The Mississippi Department of Public Safety issued the following statement.
The Mississippi Department of Public Safety has transferred to the Mississippi Department of Archives and History 1960s-era Ku Klux Klan materials, including full Klan regalia, recently discovered as DPS staff prepared to move into new headquarters.
"Mississippi Highway Patrol Troopers and Agents with the Mississippi Department of Public Safety have worked for decades with our federal law enforcement partners to shed light on the darkness in which groups like the Ku Klux Klan chose to operate," said Mississippi Department of Public Safety Commissioner Sean Tindell. "By preserving these artifacts and shedding light on such organizations, we help ensure that future generations are never led astray by such hate."
Tucked inside a small blue suitcase were documents and other items, including charters, a spiral notebook with meeting minutes, a ledger book, a 1964 Imperial Executive Order and numerous pamphlets. There is also Klan propaganda material, including a pamphlet entitled, “The Ugly Truth about Martin Luther King,” published by United Klans of America.
Additionally, the inventory included file folders that contained news clippings about the Mississippi Highway Patrol, the Mississippi Department of Public Safety, then-DPS Commissioner T.B. Birdsong and material related to Freedom Riders. All will be processed by MDAH to be digitally accessible to the public in the future.
"MDAH is grateful to Commissioner Tindell for recognizing the historical significance of this material and transferring it to the archives,” said incoming MDAH director Barry White. “These records will give researchers broader access to documentation that deepens our understanding of Ku Klux Klan activities in Mississippi during the 1960s. Receiving a set of materials that includes both administrative records and propaganda from a local chapter of a national organization known for its secrecy is particularly significant."
Processing the material could take several months. It involves the arrangement, housing, and description of archival materials for storage and use by patrons. Description will involve writing a collection-level overview for the catalog, including the inventory’s transfer to MDAH from DPS, an item-level finding aid, and image-level metadata (index data) for the scans that will be produced.
11 comments:
History is not there for you to like or dislike. It is there for you to learn from, and if it offends you, even better, because then you are less likely to repeat it. It's not yours to erase, modify, or destroy.
these were most likely used by state or federal law enforcement agents who were the only people keeping the klan alive for the mid to the late 20th century. There was so little klan activity that the departments receiving federal funding to investigate the klan, had to recreate the Klan in order to keep their money flowing.
Plenty of books and documentary films about this.
Lemme get this straight. It is okay to tear down statues of American patriots who established our country, but you can't discard KKK paraphernalia?
Were those documents printed in the state printing shop?
So where did DPS get it? Was it confiscated during a police operation against the klukkers, or did it perhaps belong to an officer who was himself a klukker?
At least it's not going to wind up in a display case at the airport with other anti-Mississippi propaganda (directed at the traveling public) or at one of the newer museums, properly labeled and inscribed in order to fuel hate and violence against the minority in Jackson.
... had to recreate the Klan in order to keep their money flowing.
Plenty of books and documentary films about this.
Links?
The twist will be when someone realizes they are just props from the filming of the Coen Brothers’ Oh Brother Where Art Thou?
The giveaway will be the John Goodman autographed copies of The Flintstones and King Ralph found in the same locker!
The trooper got his favorite movies signed by the star between filmings of the infamous KKK ritual cross burning scene in the movie!
9:19, It's okay to move the statues for historical preservation, just like this klan material.
That doesn't mean it's okay to actually wear the white robe and hood around in public.
I had a coach/history teacher in the 80s who was a reserve at JPD. And he was a klucker. Don't think for a second the KKK did not exist in law enforcement in previous generations. The 1960s does not surprise me, and there were remnants in the 1980s. And while I'm confident its no longer present, its hard to change culture within an organization (DPS).
The SPLC has stepped in to fill the void-
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