United Klans of America

United Klans of America was a Ku Klux Klan organization led by Robert Shelton, which peaked in popularity in the late 1960s. Its headquarters were the "Anglo-Saxon Club" outside Tuscaloosa, Alabama. ["Lawsuits prove to be a big gun in anti-Klan arsenal," "The Boston Globe", June 17, 1993]

History

During the backdrop of desegregation in the United States South, members of the KKK joined forces to suppress change. In 1961 Robert Shelton became the dominant figure in the UKA after Shelton's "Alabama Knights" merged with "Invisible Empire, United Klans, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan of America, Inc."cite news | url=http://www.adl.org/issue_combating_hate/uka/rise.asp | title=Emergence of the UKA | publisher=Anti-Defamation League |date= 2007 | first= | last= | accessdate = 2007-09-18] Eventually the UKA peaked with active members and sympathetic support from 26,000 to 33,000 throughout the South in 1965, making it the largest Klan faction in the world. The organization disseminated its messages through a newletter known as The Fiery Cross. However, membership began to slip once the group was linked to criminal activity.

In the spring of 1979 20 UKA members were indicted in Birmingham for violent racial episodes in Talladega County, Alabama ending with three members pleading guilty and 10 others being found guilty.

Then in 1984 James Knowles, a UKA member of the UKA's Klavern 900 in Mobile, was convicted for the 1981 murder of Michael Donald. At trial Knowles said he and Henry Hays killed Donald "in order to show Klan strength in Alabama." In 1987 the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) brought a civil case, on behalf of the victim's family, against the United Klans of America for being responsible in the lynching of Donald, a nineteen year old black man.cite news | url=http://www.splcenter.org/legal/docket/files.jsp?cdrID=10 | title=Donald v. United Klans of America | publisher=Southern Poverty Law Center |date= 1988 | first= | last= | accessdate = 2007-09-18] Unable to come up the $7 million dollars awarded by a jury, the UKA were forced to turn over its national headquarters to Donald's mother who then sold it. [Morris Dees and Steve Fiffer. "Hate on Trial: The Case Against America's Most Dangerous Neo-Nazi". Villard Books, 1993. page 11] During the civil trial Knowles said he was "carrying out the orders" of Bennie Jack Hays, Henry Hays's father and a long time Shelton lieutenant.

In 1988 Roy E. Frankhouser, doing business as United Klans of America, was sued by the SPLC for harasssment and the SPLC won.cite news | url=http://www.splcenter.org/legal/docket/files.jsp?cdrID=14&sortID=3 | title=Jouhari/Horton v. United Klans of America/Frankhouser | publisher=Southern Poverty Law Center |date= 1988 | first= | last= | accessdate = 2007-09-18]

On May 16, 2000 the remaining indictments were handed to suspects and were eventually found that Robert Edward Chambliss, Thomas Blanton and Bobby Frank Cherry were the ones who planted 19 sticks of dynamite in the bombing of the 1963 16th Street Baptist Church in which 4 young black girls were murdered in Birmingham, Alabama. All of the suspects were UKA members.cite news | url=http://www.adl.org/issue_combating_hate/uka/default.asp | title=The Ku Klux Klan Legacy of Hate: United Klans of America | publisher=Anti-Defamation League |date= 2000 | first= | last= | accessdate = 2007-09-18]

References

External links

* [http://www.adl.org/issue_combating_hate/uka/rise.asp United Klans of America History]