Terri Williams

Oh yes, it was in the air thick as molasses in the summer of '63. It was after the confiscation of weapons that talk turned from invading Cuba to the death of JFK and how "dare he leave us so defenceless, "What is he up ta?". I suspect it also left a sizeable dent in someone's inheritance money as well. People kill over stuff like that.

Yes, that's sounds about right to me. Not sure how Doc was connected in the "giving orders", but he helped in the supply end. As well as having the space for target practice, from what I heard.

Thank you. Yes I understand that all my accounts in life are a bit much for most folks. How could one person have come into contact with so much? Yet, I did. And I think you are right, to close down my blogs and such and focus only on this for a while. That's when books two, then three can be introduced. I know how people see me. I am not stupid. If I had not been through all that I have been through I would not believe such stuff, either. But I have been, and I have stopped asking "Why me?" The answer to that is, because "I will write only the truth of what happened and that I am able to write." That's what I figure is going on. But I understand the doubt, believe me. Living through it all has been quite overwhelming. I should have gone into law enforcement, I guess.

Yes they were. Many who were training were young men and cousins of mine. They were furious when JFK confiscated their weapons. The white boys came to school ranting and raving about it. I don't know, but have been told by those who do know, that Dr ---- ------- ------- supplied some of the arms. He even had a training area on his property, but from what I heard back then, most of the training to invade Cuba was done in Louisiana. Not sure if it was a military operation at an army base or just back in the woods... Terri, I'd like to get back to your account about young men and cousins of yours in Terry, Mississippi training to invade Cuba. This was the number one central goal of the Minutemen organization under Robert DePugh in 1962-1963. Jim Garrison says that Guy Banister, with his associates, Hugh Ward, David Ferrie and Gordon Novel, conducted a Minuteman training camp in Louisiana, in Saint Tammany Parish, near Lake Pontchartrain (which was a property owned by Carlos Marcello, as I recall). Banister was responsible for supplying the arms and ammunition for all this training. Minutemen and Cuban Exiles supplied the manpower. In the summer of 1963, when Lee Harvey Oswald was in New Orleans (and offered to train the men of Carlos Bringuier) Gerry Patrick Hemming claimed that he saw Oswald at that training camp. Also in the summer of 1963, JFK issued an order to close down all paramilitary training camps -- he was trying to broker a peace deal with the USSR, and all these paramilitary groups were not helping him. So, in obedience, the FBI (reluctantly) closed down the Lake Pontchartrain training camp, and confiscated all their weapons and munitions. Now -- what you're saying, Terri, is that young men from your neighborhood were also "training to invade Cuba". My question to you is this -- do you remember the name and/or the location of the training camp in which young men from Terry, Mississippi would have gone to do this training? Any recollection here could be helpful. Best regards, --Paul Trejo To the Minutemen themselves, however, the immediate effect of the assassination seemed more of a nuisance than anything else. Looking back at it three years later, DePugh observed: "Here you had a man you could say anything about and get away with it, and he's suddenly turned into a national hero that you don't dare say anything about without people taking offense at, " DePugh said. "We were really zeroing in on Kennedy at the time he was assassinated. He was our number one whipping boy, so to speak....." "It took a while before Johnson maneuvered himself into a postition where he became a legitimate target for adverse publicity. For quite a long while he rode along on John Kennedy's halo." "So that (the assassination) was kind of a setback for us so far as our psy-war was concerned. All of our recruiting literature was written up and based on the Communist infiltration of the Kennedy administration, and suddenly, the literature was of no value." From J Harry Jones' seminal 1968 book The Minutemen. Well, from what my cousins told me, as well as gossip in town about the "invasion-trainging", all any of them would have told me is that there was training going on in Louisiana. They did not mention where exactly, although I got the impression that they were training in the woods. I knew my cousins were part of the training; they were proud of the fact. I cannot tell you where. As to Bannister supplying the arms, it was my understanding that Doc helped in that regard. As well as some of the sniper training would have been carried out on Doc's property.

