A History of the White Knights: Mississippi, 1964-70

FAIN: FT-51365-03

Carol V. George
Unaffiliated Independent Scholar (Sarasota, FL 34238-2802)

This is a social history of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan of Mississippi. The White Knights, led by Sam Bowers, was the most violent of the Klans in opposing the civil rights movement. It mounted three murderous attacks, in Philadelphia, Hattiesburg, and Meridian, before losing the social support that had sustained it. I am interested in the White Knights as a right wing religious extremist group, and the complex social network that silently conspired in its work. My work therefore is a model of how an extremist group came to dominate a closed society, and how its hold was gradually broken. A grant would allow me to examine Bowers' 1998 trial record in Hattiesburg, and also a trial transcript in Atlanta for the 1964 murders.