American Experience (1988–…): Season 27, Episode 2 - Klansville U.S.A. - full transcript

Tonight, the story of how
the most liberal Southern state

became home to the largest Klan
organization in the country.

MAN:
The night that I was initiated
into the Klan,

that was one
of the most exciting

and thrilling moments
of my life.

Integration will never overcome!

"Klansville U.S.A.,"
tonight on American Experience.

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NARRATOR:
The rally was scheduled for the
afternoon of August 14, 1966.

For hours,
the crowd kept growing

outside Memorial Auditorium
in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Hundreds of police
surrounded the building,

intent on maintaining order
at what would be

the state's largest political
gathering of the year.

The rally had been called
by the United Klans of America

as a show of support
for Klan leaders

being investigated by Congress
and the FBI.

The state's head Klansman,
grand dragon Bob Jones,

was facing a possible
prison sentence.



The future of the Ku Klux Klan
itself was on the line.

DAVID CUNNINGHAM:
Jones's dream was really
to build the Klan

into something that had
political legitimacy.

He also understood that
both the Klan's goals

and to some degree its appeal

really relied
upon its militance as well.

NARRATOR:
As hecklers began taunting
a group of black activists

in the balcony,
Jones ordered them to stop.

"Quit playing with them
niggers," he commanded.

Bob Jones was the most
successful grand dragon

in the country.

In just three years, he had
grown the North Carolina Klan

from a handful of friends
to some 10,000 members,

more than the Klans of all other
Southern states combined.

In the process,

Jones had helped give the most
progressive state in the South

a new nickname:
"Klansville, U.S.A."

ROB CHRISTENSEN:
There was really no politicians
during the 1960s

that were really
voicing the concerns

of North Carolina's
white working class.

And especially those people
who were really concerned

about racial integration.

MICHAEL FRIERSON:
So who's going to speak
for frustrated, poor white folks

who see integration
as a threat to their job,

to their way of life?

The Klan becomes
the organization

that can be the spokesperson

for people who perceive their
way of life to be under threat.

BUNNY SANDERS:
We had the NAACP.

They had the Klan!

They had the Klan.

NARRATOR:
The son of a railroad worker,

Bob Jones grew up
just outside Salisbury,

40 miles north of Charlotte.

The fifth of eight children,

he had dropped
out of high school

in either the tenth
or eleventh grade--

no one knows for sure.

He was discharged from the Navy

after refusing to salute
a black officer.

"I'd salute that uniform
all day long," Jones said,

"but I won't salute no nigger."

For years,
he bounced from job to job:

awning salesman, bricklayer,
lightning rod salesman.

He struggled to make
a decent living.

PATSY SIMS:
Many people probably did
refer to him,

maybe in front of him,

as white trash,

and that may well also have been
part of the bruising

that led him to feel
as strong racially as he did.

GARY FREEZE:
What the age of segregation
actually promoted

was a group of people

who essentially found a niche
above blacks

but below successful whites.

Bob Jones represented
those North Carolinians.

NED CLINE:
He would never admit
being a racist.

He didn't object to Jews,

he didn't object
to black people,

as long as they stayed
in their place and away from him

and never tried to mingle
together with white people.

NARRATOR:
The Ku Klux Klan
originated in the wake

of the nation's greatest trauma:
the Civil War.

In 1865, decommissioned
Confederate officers

in Pulaski, Tennessee,
formed a fraternal social club.

They called themselves
the Ku Klux Klan,

from the Greek word
for circle, "kuklos."

MARK POTOK:
It was essentially a club where
they were going to pull pranks.

They started to dress up
in very elaborate costumes

and go out and try to terrorize
freed slaves.

They would pose
as Confederate officers

come back from the dead.

SIMS:
The story goes
they first did it innocently,

and then when they saw
the reaction

of the newly freed slaves
who were petrified,

the word got around that
they were having this effect,

and that's when

that version of the Klan
became increasingly violent.

POTOK:
The reality is that
the Klan of Reconstruction

spent its time murdering people,
throwing people off bridges,

hanging them from trees.

NARRATOR:
When the federal government
clamped down in 1871,

the Klan dissolved
and lay dormant for decades.

