Invisible Empire, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan
Invisible Empire, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (abbreviated IEK KKK , dt .: "The Invisible Empire, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan") was a Ku Klux Klan organization active from 1976 to 1993 based in Louisiana .
history
Elbert Claude Wilkinson, known as Bill Wilkinson, became a member of David Dukes Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in 1974 and rose there within two years from the Grand Titan of Livingston , Louisiana, to the Grand Dragon of Louisiana. However, he was not satisfied with Duke's leadership style and in 1976 formed his own sound group, the Invisible Empire, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, which shortly thereafter grew larger than the organization from which it emerged.
Wilkinson began to build up an extensive network of functionaries, founded training camps and so-called “Klan Youth Corps” for young people from 10 to 17 years of age. The clan became radicalized by the mid-1980s. Between 1980 and 1981, 250 followers of the clan were arrested for various crimes, including, in addition to participating in unauthorized demonstrations, extortion, illicit gun possession and murder. The most famous crime occurred on November 3, 1979: In Greensboro , North Carolina , members of the clan killed five members of the Communist Workers' Party (CWP) in the so-called Greensboro massacre .
The number of clans is now increasing to 8,000 members. In the 1984 presidential campaign, the Klan sided with Ronald Reagan and garnered around ten thousand supporter signatures. The election campaign also marks the end of Wilkinson's reign as Imperial Wizard . When it became known that John Anthony Walker , one of the leading clan members in Norfolk County was acting as a spy for the Soviet Union , Wilkinson was ousted by Jim Blair , then Grand Dragon of Alabama .
Blair professionalises the clan. He expands the claverns of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Ohio and Kentucky and lets his son run the youth organizations. At the same time he is building a market for merchandise products . In 1986 he had to resign for health reasons. He was succeeded by James W. Farrands . This moved the headquarters to Shelton . Due to simmering conflicts, the number of supporters fell to 3,000 to 4,000 members by the end of the 1980s.
In 1993 the clan was dissolved. After being attacked with rocks and bottles in an altercation with civil rights activists in Forsyth County , Georgia , an expensive lawsuit ensued that ruined the Klan financially. Farrands tried to continue with the Unified Ku Klux Klan , but it failed.
literature
- Roger Martin: AmeriKKKa. The Ku Klux Klan and the far right in the United States . Rotbuch Verlag, Hamburg 1996, ISBN 3-88022-491-9 , p. 95-98 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. Southern Poverty Law Center , accessed August 2, 2013 .
- ^ A b Steven E. Atkins: Encyclopedia of Right-Wing Extremism In Modern American History . ABC-CLIO, 2011, ISBN 978-1-59884-351-4 , p. 26-27 .
- ^ The Ku Klux Klan: Burning Crosses in Cyberspace. (No longer available online.) Anti-Defamation League (archive), archived from the original on July 30, 2013 ; accessed on August 31, 2013 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
