Sociohistorical Background and Regional Context

That this handbook was published by the Confederate Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (CKKKK hereafter), rather than another of multiple coeval North Carolina Klan units, places its creation within a relatively small window of time. The CKKKK was established in the Greensboro area in 1967; it crumbled in 1975 for reasons that make it a peculiar case in Klan history.

A Brief Summary of Klan History, 1865-1960

The Ku Klux Klan, originally formed in 1865, has figured prominently among U.S.-based extremist hate groups over the past century and a half (SPLC). For many Americans, the Klan has long provided the iconography and public “face”—ceremonially veiled though it may be—of white supremacist ideology. The Klan’s genesis responded to Reconstruction-era motions toward increased rights for freed slaves, with its members styling themselves as protectors of threatened white culture, white livelihood, and white women. The activities of the Klan, which began as aggressive scare tactics aimed at preventing Black independence, veered over the course of this first Klan phase (1865 to c.1872) into mob violence and acts of vigilante “justice” targeting motivated Black citizens and their Republican advocates. Stymied by federal legislative interventions and U.S. Senate investigations into extrajudicial violence, and pacified by the institutionalized oppression of Blacks set down in Jim Crow law, the Klan receded over the following decades (Cunningham 5-9).

The second rise of the Ku Klux Klan commenced around 1920 and was fueled by three primary factors: revisionist romanticizing of Klan history in historical volumes and fiction (most notably Thomas Dixon’s novel The Clansman and its subsequent film adaptation, D.W. Griffith’s epic Birth of a Nation), national media coverage that had the often-unintended effect of providing exposure and attracting new members, and white Protestant concerns over growing Catholic and Jewish immigrant populations (Cunningham 12-14). After enjoying peak influence and membership (between 3 and 5 million Klansmen) in the first half of the 1920s, the Klan slowly collapsed under the weight of leadership rifts, criminal scandals, and financial mismanagement. In 1944, after over a decade of decline, an IRS lien for back taxes forced the formal dissolution of the group.

What followed, first gradually, was the Klan’s third ascent to national political relevance, as well as its most recent stretch of brutal violence. After a handful of sects cropped up in the immediate wake of the 1944 shutdown, the “U.S. Klan” organization in particular gained momentum during the desegregation efforts of the 1950s. The U.S. Klan and the North Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan made progress recruiting members at rallies in North Carolina through the late 1950s, and the Klan’s standard smattering of racially-motivated murders, abductions, beatings, and cross-burnings throughout the South served to maintain the atmosphere of intimidation it sought. The Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954 proved a powerful impetus for growth, however, as the Klan took advantage of the fear and insecurity integration aroused in white Southern men. By the dawn of the 1960s, the Klan boasted isolated chapters in states like Texas and Louisiana, but was anchored in the Piedmont region, spanning through parts of Alabama, Georgia, the Carolinas, and Virginia (Chalmers 355). As Black activists led a wave of large demonstrations and sit-ins, ushering the U.S. into the Civil Rights Movement, rage and indignation mounted in the Klan’s ranks.

The Civil Rights Movement, the FBI, and the CKKKK in North Carolina

The 1960s saw the Ku Klux Klan spearhead a notoriously violent campaign to beat back civil rights activism by Black Americans, as well as progress toward racial integration. Among the most horrific Klan attacks of the era was the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, an act of terrorism that claimed the lives of four young Black girls (SPLC). The following year, Mississippi’s White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan carried out the lynching of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner (a young Black Mississippian man and two young Jewish New Yorkers, respectively) (Klansville, U.S.A 56). Meanwhile, North Carolina, known to many at the time as the most progressive Southern state, was fast becoming the country’s best-organized Klan hotbed (Klansville, U.S.A 4). As a result, its Klan chapters were a chief target for surveillance by federal law enforcement leaders.

