authorities in the United States had been either unable or unwilling to solve for over 40 years?
4. Why do you think the Ku Klux Klan was such a powerful and feared organization in Mississippi and across the U.S. South during the 1960s? Why is it
no longer such an influential group there?
5. How do features such as the photography, accompanying music, and interviews with local residents create an atmosphere or mood for this story?
How does this mood affect your viewing of the video?
6. At one point in the video, Thomas Moore expresses his deep desire for
revenge for the killing of his brother, including plans to attack innocent
white people in retaliation. How was he able to overcome this rage and
channel it into a more constructive and positive direction?
CBC News in Review • April 2007 • Page 36
ARREST IN A 1964 MISSISSIPPI COLD CASE
Martyrs for Civil Rights
Further Research
To learn more
about the past and
present work of the
NAACP consider a
visit to the official
Web site at www.
naacp.org.
Although the brutal kidnapping, torture, and killing of Charles Moore and Henry
Dee was not directly related to the
for the Advancement of Colored People),
U.S. civil rights movement that was
Moore dedicated his life to the struggle
sweeping the South during the 1960s,
for racial justice. He campaigned for
their deaths were undoubtedly racially
equal salaries for black and white
motivated. The individuals allegedly
teachers, an end to racially segregated
responsible were members of the Ku
schools, and voting rights for Florida’s
Klux Klan, a violent white supremacist
black population, winning many vicorganization determined to halt racial
tories on these fronts. In 1949, he took
integration and keep Southern blacks
the lead in investigating the notorious
in an inferior position to the dominant
Groveland rape case, where four young
whites. Since the end of Second World
black men had been charged with raping
War, a civil rights movement emerged
a white woman, provoking a white mob
in the Southern United States, deterrampage in the town. The U.S. Supreme
mined to put an end to racial injustice
Court overturned the convictions in 1951
and achieve equality for the region’s
after finding that the defendants had been
blacks. With the enactment of the Civil
brutally beaten and tortured by local
Rights Act (1964) and Voting Rights
police. Shortly after, two of them were
Act (1965), their largely non-violent
shot, and one killed, by Lake County
efforts achieved some measure of sucSheriff Willis McCall, a notorious racist
cess. Racism and discrimination against and supporter of the Ku Klux Klan. The
blacks did not entirely disappear, and in shootings triggered a national outcry for
fact still exist today. But because of the
justice, and Moore called for McCall’s
efforts of the civil rights movement it is dismissal and indictment for murder.
no longer possible for Southern states to
On Christmas Day 1951, a bomb
maintain the legal system of segregation exploded just beneath the bedroom of
that prevented blacks from voting, atHenry and Harriette Moore’s house in
tending the same schools as whites, and Jacksonville, Florida. Moore died on his
using public facilities such as restauway to hospital, and his wife succumbed
rants, buses, and washrooms.
to her injuries nine days later. The killOver the course of this epic struggle
ings of these two civil rights workers
for civil rights in the U.S., a country
caused nationwide protests. Both Florida
that supposedly stands for democracy
governor Fuller Warren and President
and freedom and promotes these values
Harry S Truman were deluged with teleworldwide, many people, black and
grams calling for an FBI investigation of
white alike, paid with their lives for the
the case. One year later this happened,
victory over prejudice and injustice.
and it quickly became clear that agents
Here are profiles of some of them:
of the Florida Ku Klux Klan may have
been responsible for the bombing. Three
Klan members were identified, one of
Harry T. and Harriette Moore
whom committed suicide shortly after
Harry T. Moore and his wife Harriette
are two of the unsung heroes of the U.S. his name was made public. But despite
many subsequent investigations, the case
civil rights movement. As a teacher,
school principal, and later state organiz- of the murders of Henry and Harriette
Moore remains unsolved, a “cold case”
er of the NAACP (National Association
CBC News in Review • April 2007 • Page 37
Definition
Molotov cocktail
usually refers to a
crude incendiary
device such as a
bottle filled with an
inflammatory liquid
such as gasoline.
A lit wick causes
a burst of flame
when the device is
broken after being thrown. It was
named after Soviet
Foreign Minister
Molotov when
used by Hungarians
during a nationalist rising against
the Russian-backed
Communist regime
in 1956.
similar to the one involving Charles
Moore and Henry Dee in Mississippi
over a decade later.
Source: The Legacy of Harry T. and Harriette Moore. www.naacp.org/about/history/moores_story/
Medgar Evers
A native of Mississippi, Medgar Evers
was a distinguished Second World War
veteran who became actively involved
in the civil rights movement in his
home state after the end of the war.