Thank you so much for the advice. In the past I have found it hard to get anything published, it's so incriminating. And I will not change a thing. I want the world to know the truth, not some Hollywood version of it. All in all, there are at least three books worth of true stories I have to tell, all three jam packed with stuff investigators have not seen and again, ALL TRUE. I suppose I am getting old enough now. At one time I felt cursed for having witnessed so much, but now, I am glad to know what I know and I feel it should be shared, since it is true, not some flight of fantasy and because the events effected so many people. To be fair to myself, I have written and published what I could where I could, on Facebook and blogs and such. I had written about my account of the day Kennedy was shot and posted it on Facebook, since it is true. Everyone has a story for that day; mine needed sharing, too. Someone on Facebook directed my attention to this site. Since everyone on this forum is wanting to know what happened, not just to John Kennedy, but Martin Luther King, Jr and Robert Kennedy, where else would there be a better place to state what I know. Those of you who are truly wanting to get to the bottom of things, I have told what I know for you. Maybe one of you can find that link from Bannister to the green Ford pick-up truck. Or maybe someone else from Terry will speak up too, I hope. There are at least two people I know of who were there that day, still alive, who were, like me, not happy about what they were witnessing. There were others in town who were sad that day, but for the most part, the Klan ruled that day in Terry, Mississippi. And if anyone seriously thinks that anyone in the Klan or who was in the Klan, is going to speak up, well, "you gotta be xxxxtin me man". When I heard the news from Mr. MacDaniel, I just couldn't help it, my head hung low. One of the Klan kidz noticed and told me "Ha that's nuthin'! They're gonna keep goin' till there's a KKK". I think most people who were sad couldn't help their heads hanging low. The Klan took notice of who was and wasn't celebrating. They gloated whenever some of us were around. Their 'gloating' is usually taken as a threat in Terry. I just checked the spelling of the principal's name in the 1964 Yellow Jacket, the school's yearbook, or annual. I kept that one and the 1965 Yellow Jacket. His name was R. W. McDaniel. I was a little confused about that, since at school, students referred to him as "Mr. Mac".

"... an Intelligence Report investigation, publicized by national television and newspaper reports, made clear what the CCC really was: a hate group that routinely denigrated blacks as "genetically inferior," complained about "Jewish power brokers," called LGBT people "perverted sodomites," accused immigrants of turning America into a "slimy brown mass of glop," :trampo That is so Mississippi!! What a Klan thing to say! That was an interesting read about the CCC and how it came about, how it has transformed. I gotta wonder if that is a hard or soft CCC.

My great grandfather was a kind, wise and gentle man. He would not have harmed a flea, although, just like in To Kill a Mockingbird, he did once shoot a mad dog dead, that was coming up the driveway towards us kids. He also would not have gone against the Klan. He followed the rules, yet in the mid fifties, he did not stop giving the Taylors a ride home and he went to pick them up anytime they were expected at our house. He truly cared for those people and knew the road they would have to travel was riddled with bad news. Albert Lee Lewis knew this about him, I suspect, and if he didn't, he sure found out the day Papa closed the door in his face. Albert Lee Lewis would not have gone up against my great grandfather because of who Papa's nephew was, Senator Sam Ervin. Besides, Papa was a good neighbour, for ANYone to have. I doubt Papa joined ANY group and he made his displeasure known to anyone in the family who did join the Klan. He was not exactly thrilled with the WCC either and I suspect that is why my grandmother waited till after his death to join.

Yes, our vicar did give sermons that had me snickering under my breath. My grandmother was raised a southern Baptist and had attended the Countyline Baptist Church with her parents, mainly her mother, my Granny (since Papa was not much into church) and I too attended that church when living with my great grandparents. Albert Lee Lewis' family went to that church I think. But after my grandmother traced our family back to the Magna Charta, she became Episcopalian (Anglican), in keeping with her royal bloodline. A Grand Dragon's family attended the Anglican church as well. I cannot recall ever seeing the patriarch of the family in church, however. His family were distant cousins of ours. It used to amuse me how many churches and how many different kinds of churches, both black and white, there were in Terry, everything from Holy Rollers, to fundamentalist, to several Methodist, several Baptist and a single, small, Episcopalian church. There were no Catholic churches in Terry. One had to travel to Crystal Springs for that. AND there were NO TEMPLES!.... at least not any I remember. Not only would the WCC and the Klan have had infighting amongst themselves, but there must have been infighting due to all the denominations in the membership.

At Christmas break in 1966, after having lived in Syracuse for about an 18 month stint, we moved back to Terry, Mississippi. My mother had bought all my clothes for the school year and they were to NY standards, mini-skirts. When I started back at Terry School, the principal (a new man whose name I forget, Mr Mc Daniel had been replaced) came up to me and sent me home to change my clothes. So I went home and changed, but I had no other clothes, so he was real mad when I came back to school in an even shorter dress. He called my mother and told her I had to wear knee length skirts. She told him she had already bought my wardrobe for the school year and that if he didn't like my clothes HE could buy me some new ones. So Terry School had to let girls wear shorter skirts. The Klan had put my mother through hell and she was never afraid of them. She DARED them. As I have said before, my mother worked for NASA in the sixties. She worked for a company called, Brown Engineering based at Redstone in Huntsville. She had backup I suspect the Klan did not want to go up against. She was not the meek little twenty year old they had tortured in the fifties. She had gone out and made the right friends. I admired the heck out of my mom and tried to emulate her every action. I was I think 14 or 15 then. The town was in an uproar about the coming integration. That's when I visited my friend to tell her that it would not be so bad. Thats when I found out she was Klan. Scared the hell out of me, that little incident, but I cautiously went ahead and was myself anyway. I just didn't go riding my horse outside of town anymore after that. I realized that all those nice white folks who live along the way, might not do a thing to help me if Joyce's father decided to have his way with me, not that he would have ever raped me, but he would have liked to have tortured and killed me that day I bet. Same with Albert Lee Lewis, the man who kicked me off his property when I was 5. I doubted those nice white folks would do a thing to stop those men from doing anything they wanted, to anyone. There was already plenty of proof that that was true.