Under the project label COINTELPRO (COunter INTELligence PROgram), J. Edgar Hoover’s Federal Bureau of Investigations had been infiltrating domestic organizations deemed “subversive” since 1956; its marks included both politically left-wing and right-wing groups, as well as individual activists and celebrities (There's Something 6). While COINTELPRO is best known for its efforts to thwart and ultimately eliminate the New Left, the FBI had by 1964 also undertaken measures to monitor prominent white supremacist organizations. While the Bureau showed reluctance to actively prosecute violent Klan offenders after incidents (as can be observed in documents pertaining to the aforementioned murder of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner), it did have an interest in curbing or staving off overtly criminal Klan activity (There's Something 11-12). Public outcry following that triple murder in part convinced FBI leaders to move past merely pursuing intelligence against white hate groups and to authorize counterintelligence actions—that is, in addition to gathering information, undercover agents would be used to actively manipulate Klan members, provoke dissension, and impede plans. By the late 1960s, undercover federal agents had a substantial presence among Klan ranks, and their counterintelligence activities included (but were not by any means limited to) sending anonymous letters to members to – inter-Klan conflict, collecting information to supply anonymously to attorneys prosecuting Klan members, sabotaging Klan relations with local government and media, and framing actual members as undercover agents (There's Something 72-76).

While the U.S. Klans organization became defunct in 1960, the new Alabama-based United Klans of America gained strength in 1961. The rapid rise to power of the Klan in North Carolina began in 1963, when Klansman Bob Jones was tapped to organize in the state (Klansville, U.S.A 17). Over the next five years, Jones became a larger-than-life character in North Carolina politics, using his position as Grand Dragon to spearhead massive regular rallies and become a media fixture. His fiery speeches attracted considerable recruits and donations, and by 1965 the “Carolina Klan” claimed 200 “Klaverns” and over 10,000 members across the state (Klansville, U.S.A 18). The Klan’s popularity amongst North Carolinians in the mid- to late-1960s can be partly attributed to an insecure agricultural economy and high proportions of Black residents in some regions; both of these factors increased anxiety that social reform could destroy white privilege. By 1965, the number of UKA units in North Carolina was greater than the total in Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi combined. Its members participated in open marches, put up billboards announcing its presence, and proudly called their state “Klansville, U.S.A.” (Klansville, U.S.A 52). In all respects, the Klan had taken North Carolina by storm.

Meanwhile, a blustering preacher named George Dorsett was acting simultaneously as Imperial Kludd, or national chaplain, of the UKA and longtime FBI informant. Having been recruited by FBI Special Agent Dargan Frierson in the late 1950s, Dorsett was a peculiar combination of government mole and genuinely enthusiastic Klansman: a fervent white supremacist, he in no way “put on” his charismatically hateful public persona (Schlosser). The slurs and virulent anti-integration rhetoric Dorsett spewed from stages at Klan rallies were authentic, as were his love for cross-burnings and the threats of violence against Black people that he played off as “jokes.” However, he claimed to believe that outright violence was un-Christian and harmful to the Klan’s progress. For this reason—and because the FBI frequently offered him large sums of cash—Dorsett provided Frierson updates on Klan activity, tipped him off on plans for terrorist attacks, and acted at Frierson’s request to interrupt or discourage acts of violence (Schlosser). For years, Dorsett’s duplicity went unchecked and unsuspected.

Then, in 1967, a long-brewing rift between Dorsett and Grand Dragon Bob Jones came to a head. After Dorsett openly suggested Jones’ replacement to other Klansmen, accusing him of drunkenness and embezzlement, Jones saw fit to banish Dorsett from the UKA altogether (Klansville, U.S.A 200-201). The FBI saw this development as an opportunity to weaken the UKA through division, and actively supported Dorsett’s establishment of a new, competing organization, which he named the Confederate Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. With financial help and even assistance with recruitment materials from the FBI, the CKKKK grew to forty Klan units in under two years. The FBI succeeded in siphoning members and power from the UKA into the new CKKKK, where they exercised secret central power and were abreast of all goings-on. (Klansville, U.S.A 201-202). It was this odd partnership between Dorsett and the FBI, during this period of time in the late 1960s, that the Kloran: Confederate Knights of the Ku Klux Klan handbook was published and distributed by the CKKKK. The Carolina Klan had already moved into a downward slide to rival its rapid rise; in 1968, active membership totaled around 1,000, and in 1970 it had dropped again to 500. Dorsett would not be exposed as an FBI informant until 1975, catalyzing the effective shutdown of the CKKKK, but by then the Klan’s political relevance was a thing of the past.

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Exhibit curated by Rhagen Olinde