He became president of the Regional
Council of Negro Leadership (RCNL),
an organization dedicated to promoting civil rights and self-help for African
Americans. In this role he staged a successful boycott of local service stations
that prevented blacks from using their
restrooms, and attracted the attention
of the NAACP. In 1954, he applied for
admission to the all-white law school
of the University of Mississippi, but
was rejected. However, as a result of his
ongoing campaign to desegregate the
state’s schools and institutions of higher
learning, the university was finally compelled to admit James Meredith, its first
black student, in 1962.
As the first NAACP field officer in
Mississippi, Evers was the target of
many death threats from the Ku Klux
Klan and other white supremacist
organizations. But this did not stop him
from speaking out for justice and an end
to racial segregation. He publicly called
for the re-opening of the murder case of
Emmett Till, a young African-American
teenager from Chicago who had been
brutally beaten and killed in Mississippi
in 1955 while visiting his relatives. On
May 28, 1963, a Molotov cocktail was
thrown into the carport of Evers’ home
in Jackson, Mississippi. Days later he
narrowly escaped being run over by a
car after leaving the local NAACP
office.
In early June, a local television station took the unprecedented step of
inviting Evers to present the goals of
the civil rights movement on air. It was
the first time a black spokesperson had
ever been given such an opportunity.
Evers rose to the challenge, presenting
the case for justice and an end to racial
segregation in a moving, persuasive
way. This was the last speech he ever
was to make, however. Just days later,
on June 12, 1963, as he was returning
home from a meeting with NAACP
lawyers, a bullet struck him in the back.
He managed to stagger into his home
before collapsing and dying in the local
hospital less than an hour later. On that
same evening, President John F. Kennedy made his first national television
address dealing with the civil-rights
issue.
Evers was buried with full military
honours in Washington’s Arlington National Cemetery at a service attended by
over 3 000 people. Within days of his
murder, a local fertilizer salesman and
active member of the Ku Klux Klan,
Byron de la Beckwith, was arrested and
charged with the crime. During his first
trial, de la Beckworth received many
distinguished visitors while in jail,
including Mississippi Governor Ross
Barnett and Major Edwin A. Walker, a
prominent U.S. military commander.
Despite overwhelming evidence, the
jury in the trial was unable to reach a
verdict, and de la Beckworth went free.
Outrage over the assassination of
Medgar Evers, perhaps one of the
most gifted leaders the U.S. civil rights
movement ever produced, was widespread. A number of songs, including
Bob Dylan’s haunting ballad, “Only a
Pawn in Their Game,” kept the memory
of Evers and his tragic death alive for
years afterward. Finally, in 1994, a new
trial was convened based on evidence
CBC News in Review • April 2007 • Page 38
that de la Beckwith had confessed to the
crime decades before. Evers’ body was
exhumed for an autopsy, and on February 5, 1994, de la Beckwith was finally
convicted of his murder. He appealed
unsuccessfully and died in prison in
January 2001.
After Evers’ body was exhumed, he
was given a new funeral, permitting his
now-grown children, who were toddlers
at the time of their father’s murder, to
know and appreciate what he had done.
In 1970, Medgar Evers College was
opened in Brooklyn, New York, as part
of the City University. Ghosts of Mississippi, a movie based on the 1994 trial,
received critical and box office success.
Evers’ brother Charles succeeded him
as NAACP field officer, and his wife,
Myrlie, also became a noted civil rights
activist.
Source: Wikipedia entry, “Medgar
Evers,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Medgar_Evers
The Mississippi Burning Case
Just over a month after the killings of
Charles Moore and Henry Dee, three
more young men would meet violent
deaths at the hands of the Ku Klux Klan
in Mississippi. On June 21, 1964, James
Chaney, a 21-year-old African American
from Meridian, Mississippi, was travelling with two white New Yorkers, Andrew Goodman, aged 20, and Michael
Schwerner, 24, when Neshoba County
deputy sheriff Cecil Price stopped their
car for an alleged speeding offence.
Goodman and Schwerner had only been
in Mississippi for one day and along
with Chaney had just completed their
training in non-violent civil disobedience at a local college. They were to
participate in the Freedom Summer
actions of the civil rights movement in
Mississippi, specifically the investigation of the burning of a black church a
few days before, when they were ap-
prehended. Prior to their arrest, the men
had informed a local civil rights group
that they believed the White Citizens
Council, a pro-segregation organization
with close ties to the Ku Klux Klan, had
recorded their licence number. After
being detained briefly and fined, they
were ordered to leave the county. Price
followed them to the edge of town, in
the direction of Meridian.