Seriously, Ross Barnett's will was never that far removed from the KKK. I would be very much surprised if he was not Klan. He is one of those white people I just took for granted was in the Klan. Almost all white people in Mississippi back then were behind the Klan and anything the Klan did. But not ALL white people. The only white people who were for Meredith, would not have said a word back then. And those white people would have NEVER been on any White Citizens' Council. The white people, who were what Northerners would call "good people", would never have joined the Klan nor the WCC. They knew it was all the same bunch. Ross Barnett and George Wallace held racist views, whether or not there was a Klan. The Klan DID hold much power in the south and beyond I suspect, back in the 50's & 60's. I was just a small child, but I remember how everything changed in the mid fifties. we could no longer visit the Taylors or the Ransom's and my grandmother made Martha walk to and from work after the mid fifties. I thought it was cruel.

Also, I am not sure, but maybe someone here knows if the wcc kept a record of membership? And I don't think the Klan ever kept records of their membership that they shared. Does anyone know if there is a record of membership for the Klan? Or would there be one for Terry? (which I kinda doubt) Oh and my grandmother didn't suddenly join the WCC, she joined sometime in the mid 60's, I think. I am not certain that she was a member of the KKK, she was sympathetic to them and practically worshipped them. She did a lot of genealogical work for them and she did call them about Junior. It was she who got him killed by calling Klan on him, so the WCC were not so far removed from the KKK. I believe the WCC was a front for the KKK. I had seen a Klan robe in her closet, occasionally when I was young, but I asked my brother (who was not in Terry that year; he was in Gulfport) about the robe and our grandmother's involvement with the Klan. My brother says the robe was not our grandmother's; it belonged to another relative. He also agrees that the Klan ruled the roost in Terry, not the WCC, that they were just pawns more or less. I am trying to wrap my head around how you think, that the WCC shunned the KKK? Or do you think that there was an animosity between the two groups? You think the WCC made absolutely sure no Klan members joined? They lived, as did I, surrounded by Klan... in the country. They went to church together. In many cases, they were quite literally in bed together. And as I said, sometimes a WCC member (anyone with a grievance the Klan could handle) would call upon the Klan for services. Interesting statistic about the ratio of blacks to whites in Hinds county. Sounds about right. And I agree that it added more fuel to the fire on the seats of Klan pants back then, to keep schools segregated, as well as public spaces. They feared a mixing of the races, ultimately.

(Besides that, you did name Guy Banister, and your claims about his activities in Terry are subject to outside verification.) About the only evidence I can think of, would have to be other eye witnesses who saw him there or Byram, Mississippi that summer. I sure wish some one else who was there would come forward. My neck looks so long out here all alone. Maybe there is a way to trace Bannister's involvement with Terry, if he signed anything regarding the brand new green Ford pick-up truck he gave our town for free in either '62 or '63. Actually, my grandmother's exact words were "A nice man named Bannister arranged for the town to get the truck for free".

Yes, that is a good comparison, only I do not remember any nice white people really 'ruling the roost' so to speak. Sure maybe they were 'Mayor', but their marching orders came from the Klan and they were not about to go up against them. My grandmother was a member of the WCC and she sure 'nuff did march to their command, as well as helped them get their titles, and 'called them up' when needed. So I cannot verify the accounts of Klan being kept out. Maybe they were not 'members', but they WERE in command. I am not sure if Terry Consolidated School was integrated 1968 or 69. I went to school in Texas in '68, but the 69-70 school year was my last year at Terry School and it was the first year I remember integration. About the only thing that happened that year that ruffled white folks' feathers, was the election of the Queen and Princes of the year. Traditionally, the prettiest girls got elected. Everyone knew who the candidates were, but that year there were black students voting as well. Since there were not enough black children in the junior and senior classes to actually nominate and vote for a black girl, the black children nominated the two nicest white girls, who were so ugly no one would have ever thought of them as Prom Queen material. The vote being split, the two nice, but ugly, white girls won. A real upset win. White kids didn't know how to take it or what to say. Couldn't say anything to offend the girls who won, but were visibly shocked when the results were in. I guess "dumbfounded" would describe it. As I remember, it was an awkward "Congratulations" from two pretty white girls.