(fanfare)

Then in 1915,
the image of the Ku Klux Klan

was seared
into the nation's consciousness

by the first true blockbuster
in American cinema:

D.W. Griffith's three-hour epic
The Birth of a Nation.

Based on a bestselling novel,

the movie portrayed
Klan violence

as justifiable and necessary

to restore order
to a South in chaos...

while celebrating Klan efforts
to keep blacks

from exercising their newly
granted right to vote.

POTOK:
This film so romanticized
the Klan

that the Klan pictured itself
and described itself

as heroically standing up
for the oppressed white people,

the dispossessed white people
of the South.

NARRATOR:
The Birth of a Nation
sparked a revival

of the Ku Klux Klan
in the 1920s.

The Klan's ideology
of white supremacy

and what they called
"100% Americanism"

resonated across the country.

POTOK:
The Klan of the 1920s
was not a rural Klan,

which the Klan of Reconstruction
had primarily been.

The Klan of the 1920s was
very big in surprising places,

places like Denver,
like Portland, Detroit,

which had huge waves
of immigration

both of Catholics from Europe

and of African Americans
coming from the South.

NARRATOR:
In 1925, 50,000 Klansmen
and women gathered in Washington

in a vivid display
of their numbers.

Four million Americans
claimed Klan membership.

SIMS:
That particular Klan

also became very,
very powerful politically.

They elected
at least ten governors.

And there were all sorts
of public officials

who were elected
by power of the Klan.

CUNNINGHAM:
The Klan has a great rise
in terms of membership

through the first half
of the 1920s,

and it has an equally
spectacular fall.

There were a number of exposés
of what the Klan was doing

in terms of its violent
underside.

When you throw scandals in

that really embarrass
the leaders,

that kind of publicity
really eroded its credibility.

NARRATOR:
By the 1930s,
bad press and power struggles

had ripped apart
the once-powerful Klan.

But not for long.

When the U.S. Supreme Court
ruled in 1954

that public schools
must integrate,

the Klan rose once again.

POTOK:
Brown v. Board of Education

was the opening shot
in the civil rights era,

and although it didn't happen
right away,

it really presaged huge,
huge changes in the South.

NARRATOR:
In 1960, sit-ins
at lunch counters

in Greensboro, North Carolina,

sparked similar demonstrations
across the South.

Officials in other states
reacted defiantly

as the civil rights movement
gained momentum.

GEORGE WALLACE:
And I say segregation now,

segregation tomorrow,
and segregation forever!

(cheering)

FRIERSON:
You have governors
like George Wallace

openly advocating segregation,
openly taking the position

that the Klan might have taken
in that state.

In North Carolina,
we didn't have that.

NARRATOR:
Bob Jones feared that
North Carolina's leaders

would not resist the push
for integration.

In the summer of 1963,

he petitioned
the United Klans of America

for a charter to organize
in his home state.

Everybody in this country
is organized

with the exception
of the white Protestant Gentile.

Your niggers have your NAACP
and CORE,

you got B'nai B'rith
for your Jewish people.

Your Knights of Columbus,

which is a secret
fraternal order.

But the white
Protestant Gentile,

the only hope and the only
salvation that they have left

in this United States today

is the United Klans of America
Incorporated.

We've saved the South twice,
or the Klan has,

and it looks like we're going
to have to do it again.

SANDERS:
It was a time
when poor white people

found themselves
in a real strange space

because they saw
black people progressing

and they saw themselves not
being paid any attention to.

And wealthier white people
looked down on them.

I mean, they really did.

It was all about not being
at the bottom of the barrel.

NARRATOR:
On August 17,

Jones was chosen to be
their first grand dragon.

SIMS:
That was the biggest thing
in his life.

It's probably the biggest thing
that ever happened to him.

I mean, this was like
his birthday.

CUNNINGHAM:
Bob Jones's father was
a Klan member in the 1920s.

He would say that his mother
proudly marched in a Klan parade

when she was seven months
pregnant with Bob.

So he sort of saw it
as a birthright in some ways

and something that was kind of
in his blood and in his family.

(singing)

NARRATOR:
Just 11 days later,
the March on Washington

displayed the growing strength
of the civil rights movement.

