St. Augustine Ku Klux Klan Rally - Papers of Lyndon Baines Johnson

[TomSea]

St. Augustine Ku Klux Klan Rally
September 18, 1963
Eyewitness Testimony
(Beating of Dr. Robert Hayling, James Hauser , James Jackson,
and Clyde Jenkins)

The Lyndon Baines Johnson Library
Papers of Lyndon Baines Johnson
President, 1963-1969

Klan Background
The Klan was found in Pulaski, Tennessee by six ex-Confederate soldiers in 1866. Soon the group was being organized by ex-Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forest. The Klan began in November 1867 at Welatka as the Constitutional League of Florida organized by Charles Fenwick. In December Thomas Shalley created another chapter in Palatka. The Klan was in Florida to stay. The Klan was supposedly disbanded by General Forest in 1869.

The second incarnation of the Klan occurred in 1915 with a cross-burning ceremony on Stone Mountain, Georgia by Imperial wizard William J. Simmons. In 1922 Hiram Wesley Evens became the imperial wizard and gained three million members nationwide. It was anti-black, anti-Catholic, anti-Jewish and anti-immigrant. By 1928 this to passed as themembership shrunk to no more than several hundred thousand. In Florida the Klan continued to thrive. Jacksonville held one of the most powerful klaverns in the state. In Florida labor organizers were added to the list of targets. The IRS in 1944 gave a $685,000 lien against the Klan for back taxes.

Today's Klan is descended from the revival of Dr. Samuel Green in the post war era. It showed itself in the 1948 campaign of the Dixiecrats. In Georgia and Florida complains were received that African Americans were beaten up or threatened with violence for union activity. Floggings were reported to the U. S. District court for the Southern District of Florida had occurred every year since 1943.

Read more at: http://www.drbronsontours.com/bronsonstaugustinekkk2.html