Thank you. That is EXACTLY why I am here. I know something you don't know, so I am here to tell you what I know that you don't know and the records don't show. Of course you have the option of considering what I say or not. While it could be true that I am just crazy and have made this whole thing up, chances are better that I am telling you the truth. What other possible motive could I have for being on this site, saying the things I am saying? Actually, if you are here to try to uncover some of the truth of what happened that day, then my message is for you and you are VERY lucky I have decided to talk. Please consider what my telling you might do to me. I do get the feeling that not everyone here is on the same page, however.

Please allow me to clarify something. There were people I knew for absolutely sure, were in the Ku Klux Klan, White Knights. Then there were people who were in that group, but I didn't know for sure. Those people I just considered Klan by their actions. It was important for anyone to make the distinction because one did need to know who the Klan were, if one did not join them. The Klan knew who everybody was, so they had the upper hand. Those who did not join the Klan were watched. anyone who stepped out of line, like my grandfather and mother did, were dealt with -Klan would approach the family and make it clear the family has to send the 'radical' member for shock treatment or some such. That happened in the 40's & 50's, at least in my family. This of course is the way Klan did things if the white family with the radical member were wealthy or of importance, someone whose death could not be easily hid. If the family was poor, well that was it for the radical member -back to the woods with them. So knowing who you felt you could trust involved watching people yourself, if you were not Klan. You had to be very careful how you approached them, cause if they were Klan friendly, you could be in trouble. People of conscience did manage to know instinctually who was Klan and who was not. Back then, most people were not Klan. Most White People were, but not all. And the ones who were not, along with Black People, made more people who were not Klan. So most people had to know who they are talking to and usually they did. Of course I do not know of any poor white people who stepped out of line. They ceased to exist before I could meet them. Most poor were Klan out of necessity. Most Klan boys were obsessed with the Civil War, so they were easy to spot. Most Klan children would go out of their way to be nasty to a person of colour. Some did not, and were polite to the face, but would make disparaging remarks about the person behind their backs. By the time anyone hit ten, it was pretty clear who Klan were and who were not. Having them around watching, always watching was like living under some savage, military dictatorship. It was Apartheid. Because I was sent away at the age of 17 and never returned to live there, most of my recollections are from the 50's & 60's. Having been back to visit, I noticed the changes over the decades. My hometown is still not a place I would feel safe living in. Not only has the family land and fortune dwindled into the control of my cousins, they are heavy duty Klan. You might even be surprised that the racists and the Klan have branched out into places you'd never suspect.

Michael Hogan, I suspect Paul Trejo also believes the Klan held royal titles of Baron, Knight and Dame. If not, too bad, it's true. My grandmother was the town's genealogist. It was her hobby. She had family connections in Scotland who aided her in obtaining all the documentation she needed to help many Klan families (and non Klan) obtain royal titles. It can still be done today. Maybe that's where the 'White Knights' business came from. It constantly amused me how the Klan could go out on a Saturday night and kill someone and then get up and go to church the next day and have the whole town make such a fuss over them. I suppose it annoyed the soft Klan. I mean you could see them there sitting in church, the ones that went to church, looking so damn saintly, and you knew that they either knew of or was part of something tragic the night before. It just made me laugh, while making me sick. The first lynching I ever experienced, was one night at my great grandparents' house, in the late fifties. My brother and I were in the middle room, in bed. He had told me there would be something happening across the road that night. He really wanted to get up and go over there, but Papa had made an explicit point of telling him he was not allowed. So we lay there and listened. There was a lot of shouting and yelling, hooting and hollering going on, sometimes with loud cheers thrown in. Then the pitch got serious. The Klan scream at people a lot. They scream at each other, they like to scream. You can tell when it is not the Klan making the noise, because you can hear the fear in the voice. Many scream gleefully and one screams in terror and pain, until it stops. You are perfectly right about the Klan not being all that active until the Little Rock/Rosa Parks era. That's when lynching became an every weekend occurrence. We were no longer allowed to visit with the Taylor's or the Ransom's. Even if things hadn't heated up, we were never allowed to go to the Taylor's or Ransom's on our own anyway; that would have gotten a big whooping, at any time, even in a soft Klan family. Besides, no good Klan would have ever dreamed of doing such a thing. It wasn't everyone who visited with black families; ours' did, but not after the earlier fifties. We were not supposed to play with black children in town either, but my brothers did, so of course I followed. I had more fun with them, than with the white kids. Black kids were mostly from poor families and most of them spoke a form of English that was foreign to me. I imagine it was a language developed by slaves to talk about their masters and discuss plans without their masters knowing. The 50's/60's south is the only place I ever heard that language. I was so intrigued by the way they spoke. I wanted to know more. My brothers soon learned, if they wanted to get away with stuff, they should not let me tag along. It wasn't that I told on them or anything, it's just that the town is small, so if a neighbour looks out his window and sees a white girl playing with black children, calls are quickly made and the girl sent home. Neighbours were not as concerned if the boys were spotted playing with black children, but girls doing that got their attention but quick. So I was left out of a lot, probably, fortunately, because if I had kept doing that, someone black might have died The black kids knew that. That's why they were reluctant to play with my brothers. Of course even my older brother had to give up going to that side of town not long after I was banned, because the pressure the Klan was putting on my grandmother was becoming unbearable. It just was not kosher activity for young white boys. If my sibling had persisted, it might have gotten someone killed. Fortunately, I liked to ride my horse and just headed away from prying eyes when I got old enough.