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR:
We will be able
to speed up that day

when all of God's children,
black men and white men,

Jews and Gentiles,
Protestants and Catholics,

will be able to join hands

and sing in the words
of the old Negro spiritual,

"Free at last, free last,

thank God Almighty,
we are free at last!"

(cheering)

NARRATOR:
"We have the same right
as the Negro to demonstrate,"

Jones declared.

On August 31, he held a rally in
a cornfield near his hometown,

hoping to attract
a few hundred people.

2,000 showed up.

SIMS:
These people were so afraid
that they were going to have

even less than what
they already had

because the black man was going
to take their rights.

And civil rights workers were
starting to come down South,

and so some of these people felt
they were being invaded.

Emotions ran high.

FRIERSON:
Bob Jones realized,

"We can take this show
on the road.

"We can grow this business
that we've got.

"We can travel across the state

and present this message
all over."

(fast banjo music playing)

RADIO ANNOUNCER:
Well, good morning again.

Welcome to another
Catcher Powell show,

featuring Skeeter
live on the banjo.

And of course being sponsored
by the United Klans of America,

Post Office Box 321,
Granite Quarry, North Carolina.

NARRATOR:
That fall, Jones threw himself

into a massive
recruiting campaign.

Criss-crossing the state
in his old Plymouth,

he established local chapters,
called Klaverns,

in every corner
of North Carolina,

signing up hundreds
of new members.

One of the recruits
was a house painter

and ordained Baptist minister
named George Dorsett.

FRIERSON:
Dorsett's dad was a Klansman.

When he was seven years old,

his father burned a cross
in Dorsett's back yard.

I mean, I think he wanted
to bring his kids into the fold,

and he did a good job
with Dorsett.

NARRATOR:
Dorsett would soon become
the Klan's official chaplain,

or Imperial Klud,

preaching at nearly every rally
in the state.

FRIERSON:
George Dorsett
is deeply religious

and saw becoming a preacher
as a way to better himself.

He started off with benches
and a tent.

And then if you're good at it,
you want to move up--

you want to have
a bigger congregation,

you want to have
a bigger church.

He becomes a preacher.

He becomes a preacher
in the Klan.

You know, George is always
ambitious, I think.

NARRATOR:
Dorsett's powerful sermons

complemented Jones's
organizational skills.

They were a perfect duo,
at least in the beginning.

( The Andy Griffith Show
theme song playing )

NARRATOR:
One of the most popular
television shows of 1963

was set in North Carolina

in the fictional town
of Mayberry.

Oh, you did do
all right!

Sure, three trout
and two perch.

Yeah, together with what me
and Opie got,

we can have
a fine fish fry!

FREEZE:
Mayberry itself

was a metaphor of what North
Carolina had thought of itself

for an entire generation.

Hi, Aunt Bee.

Hi, Andy!

FREEZE:
North Carolina always saw itself

as a network
of small communities

ruled by the Andy Taylors
of the world...

(crowd shouting)

What in the world
are you all trying to do?

FREEZE:
...small-town local notables

who behaved more like
the justice of the peace

than the sheriff.

FREEZE:
There's always
a peaceful resolution

to what could be
volatile conflict.

Let's move along!

You're congregating
unlawfully!

(canned laughter)

FREEZE:
Mayberry is a town
that has no racial issues.

Black people walk around
and are part of the community,

but they never speak up
and disrupt.

That's what
North Carolinians saw

as the kind of race relations
they wanted.

"You're sorted
and you're identified,

but don't rattle that system."

NARRATOR:
In the 1960s, however,

the world of Mayberry
was slipping away.

North Carolina
had become the shining light

of what was called
"The New South,"

a region that was growing

and moving out of the shadow
of its tense racial past.

State leaders navigated
a middle path

through the changing
racial landscape.

They called it
"The North Carolina Way."

CUNNINGHAM:
This was a sense that
North Carolina is a place that,

through the goodwill
of its people,

is going to be willing
to gradually change

and transform
its system of race relations.

Not that there would be
a law passed

and the change would have
to happen tomorrow.

