A detailed report on the current status of the Ku Klux Klan declared today that it has exhibited a strong capacity for “breeding violence” but has shown “Iittle effectiveness socially or politically” since its re-emergence in 1955 as a result of the tensions over school desegregation in the South, The report, published by the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, describes the Klan as “operating in a piecemeal fashion without any real leadership.”
According to the best informed estimates, the ADL report said, “the U.S. Klan, Krights of the Ku Klux Klan, headed by Eldon Edwards of Atlanta, has somewhere between 12, 000 and 15, 000 members, while the North Carolina Klan has 2, 000 to 5, 000 members. Edwards is said to be a ‘loner’ and is estranged from other Klan organizations because of his refusal to give an accounting of the money which he has collected. Two years ago Edwards was reported to have had 24 Klan units in South Carolina. Today, he is said to have six of the 24. ” None of the seven other Klan organizations in the South, according to the League, “is believed to have more than 1,500 members.”
In presenting the report, Henry Edward Schultz, the League’s national chairman, emphasized that although the Klan as a tool of violence has magnified the problem of law enforcement in the South, “the recent recurrence of bombings in Nashville and Miami will only aid in hastening the KKK’s ultimate doom.”
“It is not known what, if any, links the bombings of the Jewish Community Center in Nashville and the Temple Beth-El annex in Miami have to the KKK, ” the report said. “But the Klan has played a strong contributing role in the creation of a climate of violence. These recurrent outrages. If KKK members are not involved, are indirectly aided and abetted by the Klan, which has posed a challenge which is not being ignored by law enforcement authorities in the South.”
The ADL report stresses that “the South has greeted the Klan’s revival with intense hostility and aversion.” In virtually every Southern community the Klan has been identified as a tool of violence and lawlessness and as a movement that constitutes more of a police problem than anything else, the report states.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