First of all, to Michael Hogan... Secondly, to Paul Trejo, thank you for setting the record straight. I did not come here to see what kind of bullxxxx I thought I could pull over on all the vastly more learned people on this site. The topic is: JFK & the KKK. We are all here because we want what really happened to Kennedy to come to light. And because we don't buy the final conclusion reached by the government. What should I do, keep keeping the secret secret? I guess I was waiting for the man to die first, I was that afraid of him. He died within the last five or six years, as did some of his more dangerous friends. I feel safe enough from him now. But Michael Hogan, you make me feel worried, like I was afraid would happen if I said anything. Thirdly, the assertion you made Paul Trejo that: "3. I do find it plausible that part of her town had that advanced strong belief and managed to keep it a complete secret from their neighbors in surrounding towns and the rest of Mississippi and federal and state investigators for 50 years." Well, actually, that is not quite true. There are those that know of what I write. They would be select people in racist groups. The racists already know. It was not necessary to keep it secret from our neighbourhing town, Bryam. That was where the majority of rallies were held that summer. Bannister DID speak at those rallies and at least one in Terry. That's where the plan was hatched. If most Klansmen, who were the rulers of the South, didn't know what was being planned in Mississippi that year, then I would be most greatly shocked. The Klan knew and the whole South was the realm of the KKK at that time, believe it or not, even in those counties where they were soft Klan, they WERE KLAN. I find it confusing when you try to separate the Law enforcement and judges and such, from the Klan, because that is not the way it was back then. There must be plenty of books that make that claim as well. They were the Klan, them and a lot of angry white men and boys, not to mention women and girls, babies too. Paul Trejo: "I disbelieve, however, that nobody has ever spoken about it before Terri Williams -- but I do believe that anybody who did speak of it before was probably laughed out of town by everybody who heard the claims." In the South they would have been shot. They only share secrets with people they can kill, if necessary. Also, I find it curious that a guy named Patterson started the WCC. I do remember hearing talk of it, but I was more interested in playing back then. It wasn't a heavy topic at the table until the latter sixties, when it came back with vigour, making plans to create "Academies", private schools for whites only. Another part of the discussions was how to keep blacks out of the town pool they wanted to build. I think the decision was reached that a fee should be charged to blacks that they could not possibly afford. It was a real big problem for them. There was a prominent Klan family in our town named Patterson. They were the more violent type. Not sure if they were related to Robert Patterson, but it is likely. Robert Patterson's branch might have moved further north to get away from their violent cousins. And I do recollect talk about the more violent faction being kept out of the limelight. The White Citizens' Council was invented by the Klan, soft Klan maybe, but Klan. I doubt that a soft Klan branch in South Carolina for instance could get away with deciding to totally eliminate segregation if they wanted to. I mean they all had the same agenda, and the evil side created and used the good side. Whether or not it was intentional, the White Citizens' Council was the face the Klan put on when trying to win public support for their cause.

Man, I just don't know. I wish I did and if I did, please know I would tell you. There is much more to the situation than meets the eye. Like zooming in on a particular area in google maps, the closer you get to ground level, the more the things you see get in the way of your vision. You have to know where to look. Lots of places to hide things you know, not as many as De La Beckwith thought, though, I guess.