FREEZE:
North Carolina's
moderate self-image

in terms of race relations

is based upon a long, sustained
effort in the 20th century

to be more progressive
than the rest of the South,

not to change the basic dynamics
of race relations,

but to pursue them
in a moderate form

that isn't particularly
confrontational.

NARRATOR:
Gradual change wasn't acceptable

to staunch segregationists
or civil rights activists.

And as the 1960s progressed,

blacks intensified their demands
for equality.

SANDERS:
I remember
late at night sometimes

at my house,
we would be awakened

with my father
cursing white people out.

But that's what he did
in his sleep.

He had so much
bottled up into him

that he had gone through
and taken.

But getting into the '60s,
around '64,

the civil rights movement is now
beginning to really rev up.

You're seeing more
political power.

You're seeing blacks
pursuing public office.

White people are having to say,

"They're going to run
for office?

"We're going to have
a black councilman?

You know,
that possibility exists?"

CUNNINGHAM:
So in North Carolina, you knew
if you were a white citizen

who wanted to maintain
segregation,

you couldn't count
on your political leadership.

And so the Klan steps in
and says,

"We are the only organization

that will support white people
in North Carolina."

What Bob Jones
would be talking about

are these people who lived
a very traditional way of life

in predominantly rural areas

that were being left out
of this whole discourse

about the New South.

(fiddle playing)

NARRATOR:
In the summer of 1964,

Bob Jones held scores
of rallies, open to whites only,

across North Carolina.

People of all ages gathered
in cow pastures and corn fields.

SIMS:
For many of these people,
it was a family gathering,

a source of entertainment,
a night out.

There would be music playing.

DAVID CECELSKI:
They'd sell hot dogs,

they would raffle off ponies,
they'd cook a pig.

Most rallies
might only have 20 Klansmen,

but they could have hundreds
or thousands of people

that were there,

watching and supporting.

CUNNINGHAM:
Bob Jones was really a master
at framing the Klan

as being a lot of things
to a lot of people.

So for some people, these would
be events like county fairs.

Men who might join the Klan

would come out with their wives,
their kids, their friends.

And this was seen
as a social event

you're living in a small town
in rural North Carolina

and people come up
and post fliers,

"There's going to be
a Klan rally

"down the road here
on Friday night.

"There's going to be
a band playing,

"there's going to be preaching,

"we're going to rail
against Lyndon Johnson,

we're going to burn
a 60-foot cross."

I mean, that's an attraction
to people in a small town.

There's not that much
going on, right?

NARRATOR:
As darkness fell, the tone
of the rallies darkened as well.

The band gave way to speakers.

MAN:
We'd like to bring up
this little lady

who's spoken
all over the state...

NARRATOR:
Sybil Jones, Bob Jones's wife

and a leader in the Klan's
ladies auxiliary,

cautioned the crowd
against inaction.

MAN:
Mrs. Sybil Jones.

Give her a hand,
if you will.

(applause)

SYBIL JONES:
We need good women
that's ready, willing and able

to stand up
not only for their children

but all the children
in America.

They told me that my daughter
had to sit in a classroom

surrounded by Negroes.

But let me tell you,

my child is not sitting
surrounded by Negroes,

and she will not be
the next time you ask.

Until they put this 100 pounds
six feet under,

you can better believe that I'll
be up fighting for my child.

I'll never give up.

How about you?

Thank you.

(applause)

NARRATOR:
Klan chaplain George Dorsett
took the microphone next.

GEORGE DORSETT:
Let me tell you
from the platform tonight

that big daddy-o and his cheap,
sinful integration plan

will never overcome!

Hear me tonight!

Hear me!

(crowd cheering)

The prophets in the Bible
have called integration

"transgression,"
"abomination," "evil"!

FRIERSON:
He knew how to light people up
and push the right buttons.

These are religious people
to begin with.

They already know
desegregation's bad.

It's a threat.

And here's somebody who's
justifying it in the Bible.

That's a compelling message
for people.

FREEZE:
Klan rallies in the '60s

look just like tent revivals
of the 1930s.

Just as the old tent revivalist

had helped you gird up
your loins against the devil,

the Klan just reinvented
the devil.

