Jackson Jambalaya

The Ku Klux Klan leadership encouraged its members to use BB guns, stink bombs, and mad dogs to harass blacks and civil rights protestors in the 1960' in Mississippi.  The Klan gave specific instructions on how to harass its enemies in a series of memos issued to membership.  The memos are part of a collection of Klan documents discovered at the Mississippi Department of Public Safety last week. 

An employee discovered a long-forgotten briefcase in a closet at DPS as the agency prepares to move to its new headquarters in Rankin County.  The briefcase contained a collection of historical rattlesnakes, courtesy of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.  A Klan robe, hood, and various Klan documents such as Klorans and meeting minutes filled the briefcase.  DPS Commissioner Sean Tindall transferred the briefcase and its contents to the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.

Why did the agency even have this collection? Who knows.  However, it is known the FBI had an informant inside the Highway Patrol.  Thus it would not be surprising if FBI informant Manyard King, the Highway Patrolman referred to as "Mr. X" in Mississippi Burning collected as much information as possible on the Klan for his federal friends.   

JJ managed to snag this bit of history.  The collection has over 150 documents and photos.  As usual, JJ will post the documents.  However, JJ does not want to overwhelm the reader so it will post the documents in batches so they are easier to digest.  

This material is a part of the state's dark past when the tyranny of racism reigned supreme.  However, this website has always believed in reporting the past, good and bad, as history is history.  When history is forgotten, the future almost always reminds us of past sins as we commit them again.   This website covered the lynchings, whipping of blacks at the Capitol, and other racial crimes from the past. This post is published in the same vein.  

What is posted below is not published to glorify the Klan but how a terrorist group in Mississippi operated as the briefcase takes off the mask the Klan used so well to terrorize its fellow Mississippians.  The materials are predictable, making the usual remarks about segregation, white pride, and communist plots to overthrow the government through the Civil Rights Movement. 

When studying the collection, one is struck by how organized the Klavern in Mississippi was.  The documents often read like something from the Rotary Club or a local government.  There are committees, agendas, detailed minutes, lists of fees paid (and unpaid), and rosters.  

Much as the Nazis documented their crimes through film and print, so did the Ku Klux Klan of Mississippi.  The Klan distributed to members instructions on how to harass civil rights protestors and blacks.   Such instructions are a window into Klan thinking.

One document titled "Harassment"  provides specific instruction on the finer points of harassment: 

The stated goal of such harassment was to pressure "the enemy" to make mistakes.  It warned against aliens and alien authorities (Alien defined as anyone not a member of the Klan).  

The Klan justified using more deadly harassment at night.  It ceded the streets to the protesters during the day in another memo to members:

The memo even directs members to accumulate weapons and drill accordingly.  

No form of harassment went unnoticed by these klukkers.  There is a memo directing these "knights" on how to engage in telephone harassment: 

Members are reminded the Klan "is a nocturnal organization" that "works best at night."  The memo urges members to avoid street fights and engaging protests.  Detailed stuff indeed.  

The documents are posted below with no redactions.