My mom worked for Lamar Life for a while when I was young. They were very sexist there. But that was life back then. The white, racist, sexist, bigots reigned supreme. I can't imagine anyone in Terry talking to DeLaughter about Dallas. It isn't like the Klan to advertise. They know who to keep quiet around (lawyers) and who they can talk around ("crazy" little girls). But, if that man lived in Terry, peacefully, I gotta wonder about him. I betcha he was Southern Baptist. I have friends still in Terry. I will ask them about the man. My cousins know all about Dallas and ------ --- -----. They live across the road from his old place and lived next door to him in the 50's & 60's. You'd have to chop their hands off to make them talk about it. They for sure clam up if I mention anything, especially ------- --- -----. I just can't see them opening up to some lawyer who prosecuted Byron De La Beckwith. It is no big deal for me to talk about it. I don't live in the "Realm" anymore. But I just can't see anyone else in Terry talking to the man. I might have if I was living there, maybe. But just only before I heading out of state. Living in Terry was always a struggle for me. I hated it when we had to go back there and loved it when we left. It is my hometown and I know it so well. I love so many things about it, especially my great grandparents' property, but have so much more to fear about it. The men who were in the Klan back then had children who grew up to be just like daddy. There was a fellow who I went to school with, Steve Gardner. He joined the MHP after high school. He was not an officer, but a communication technician who worked in an office in Meridian, I believe. Steve was a Klansman. His whole family were deeply rooted Klansmen. Steve loved to harass black people and over stepped his bounds, since he was not an officer, when he stopped a black man traveling on highway 55, one day, for speeding. The black man blew his face off. That was the kind of thing that caused the KKK to lose power. Black people were standing up and fighting back. It also angered them mightily, but made them stop and think. That was sometime in the late eighties or early nineties. Once in the early eighties when I was visiting Terry, two black men picked me up on Green Gables Road. I had been kicked out of my friend's house, by her aunt & uncle, for smoking pot. So I was walking a long long way back into town. It was mighty hot that day and not much shade along the road, so I was wilting. No white people would pick me up. Then two black guys in a car stopped and let me in the back seat. They found out I was from Canada and instead of turning right at Terry Road to go back into Terry, they turned left and went to Wyndale road. They pulled the car up behind the church into the woods and said they were gonna rape me. Well, hell, that was the funniest thing I ever heard. I started laughing and asked them if they were aware of who my relatives were. I started rattling off some prominent Klan names and they backed that car up so fast, drove me straight home and threw flower petals on my path as I exited the car. I thanked them for the ride and we all had a nice day. I did not tell the Klan what the guys were attempting to do, because that would have gotten them killed. After all they decided not to rape me and they did rescue me from the heat and did drive me home. I bet that cured their urge to rape white women for a while. When I go back to Terry, those guys remember me and warn anyone who might want to mess with me, not to do it. AND they give me a ride anywhere I want to go, most safely. And on my trips back home over the years, I have noticed that the racist grip is far looser than it used to be. I suspect that is because blacks now out number the whites and blacks are not afraid anymore. But I have no delusions about the Klan, nor does anyone who is black living in the state. We know the Klan are still there and still dangerous, even if fewer in numbers. Those kids I went to school with are my age and are the ruling class in Terry now. There ain't no way they have changed their stripes. One more thing, if you are looking for white people in Terry, who can confirm the story I tell about the day JFK was killed, you'd have to talk to someone who went to Terry School in November of 1963, who was born in 1951 or earlier. The school was divided into two parts. It was called 'Terry Consolidated School' back then, because it held classes for grades 1 - 12. The elementary classes were traditionally held in one of the three buildings that made up Terry School. The high school building traditionally housed grades 7-12. But that year, there were so many younger students that the sixth grade class, Mrs. Austin's, was forced to move to the high school building. So anyone born after 1951 or 2, would not know of the events that happened that day in the high school building, unless their siblings had been in the high school building. Need some names?

Hell, the man must be smart. I guess someone with those credentials would have to be. He lived in Terry and never heard anyone talk about Dallas. Amazing. Smart man. I can't remember any other kind of Klan in Terry. The Klan were in Terry long before the turn of the twentieth century. So if there was no White Knights before 1964, who were those Klansmen who bombed the church in the late fifties? Whatever Klan they belonged to before the White Knights, they were White Knights afterwards. I do not remember ever hearing about any other Klan than the White Knights. Not saying your information is incorrect, but that the same men who were in the Klan, lynching people and bombing churched before 1964, were the same men who WERE lynching & burning after 1964. And that they did do. I suspect DeLaughter was a Southern Baptist.