DORSETT:
Upon your hearts,
your conscience...

NARRATOR:
Dorsett's fire-and-brimstone
style electrified the crowd.

Donations poured in.

There might be a businessman
that's prosperous,

and you can afford
to give $1,000.

You can afford to pay
one of the men's salaries

to do nothing but set up units
throughout North Carolina.

FRIERSON:
It's expressing many of the same
ideas that they have.

It may not be acceptable
in their community

to be so overtly racist,

but to hear Dorsett
being overtly racist,

he's a stand-in for them.

He's saying things they think,
but they can't say.

And he's going to fire people up

to give money
and build the group.

DORSETT:
Are there others?

Whatever you have--
ten dollars, five dollars.

Walk down with it,
will you do that?

We're going to count this.

(crowd cheering)

(piano playing)

NARRATOR:
A popular hymn,
"The Old Rugged Cross,"

announced each rally's
dramatic conclusion:

the lighting of a wooden cross,

wrapped in burlap
and soaked with gasoline.

Bathed in its warm glow,

members and supporters shared
a sense of holy mission.

CLINE:
Jones was offering a chance
to be above somebody else,

to be better than somebody else.

Nobody else was taking this
approach to talking to people.

They were people
just like he was

who'd grown up poor,
low skills, low pay,

little education,

and not much hope
of ever bettering themselves.

And he convinced them that if
they somehow became Klan members

and stuck together, that they
could better themselves

and keep other people
from getting in their way.

(chanting):
For my country...

NARRATOR:
For some,
a rally was transformative,

inspiring them to apply
for Klan membership.

(saying "Pledge of Allegiance")

If approved
by a Klavern's leaders,

they were called to a secret
initiation ceremony.

MAN:
Right face, ho!

C.P. ELLIS:
I will never forget the night

that I was initiated
into the Klan.

MAN:
Are you a native-born
white, Gentile citizen?

Yes.

ELLIS:
That was one of
the most exciting

and thrilling moments
of my life.

And we shall ever be true

to the faithful maintenance
of white supremacy...

ELLIS:
I had suffered like hell
trying to survive financially

and try to have
some kind of status

or standing in the community,
and I never could get it.

I beseech you,
therefore, brethren...

But here I was before
a whole group of people,

and they told me to kneel
before the fiery cross.

I'll never forget
that man saying,

"I now bestow upon you
the title of Klansman.

You'll never be alone anymore."

And I was absolutely in tears,
I was so happy.

I was certainly
under the impression then

that the Klan would be better
than what I had.

And when I first went into it,
it was better than what I had.

NARRATOR:
By the summer of 1965, two years
into his term as grand dragon,

Bob Jones had seen
his North Carolina Klan grow

to nearly 10,000
dues-paying members.

He dreamed of turning the group
into a powerful voting bloc.

"I am not advocating violence
in any form," he said.

"I am asking you as white men
to organize now

"so that no politician
can be elected to any office

without our support."

CUNNINGHAM:
Jones sees the Klan as a group
that can be an electoral force.

And in a lot of ways,
that harked back

to his romanticized view of what
the Klan did in the 1920s.

This is a group that could
represent what he saw

as real white people
in North Carolina.

SIMS:
The rank and file
looked up to him.

He was a hero to them.

Here all his life,

he had just been this little cog
in the wheel,

and he was grand dragon.

He was a big man.

NARRATOR:
Jones used street walks--
daytime marches

down main streets
of North Carolina towns--

to show that his Klan
had nothing to hide.

CUNNINGHAM:
Their overt goal
with these street walks

is to really show that
they have this human side.

But of course,
marching down a sidewalk

where people had
to move aside,

this was something
that deeply resonated

with the racial order
in the South.

Who could claim public space?

FREEZE:
Respectable people
didn't join the Klan

or say openly they condoned it,
but at the same time,

so long as the Klan
behaved politely,

you don't have
the squashing of it.

PRICE BROWN:
Some of the people
thought that the police

would not do anything,
that we let them march.

And they didn't understand that
they applied for a permit,

and if it's approved,
they get it, they can march,

regardless of what
their organization stands for.

NARRATOR:
Most street walks ended
peacefully.