The next day, the burned remains of
the station wagon were found with three
hubcaps missing, in the opposite direction to where the trio had been heading
after they were released from custody.
But Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner were nowhere to be found. Despite
pleas for a police investigation of their
disappearance, Neshoba County Sheriff
Lawrence Rainey dismissed public concerns, claiming that the three men were
just hiding in order to create negative
publicity about the state of Mississippi.
Even worse, Governor Paul Johnson
speculated that they could be “in Cuba.”
However, on August 4, 1964, police made a grim discovery on Olen
Burrage’s Old Jolly Farm, just six miles
south of Philadelphia, Mississippi.
The bodies of Chaney, Goodman, and
Schwerner were unearthed, showing
clear signs of having been shot, and
in Chaney’s case brutally beaten. In
1967, 18 local white residents, many
of whom had close ties with the White
Citizens Council and the Klan, stood
trial for violating the civil rights of the
three murder victims. Seven were found
guilty, including E.G. Barnett, a Democratic Party candidate for sheriff, and
Edgar Ray Killen, a local preacher. But
a deadlocked jury eventually set all of
them free.
For over four decades, the murders of
these three civil rights workers maintained a powerful hold over the imagination of many people in the United
CBC News in Review • April 2007 • Page 39
States and elsewhere. Since two of them
were white and the other black, and all
were committed to the civil rights struggle, they came to be regarded as true
martyrs to the cause of racial justice.
The fact that Schwerner and Goodman
were Jewish also indicated the strong
support that America’s Jewish community gave to the civil rights movement
at that time. But it also played into the
hands of racists in the South who were
anti-Semitic as well as anti-black.
The killings of these three young men
provided material for a number of films,
including a CBC made-for-television
movie Attack on Terror: The FBI vs.
the Ku Klux Klan, which aired in 1974,
and the more famous 1988 film Mississippi Burning. These films re-awakened
public interest in this case, but also
met with severe criticism from black
civil rights groups who questioned the
sympathetic portrayal of FBI agents
in them. At the time, President John F.
Kennedy, his brother Robert, the Attorney General, and even more importantly
FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, were
very reluctant to involve the agency
in investigating the racially motivated
murders of civil rights workers in the
South. Kennedy was facing re-election
in 1964 and feared alienating white voters in the region if he pushed too hard
on civil rights. Hoover was convinced
that Martin Luther King Jr., the most
important leader of the movement, was
a communist.
Forty years after the killings of
Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner, a
multi-racial group of citizens met in
Philadelphia to demand that the case
be re-opened. It pressured Mississippi
Governor Haley R. Barbour to act, and
on January 6, 2005, Edgar Ray Killen
was indicted by a grand jury in Neshoba
County on three counts of murder. Six
months later, on June, 21, he was convicted of manslaughter and went to
prison.
Source: Wikipedia entry, “Mississippi
civil rights worker murders,” http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_civil_
rights_worker_murders
Analysis
1. After reading the profiles of these martyrs of the civil rights movement in
the United States, discuss their similarities and differences.
2. Why do you think it took so long for these cases to be solved? What similarities and differences do you notice between them and the “Mississippi
cold case,” the topic of the CBC News in Review video?
Extension Activity
Find out more about other martyrs of civil rights in the United States, including Emmett Till, the four girls who were the victims of the Birmingham church
bombing in 1963, civil rights worker Viola Liuzzo, who was shot in 1965, and
Martin Luther King Jr., who was assassinated in 1968.
CBC News in Review • April 2007 • Page 40
ARREST IN A 1964 MISSISSIPPI COLD CASE
The Ku Klux Klan: Profile of Hate
For well over a century, the invisible empire of the knights of the Ku Klux Klan has
conducted a campaign of racial intimida- whites could not permit to happen. The
tion, terror, and outright murder across
Klan targeted black activists and whites
the United States, at times even spreadwho had come from the North to help
ing into Canada. Although African Amer- them exercise their rights, especially
icans have been the main victims of Klan teachers who were educating blacks to
hatred and brutality, the organization
read and write. Led by Nathan Bedford
has also targeted Jews, Catholics, immiForrest, a former Confederate general
grants, labour organizers, and left-wing
and war hero, the Klan conducted a ruthpolitical figures as its enemies. Today,
less campaign of terror across the South,
the Klan is regarded as a lunatic fringe
burning schoolhouses, threatening teachultra-right-wing group, with a shrinkers, and lynching any blacks bold enough
ing membership and almost nonexistent
to challenge them.
