Search JTA's historical archive dating back to 1923

John Kasper, Anti-jewish Agitator, to Serve One Year in Penitentiary

October 15, 1957
See Original Daily Bulletin From This Date
Advertisement

John Kasper, anti-Jewish and anti-Negro agitator, must go to jail as a result of the U.S. Supreme Court’s refusal today to review his criminal contempt conviction. He will be made to serve a one-year penitentiary sentence

The sentence was imposed on Kasper for interfering with the integration of students at the Clinton, Tenn., High School in 1956. Last June a U.S. Court of Appeals upheld the sentence. He then demanded that the Supreme Court review the case and remained free on a $10,000 bond. He used his freedom on bond, terminated by the court action today to carry on incitement against Negroes and Jews.

Recently, Kasper led a group of pickets in front of the White House to denounce President Eisenhower for using troops at Little Rock, Ark. Kasper then told White House news men that he considered Jews “worse than Negroes.” He alleged that the Negro problem was originally created by “Northern Jews” who brought Negro slaves to the South and sold them to plantation owners.

The government urged the Supreme Court to send Kasper to jail. In a brief filed by Solicitor General J. Lee Rankin, the government maintained that Kasper’s behavior went beyond “the limits of free speech” protections. The government said the Constitutional safeguards did not include a right to exhort mobs in the manner performed by Kasper.

Recommended from JTA

Advertisement