But by the summer of 1965,

blacks were increasingly
unwilling to stand by

as Klansmen paraded in public.

On August 21, a street walk
in Jones's hometown of Salisbury

threatened to turn violent

as marchers approached
a black neighborhood.

BROWN:
The talk was that,
"We are ready."

That's what some of the blacks
were saying

on the Lee Street side
that, "We are not scared.

We are ready."

It's hundreds of people.

It looked like a thousand to me.

I don't think we had more than,
say, 30 officers there,

if that many,
and my concern was,

"I just hope they don't
overpower us to get to them."

And that's when we were trying

just to keep the two separated
till they got through.

(thunder rumbling)

And then all of a sudden,
you hear thunder and lightning,

a big black cloud roll in,
and it's raining like mad.

(rain pouring)

I don't think we even had a
forecast for rain for that day.

You couldn't see 50 foot
in front of you,

it was raining so hard.

And then everybody dispersed.

CUNNINGHAM:
In North Carolina,

violence, intimidation
and terrorism

didn't take
as pronounced a form as it did

in places like Mississippi
and Alabama and Georgia.

So it was relatively easy
for politicians of the period

to say, "Well, the Klan

"is certainly militantly
supporting their position,

but they're not engaged
in sort of the deadly violence"

as we would see in other places
during that time.

FRIERSON:
The Klan leadership
in North Carolina,

they knew how to maintain
the party line.

"We're not a violent
organization.

"We are a fraternal organization

with a right to fr speech
like anybody else."

On the other hand,
you have this faction within it

that you can keep
at arm's length,

maintain your sort of
respectability,

and at the same time,
have folks that you can

wink, wink, nod, nod,
go out and intimidate people.

NARRATOR:
The North Carolina Klan's

favorite form of intimidation
was cross burning:

in neighborhoods,
in front of public buildings,

even on the lawn
of the governor's mansion.

Jones and his fellow Klansmen

didn't see much risk
in such actions.

Even some FBI agents
believed that cross burnings

didn't hurt anyone.

Plans for what Klansmen
considered to be real violence

were subject
to Jones's approval,

giving him a chance to veto
actions that might go too far.

CUNNINGHAM:
Jones had a lot to lose here.

What violence represented
for him

was something that could
threaten that way of life

and that livelihood.

NARRATOR:
The former lightning rod
salesman

didn't want to risk
what the Klan had brought him:

A Cadillac.

Status.

A new life.

Jones claimed that his Klan
was non-violent.

But he had built his empire
on hate-filled rhetoric,

promising militant defense
of white supremacy.

It was a delicate balancing act.

CUNNINGHAM:
What Jones was brilliant at

that I don't think
any other Grand Dragons

or state leaders
were able to do

was to enable that militance,
to attract people to the Klan,

but also control that militance
and kind of contain it.

POTOK:
Bob Jones felt

that he would be more successful
appearing to be nonviolent.

He would not incur
the wrath of the North,

of the FBI,
the federal authorities.

And in some ways,
he was right.

Unluckily for him, meanwhile,
we had in other Southern states

an incredibly violent bunch
of Klan groups

that really did bring down
the Furies.

NARRATOR:
In March 1965,

a white housewife, mother,
and civil rights worker

named Viola Liuzzo

was gunned down
by Alabama Klansmen.

The brazen murder
pushed the federal government

into a full-scale assault
on the Ku Klux Klan.

LYNDON B. JOHNSON:
Mrs. Liuzzo went to Alabama

to serve the struggles
for justice.

She was murdered by the enemies
of justice.

Their loyalty is not
to the United States of America,

but instead to a hooded society
of bigots.

So if Klansmen
hear my voice today,

let it be both an appeal
and a warning

to get out
of the Ku Klux Klan now

and return to a decent society
before it is too late.

NARRATOR:
President Johnson's warning

evoked anger and resentment
in "Klansville."

"It made us mad as hell,"

one North Carolina Klansman
recalled.

"We couldn't remember
a president

"saying anything threatening
like that

to a whole group of people."

(crowd cheering)

NARRATOR:
The Klan rallied nearly
every night for four months.