Until my last post you never mentioned the White Knights. Now all of a sudden you grew up surrounded by them. Now all of a sudden, you're writing about them. As far as your claim that the KKK started the Citizens' Council, it is you that is dead wrong. You don't seem to want to talk about that. Whoa, jump not pal. It is true that I do not know very much about the history of the KKK. In fact I did not realize there were different kinds of KKK. I DID grow up surrounded by the White Knights, all of a sudden at my birth. I thought they were the only kind. Having only tolerated their children's comments in school, over heard details of Klan rallies, witnessed crime galore, not to mention what was going on across the road, being threatened by them, watching my friends get killed by them, are the only dealings I had with them, outside of sitting in their classrooms, churches and shopping in their grocery stores. I didn't have to know the history of the Klan to grow up around them; it just came naturally. No, I don't know the history of the White Citizens Council. Maybe they were the more genteel of the Klan members, or maybe they were all those Klan friendly nice, white people who just never stepped out of line. There is no way on Earth, that the Klan had no hand in the White Citizens' Council in Terry, Mississippi in 1963. There weren't that many other kinds white people to go around. And if there was, you can bet your boots the Klan had the controlling hand in Mississippi in 1963. Were there other kinds of Klan in Mississippi, or were the White Knights the only ones? I didn't know there were different kinds. One of their slogans is, "Mississippi: realm of the KKK". If you really want to know if the Klan are still active in Mississippi, what you do is drive through the state, starting from just south of Memphis, wearing an anti-KKK t-shirt. If you make it to Clarksdale, then it's not too bad. If you make it through Jackson, then you doing all right. Detour and check Terry out. Then, if you make it to Gulfport, there is no KKK. If you are too afraid to try such a thing, then chances are there are still very active KKK in Mississippi. And frankly, I can't see them giving up target practice.

Since the end of the 1920s, the Klan had been largely inactive in Mississippi. Historians say the Klan simply wasn’t needed to maintain white supremacy. This may have been the case. I remember, before Rosa Parks and in the earlier fifties, that we used to go visit the Taylors, the black family who helped out my great grand parents. My great grandparents and even grandmother would sit on the porch with Ruth and Lem and have a friendly conversation, while all us kids had fun playing together in the front yard (at the black folks's house). It was like a party and I got along better with the Taylors than I ever did with the Lewis'. Then after Little Rock and especially Rosa Parks, we never did that anymore. I kept asking to go visit and my grandmother would get furious. I never really understood why. We used to go to the Ransom's and play, too. I used to play with Martha's children and Junior was a playmate. I like Junior because he was strong and gentle. I did not have a crush on him, I merely thought he was a fine human being; I thought of him as a good friend, someone I could trust. Then after the mid fifties, we were not allowed to go visit anymore. For most of the time that I lived in Mississippi, the scene was quite surreal. I guess because I moved around so much and because I saw the situation more from a Northern perspective. I found it hard to take the White Knights seriously. It was a big mistake. I was then labeled "carpetbagger" and called a "traitor". But nothing they did ever bent my will. I knew they were wrong, that all their talk of the dangers black people presented was 'hyperbole'. I knew it wasn't true. There was nothing on Earth that could have made me join the Klan. This upset my grandmother. I don't know how many of you have done your research into the Klan enough to know about the Royal Titles that were granted to Klan members back then. Not that the Crown and the KKK were in bed together, just that one was descedent from another, down from the Magna Charta, as my family is. I am not bragging, nor am I trying to incriminate the Royal Family, just saying that it is a fact that some White Knight members had Royal titles. The men would have had titles of 'Baron' or 'Knight' and the women 'Dame'. Well my grandmother was one of them. In order to be granted a royal title, one had to prove they were directly descedent from the families of the Magna Charta (oddly enough). Many southerners were descendent from royal Scottish families, as mine is. My grandmother managed to obtain the proof she needed and helped other southern families do the same. The titles meant a lot to them and descendants were expected to fall into line, Klan line. My grandmother had tried to entice my mother into line with the title, after Mom's bus thing. My grandmother wanted desperately for my mother to be her successor. but Mom would not have any of it. So my grandmother then turned her sites towards me. I was to be the successor, since I was the first born daughter of her first born, a daughter. So it was important to my grandmother, that since she failed with her own daughter, that she succeed in making me into the her "little princess". I had a protocol to follow and I was xxxxing up big time by the end of the 60's. The White Knights in my hometown, gave my grandmother an ultimatum. Whitfield had not worked to whip my mother into line, nor my grandfather. The title business wasn't working on my mother or me, I was, at the age of 17, according to the Klan, ruined beyond hope. So, they called her up and said, "We can't protect her no mo' (meaning I would finally be taken to the woods). You gonna hafta send her to Bubba." So off to live with uncle Bubba, my mother's younger brother, I went. The titles were important to the Klan, I believe. My grandmother had no lack of work coming up with the documentation and coats of Arms for them. My grandmother was from the family that had given the land the town was built on, to the town, so long as they named it after him, Robert Terry, my great grandmother's uncle. The Terry's had not always been favoured, however, because the Patriarch of the family had bought slaves, merely to set them free. So my family was under a lot of pressure, that I was unaware of at the time, to tow Klan lines. My family's money and land had dispersed over the century since the days of Robert Terry, so we were not as powerful as we once were. My grandmother, I think was trying to relive old days of glory or something and often bragged that her first cousin was senator Sam Ervin. So it was tremendoudly important to her that I tow the line, and since I was considered ruined by 17, I was disposed of, so everyone thought. Sorry for rambling on so, but since there is not much literature on the history of the White Klansmen South, I feel it is important that you understand the headspace they were coming from. What ever sort of Klan were in the rest of the country, the White Knights ruled our neck of the woods, and I believe, most of the south back then.