political power and influence. But if one
It was at this time that members of
studies the history of this white suprema- the Klan began to wear their distinctive
cist hate organization from its origins
white sheets to conceal their identiafter the U.S. Civil War, it becomes
ties during their attacks, which usually
clear that the Klan’s strength has ebbed
took place under cover of darkness. One
and flowed with general trends in race
legend has it that Klansmen deliberrelations in the United States over the
ately dressed in white in order to terrify
course of time. For this reason, it may be blacks into thinking that they were the
premature to dismiss the latest doldrums
ghosts of Confederate soldiers killed in
the Klan now finds itself in as a terminal
the war, returning to exact their revenge.
phase in the group’s terrorist activities,
Along with blacks, Northern “carpethowever much one might hope this to be
baggers,” or political officials who had
the case.
come to the south to assist the ReconThe first Ku Klux Klan was formed
struction program of President Ulysses
just months after the defeat of the South
S. Grant, a former Union Army general,
in the Civil War. A group of disgruntled
were also targets of the Klan’s wrath.
Confederate Army veterans met in Pulas- But within years of its founding, the
ki, Tennessee, to found a secret society
Klan had become a liability to Southern
they called a kyklos, or “circle” in anwhites interested in halting the advance
cient Greek. It was from this expression
of black equality because of its violent
that the term Ku Klux Klan is believed
actions. The 1871 Civil Rights Act, also
to have emerged. In the aftermath of the
known as the Ku Klux Klan Act, passed
war, recently freed African Americans
by Grant, authorized federal troops then
were enthusiastically starting to act on
occupying many of the Southern states
the promises of equality and civil rights
to crush the organization and arrest its
that the federal government had assured
leaders. As a result, the Klan declined
them were theirs for the taking. All over
in membership and influence. However,
the South blacks were running for ofin 1877 federal troops were withdrawn
fice, establishing schools and organizing
from the South and the Reconstrucsocial and economic activities designed
tion era was over. Within a short period
to promote their welfare. They were beof time, Southern whites had regained
coming full citizens of the United States; political control in most states and began
this was something that many Southern
systematically to undo the gains blacks
CBC News in Review • April 2007 • Page 41
Did you know . . .
The KKK had
branches in Canada
and as late as 1981
saw its Canadian
leader arrested for
conspiracy to commit murder.
had won in education, voting rights,
and access to social services. Segregation was ruthlessly imposed. Any black
rash enough to challenge it faced almost
certain death by lynching.
After decades of inaction, the Klan
gained a new lease on life during the
First World War, largely as a result of the
favourable portrayal of the organization
in filmmaker D.W. Griffith’s epic, if inaccurate historical drama, Birth of a Nation, in 1915. This film, which purported
to chronicle the Reconstruction era in the
South, played on every imaginable white
racial fear and black stereotype. It sought
to create the impression that the Klan
had been heroically fighting in defence
of the “Southern way of life” against the
intrusions of corrupt white politicians
and their semi-human black supporters.
President Woodrow Wilson, himself a
Southerner, publicly endorsed the film,
which became a box office smash. In a
testimonial quote used to promote the
film, Wilson wrote that, “the white men
were roused by a mere instinct of selfpreservation until at last there had sprung
into existence a great Ku Klux Klan, a
veritable empire of the South, to protect
the Southern country.”
At the same time, a sensational murder
case involving the alleged killing of a
white girl in Georgia by a Jewish factory
manager inflamed anti-Semitism and
distrust of recently arrived immigrants
not only in the South but all across the
United States. The Klan was quick to
seize on this opportunity to broaden its
list of hate targets and became a leader
in the “nativist” movement that swept
the United States and even Canada during the 1920s. By this time the Klan
had become a powerful political force
in many states; it saw its most rapid
growth in the Midwest. It is estimated
that during the 1920s about 15 to 20 per
cent of the adult white male population
of the United States, or approximately 4
million people, belonged to the organization, with the figure rising as high as
40 per cent in some Midwestern states.
The Klan counted many politicians at the
local, state, and even federal levels of
government as its members, from both
the Democratic and Republican parties,
and it even played a role in determining the
Democratic candidate for president in 1924.
During this period the Klan also spread
its activities into Canada, especially Saskatchewan, where there was strong nativist resistance to recently arrived immigrants from Central and Eastern Europe,
along with French-speaking Catholics
originally from Quebec. The provincial Conservative Party had close links
with the Klan, and aspiring politicians
such as John Diefenbaker, who would
later become prime minister, shared
platforms with them. A close advisor to
Saskatchewan CCF leader and Premier
T.C. Douglas, the first federal leader
of the NDP, was also a former Klan
member. One provincial politician who
challenged the Klan was Premier James
Gardiner of the Liberals, who called for
an end to the organization’s campaign
of hatred against Catholics and minority groups. Although the Saskatchewan
Klan followed many of the practices of
its American cousins, including wearing white robes and holding night-time
rallies at which crosses were burned and
anti-immigrant speeches were delivered,
its actions were never as violent. It faded
away by the 1930s.