CUNNINGHAM:
This was a way for the Klan
to defiantly say that,

"We are unjustly being painted
as the villains in this case.

"The real villains
are the civil rights forces

that are trying
to break apart America."

The beatniks!

The sex perverts!

The Communists!

NARRATOR:
On May 15, 1965,

Jones and Dorsett flaunted their
disdain for federal authority

by hosting the Klansmen accused
of killing Viola Liuzzo.

A crowd of 6,000 turned out.

CBS News sent a team
to record the event.

CHARLES KURALT:
As extra added attraction,

Matt Murphy introduced
the three men indicted

for the murder of civil rights
worker Mrs. Viola Liuzzo.

And I present Mr. W.O. Eaton.

(crowd cheering and whistling)

Mr. Eugene Thomas.

(crowd cheering)

And the boy who stood
under the battle guns,

Collie Leroy Wilkins.

(crowd cheering)

NARRATOR:
When the CBS report aired,
millions of Americans

saw the Ku Klux Klan up close
for the first time.

CUNNINGHAM:
The Carolina Klan
had found themselves

relatively insulated
from the deadly acts of violence

that had really dogged the Klan
in the deeper South.

But when their members
are celebrating those acts

as politically necessary,

it in effect
would condone murder

in the name
of white supremacy.

The Carolina Klan
becomes painted

in a very different light.

NARRATOR:
Dismantling the Klan
had not been a priority

for J. Edgar Hoover's FBI.

For years, agents had been
actively trying to disrupt

the other side
of the civil rights struggle,

which Hoover saw as part
of a Communist conspiracy

and more dangerous than the KKK.

An official
counterintelligence program

targeting white hate groups
was only a few months old,

but it soon had Jones
and his Carolina Klan

in the crosshairs.

POTOK:
Hoover initially reluctantly,

but then fairly wholeheartedly
went after the Klan

and was very successful placing
informants in major Klan groups,

although some
of those informants

were very scary
and violent people themselves.

CUNNINGHAM:
Klan members saw themselves
as patriotic, as anti-Communist.

They saw the FBI as probably
the staunchest defenders

of an America that needed
to be keptafe from communism.

NARRATOR:
In North Carolina,
Agent Dargan Frierson

developed several informants
within Klan circles.

FRIERSON:
In my dad's own family history,

he has people who are resisting
the progress

of African-American people.

So he can go to Klan people
and say,

"Hey, my granddaddy
was in the Klan,

so I know what
you're going through."

The other thing is,

you can go to a potential
informant and say,

"We're trying to do
the same things, right?

"We want to fight communism too.

Help us do that."

NARROR:
None was more valuable
than George Dorsett,

the North Carolina Klan's
biggest fundraiser

and one of the most powerful
members of Jones's inner circle.

FRIERSON:
Dorsett throughout his life

thought the Klan was
a righteous organization.

It had a righteous purpose
in the world.

I asked my dad one time,

I"Why would Dorsett workse
infor you?"d.

And his answer was,
"Because we became friends."

And the other thing is,
once you get somebody

to give you information
and sign a receipt,

my dad always said,
"Then you got them, right?

Because the threat of exposing
somebody is real."

NARRATOR:
Dorsett kept Agent Frierson
up to date on Klan activities.

The FBI learned that
many Klansmen were unhappy

with how Jones was handling
the group's finances

and that his wife
had been put in charge

of the tens of thousands
of dollars

arriving at the state office.

In October 1965,

the House Un-American
Activities Committee,

known for its probes
into Communist

and Civil Rights groups,
opened hearings on the Klan.

Building on FBI intelligence,

HUAC investigators developed
a strategy to follow the money

and held well-publicized
hearings on Capitol Hill.

Robert Shelton,
the imperial wizard

of the United Klans of America,
testified first,

invoking the Fifth Amendment
more than 150 times.

Bob Jones followed suit,
sidestepping questions

about the Cadillac
purchased with Klan funds,

proceeds from sales
of Klan robes,

and the personal bank accounts

into which he'd deposited
membership dues.

PHILIP R. MANUEL:
You can't describe yourself
as this great patriot

who is out for the betterment
of the people

and to preserve segregation,

and at the same time,
when you're out of public view,

you let a lot of money
fall off the table.