Even New Orleans was all Klan, as far as I could tell. I know that when my grandfather, (mother's father, piano player) played in clubs in New Orleans, he would, like most musicians, jam with the band members (some were black) afterwards. His family, who lived in Old Spanish Town, were informed by the Klan, that he had been "cavorting" with blacks. They were urged strongly to have him committed, which the family did. Same with my mom. White folks, of prominent families, were shipped off to the nutward, by the family, at the insistence of the White Knights. Granpop eventually killed himself, so the story goes.

“ The White Knights were responsible for most of the highly visible acts of violence in MS throughout ‘60s,” including at least ten murders. It was the White Knights that I grew up surrounded by. They were most deadly. My grandmother drove my brothers and I out to see a couple of lynchings when we were young (around 55-59). The White Knights ruled the roost in my neck of the woods. Even on the Gulf Coast, where I spent my summers with my other grandparents, the White Knights reigned supreme. Another uncle of mine, my father's brother, was in the White Knights. He lived in Gulfport. He was close with the Dixie Mafia, probably a member. The principal who came around to tell us that the president had been shot, his name was Mr. McDaniel. To join the White Knights, usually aimed at young teens, one had to do something nasty to someone the Klan didn't like. Since I was considered a "n lover", when my cousin, a few year older than me, wanted to join (at the age of twelve, late 50's) she was accepted after she bullwhipped me, with a full length bullwhip. Of course my great grandparents were upset about it, but they had no power to stop her from joining the Klan. They could even see why she wanted to. We lived around the most violent Klansmen, they were all over the place, especially next door, across the road. I know that in 1967, when I had returned from another 18 month stay in Syracuse, NY, the White Knights were in a frenzy about integration. That's when I first heard of the White Citizens' Council. Much talk was going around about how to keep blacks out of public places. They were really concerned about having to swim in a mixed pool and sending their kids to school with blacks, let alone sitting in a library next to a black person or standing in line with blacks to vote. So the "Academies" (private white-only schools) started springing up. Terry developed the Terry Academy for all the good white Klankids. That was the next trick up their sleeve to stop integration. My grandmother wanted me to go to the academy, but I refused and threatened to drop out of school if she sent me there. In August of 1968 or 9, the school my great grandmother, my grandmother and mother had attended, that had always been pure white, was then mixed. There were some Klan kids in attendance. They were the ones who didn't have the money to go to the private school. They were considered poor white trash. My grandmother was livid that I wanted to attend at a school with poor white trash, let alone black children. It was not new to me. In New York I had already gone to, not only school, but church with black people and they were my friends. They were decent people, not at all like the Klan had portrayed blacks to be. I even had a black boyfriend. But back in Mississippi, it was an entirely different scene. There was no going anywhere with black people, if you were white, even if you wanted to. The Klan made sure no one stepped out of line without retribution. It was scary. By 1970 I was quite fed up with being afraid of the Klan. I started rebelling. My mother had moved us all back to New York in September of 1965, a year after my friend Junior was murdered. We lived there until the end of 1966, then went back to Mississippi. There was much talk about integration and the Klan kids were in a frenzy. I hopped on my horse and rode out to a white friend's house one afternoon, after school. She was upset about blacks coming to Terry School. I told her about my experiences in New York, that blacks went to church, school and everywhere with whites. She was horrified. I went on and told her that I even had a black boyfriend and was trying to tell her what a nice person he was when she jumped up, said, "Excuse me" and left the room. It was when she close her bedroom door that I saw the Klan robes hanging on the back of the door. The next thing you know, her father was standing in the doorway. Fear shot through me. I had no idea Joyce was Klan. Her father owned the grocery store where the town's black people mostly shopped, so I thought he was not Klan. But that was a big mistake. He was high up in the White Knights. He told me in the very same voice, the same words that Mr. Lewis had told me a decade earlier, "You gonna hafta leave here now and don't come back here no mo'". I jumped on my horse and rode back into town as fast as I could. I was very afraid, since I was on a back road. And if you seriously think that only 10 people lost their lives at the hands of the White Knights, you are dead wrong. Lynchings were not an everyday occurrence, but they happened often enough and in enough places, that there was probably more like hundreds of people who lost their lives in lynchings. In fact, the only time I remember the rest of the USA making a big deal about anyone who was lynched was ONLY when the two whites boys were killed. You would not know Chaney's name if he hadn't been with the white boys.

Ooops! I reiterate, Ooops!