The Klan also began to fade away in
the United States during the Depression and Second World War era, only to
revive again in the 1950s as the black
civil rights movement began to assert
itself across the South. The group’s terror
targets were those who sought to change
the system of racial segregation and
white supremacy that had dominated the
region since the end of the Civil War. A
number of local and state Klan organizations were formed, each one operating
CBC News in Review • April 2007 • Page 42
Archives
To explore further
the issue of race
relations in a Canadian context, go
to the CBC Digital
Archives at www.
cbc.ca/
archives and view
the audio-visual
files “Africville:
Expropriating Nova
Scotia’s Blacks”
and “Canada and
the Fight Against
Apartheid.”
Further Research
To investigate further the role of the
FBI in fighting hate
crimes in the U.S.
explore the official
Web site at www.
fbi.gov.
independently, but all of them dedicated
to violence and intimidation. Despite
the fact that it has frequently been labelled a terrorist organization, the U.S.
government never officially banned it
as an illegal group. Klan members were
responsible for the killings of many civil
rights activists and other blacks during
the 1950s and 1960s. Because of the
power of the organization, and the fear it
struck into many Southerners both black
and white at the time, juries were almost
never able to convict Klansmen charged
with the murders of blacks in the area,
allowing many of those responsible for
terrible crimes to go free.
With the achievement of some degree
of equality for African Americans in the
United States resulting from the efforts
of the civil rights movement, the Klan
again began to fade from view in the
1970s and 80s. Finally, responding to
public outrage over the Klan’s brutal
campaign of murder, the FBI set up the
COINTELPRO program to infiltrate
the organization and expose its activities. However, COINTELPRO had also
been used against the civil rights movement itself, under FBI Director J. Edgar
Hoover’s mistaken, it not delusional,
view that Martin Luther King Jr. was a
communist. Although it was still capable
of the occasional demonstration and
violent act, by this time the Klan had
became almost an object of ridicule in its
ludicrous white costumes. Many blacks
were no longer intimidated by it. One
prominent Louisiana politician, David
Duke, a former Klan organizer, ran for
governor of the state in the 1990s, only
to lose decisively to his opponent. By
2005, it was estimated that total Klan
membership had dwindled to a hard core
of about 3 000 members, two-thirds of
whom lived in the South. It is important
to note that the Klan was never a unified
group with a single or central organizational structure, but was instead a “franchise operation” of local cells operating
independently of each other. In this way
it resembles another terrorist organization, well known since its attacks on the
United States on September 11, 2001: Al
Qaeda.
Source: Wikipedia entry, “Ku Klux Klan,”
http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan
and “Saskatchewan History – The Ku
Klux Klan in Saskatchewan” http://members.shaw.ca/prairiegiant/public_html/
Hist_KKK.html.
Inquiry
1. What were the three main periods in U.S. history when the Ku Klux Klan
enjoyed its greatest influence and conducted its most violent terrorist activities? Why did it fade into obscurity after each of these periods?
2. Why did the Klan become an important organization in Canada, especially
in the province of Saskatchewan, during the 1920s? Are you surprised to
learn that this group had a substantial following in this country?
3. After reading this passage, do you agree with those who believe that the
Klan is unlikely ever to regain much influence over U.S. society? Explain the
reasons for your opinion.
4. In your view should the KKK be labeled and treated as a terrorist organization? Explain.
CBC News in Review • April 2007 • Page 43
ARREST IN A 1964 MISSISSIPPI COLD CASE
Activity: A Difficult Choice
Create a scenario where you find that a person who committed a racially motivated murder in his youth has fled the United States to escape prosecution and
is now living a peaceful life in Canada as a model citizen with a Canadian spouse
and children. Do you think it would be your moral obligation to turn him in to
the authorities, or should he be allowed to live out the rest of his life in peace?
Form groups with your classmates to compose a list of arguments in favour of
and against denouncing this person to the authorities, and decide as a group
which course of action you would take if the decision were up to you. Prepare
a written statement of your decision to be presented to the class for further
discussion. Use the chart below to organize your ideas.
Arguments For Denunciation
Arguments Opposed to Denunciation
CBC News in Review • April 2007 • Page 44