That's not right.

That's being a crook.

CUNNINGHAM:
That strategy
of invoking the Fifth

in these committee hearings

was strongly associated
with Communists.

And so there were
many Klan members

who were absolutely appalled

that their leaders would invoke
that exact same strategy

that Communists had been doing
for years

in these kinds of hearings.

I do not have to answer to them
in regards to any records

or anything
of this organization.

I only have to answer
to this membership.

REPORTER:
What do you think the
membership's reaction will be

to the allegations
of financial irregularities?

You don't see me worried,
do you?

I don't know,
I'm asking.

I think if there's any worry,
you'd see it.

MANUEL:
I think the very fact

that the leaders of the Klan
took the Fifth Amendment

was a real eye-opener

for many of the rank-and-file
members of the Ku Klux Klan

who thought of themselves
as patriotic

and who looked on the invocation
of the Fifth Amendment

as an admission of guilt
in their minds.

REPORTER:
Mr. Jones,
would you care to comment?

Did you feel intimidated
in there today

Mr. Shelton is speaking
for Mr. Kornegay and me.

NARRATOR:
Jones's refusal to testify
alienated many of his followers.

Joseph Dubois,
a Klavern treasurer,

was so upset with Jones

that he resigned
on the witness stand.

"Only a Communist
takes the fifth amendment,"

Dubois said, "or someone
with something to hide."

FREEZE:
Eventually,
Klansmen saw that Bob Jones

was just another
snake oil salesman.

He was selling something that
just made them sick, not cured.

NARRATOR:
Embarrassed by HUAC revelations
that North Carolina

had the largest Klan
organization in the nation,

state officials cracked down.

CUNNINGHAM:
The policing of the Klan
became to more closely mirror

what civil rights activists
had long been subject to.

They start arresting people
for minor infractions,

pretext kind of arrests.

They start harassing people
at rallies.

They start having
official injunctions

to prevent rallies
from being held.

All these things
can come upon them

for being a Klan member

that wouldn't have been
in the world of consequences

prior to 1966.

NARRATOR:
The FBI took advantage

of the loss of faith
in Jones's leadership.

George Dorsett's FBI handler
urged him

to break away from Jones
and start his own group.

FRIERSON:
I think my dad realized,

"If we can get people
to splinter off

"and form smaller organizations,

that's an easy way to end
the power of Bob Jones."

I think for somebody with
as much ego as George Dorsett,

the notion of starting your own
Klan unit was important to him.

I mean, it's almost like
a career path.

"I've been the grand klud
for a while.

"Now I want to be
the grand dragon.

Now I want to move up
in the world."

NARRATOR:
Hundreds of Jones's members
signed up with Dorsett,

but the new group
soon fell apart.

Dorsett later lamented

he wasn't cut out to be a leader
like Jones.

Following the HUAC hearings,

Jones was convicted
of contempt of Congress

for refusing to produce
Klan records.

In 1969, he was sentenced
to a year in federal prison.

By then,
the North Carolina Klan

had dwindled to a fraction
of its former size.

On September 15,
Jones's fellow Klansmen

stapled their membership cards
to a giant cross

and ceremoniously set it ablaze.

CECELSKI:
I don't think the Klan
was quelled,

but that kind of laid-back
attitude toward the Klan

changes in my part
of the state.

African Americans are organized,

and they're just not
going to take this

from the Ku Klux Klan anymore.

A lot of whites are finding
their racial anxieties

channeled into other
political avenues--

into the Republican Party,

but also into George Wallace's
American Independent Party.

And so for all those reasons,

the Klan becomes
a shameful thing again.

CUNNINGHAM:
Jones and the Carolina Klan

were not able to achieve
any of their major goals.

They weren't able
to maintain segregation

in a formal, legal sense,
of course.

They were not able to build

a long-lasting political
constituency around the Klan.

But Jones was able
to mobilize people

around racial ideas in a way
that has been quite durable.

CECELSKI:
Some people would live
the rest of their life

regretting those three
or four years.

They act as if they were
another person, you know,

like, "I don't know
what came over me."

But for a while, we really
descended into the darkness.

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