• Ky. man says '60s suspect sold him guns
Prosecutors told reporters less than an hour after a jury recently convicted Edgar Ray Killen of manslaughter in the trio's killings the only two triggermen in the case, Wayne Roberts and James Jordan, are dead.
But the work of world-renowned forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Baden and Mississippi state forensic pathologist Dr. Steven Hayne has revealed the possibility of additional gunmen.
• '64 confession kept from Killen jury - Clarion Ledger reporter Jerry Mitchell raises some more questions about the conduct of the prosecution in Mississippi v. Edgar Ray Killen.
Killen's lead counsel, Mitch Moran of Carthage, said he wanted to let the jury know the whole story, and that's why he tried to introduce the 1964 confession of Horace Doyle Barnette, who took part in the trio's killings.
In the 1967 federal conspiracy trial, an FBI agent read Barnette's statement into the record when Barnette refused to testify. But jurors only heard the names of Barnette and James Jordan, who pleaded guilty, in the statement. For the names of the others Barnette identified as being involved, a "blank" was substituted. The trial ended with the convictions of seven, the acquittals of eight and the mistrials of three, including Killen.
Moran explained: "I just felt like the jury had a right to know it all."
Although Killen could have been implicated by Barnette's statement, Moran said the statement shows Billy Wayne Posey, convicted in the 1967 federal trial, played a major role, but wasn't indicted by the state, while Killen played a minor role and was indicted by the state.
When Moran sought to introduce the confession in Killen's trial through the FBI agent's 1967 testimony, prosecutors objected.
When Moran said he'd be happy to fill in all the blanks so jurors could hear the names of all involved, prosecutors still objected.
• Killen jurors outline verdict
Timeline of jurors in the Edgar Ray Killen trial:
June 20: 2:48 p.m.:
Deliberations begin
Mid-afternoon: First vote: — 6 guilty, 6 not guilty of murder
5:32 p.m.: Jurors dismissed before second voteJune 21:
8:32 a.m.: Second vote: 7 guilty, 5 not guilty of murder
Mid-morning: Third vote:— 11-1, guilty of manslaughter
11:10 a.m: Final vote: 12-0, guilty of manslaughter
• Killen juror: Critics wrong about jury's actions - Killen juror goes on the record.
We found Killen guilty of manslaughter because that's what the evidence supported. . . .
We focused on what was presented in the courtroom, not what we'd heard over the last 41 years, and not what we either assumed or wished to be true.
The Mississippi White Knights is the strongest of the state's Klan chapters. Others listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center are: Bayou Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in Fulton and Richton (its post office box is in Kiln), Southern White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in Lucedale and Robinsonville, and Orion Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in Star.
One Mississippi Klan group that didn't make the list because of inactivity is Royal Confederate Knights of the Ku Klux Klan headed by Jordan Gollub of Jackson.
"We haven't had a march since 2001," he said. "We had a march in Biloxi and a march in Carthage. It made you feel good that day, but I don't think it changes the political atmosphere. It doesn't put Bennie Thompson (the state's lone African-American congressman) out of office."
He recalled the last telephone conversation he had with one-time Imperial Wizard Sam Bowers, who headed the largest and most violent Klan organization in the 1960s, the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi.
"Bowers said, 'I don't think the KKK is the way to go in the present day,'" Gollub said, explaining that organizations such as the Council of Conservative Citizens may be more successful now (emphasis added).
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CC, FCG, CCA and finally CCC … The history behind this terroristic vegetable soup that has grown from “a cup” to a “kettle” is fascinating and frightening …
Shortly after the first Citizens Councils or CC (home grown by Robert “Tut” Patterson of Itta Bena) became a reality, the New York Post sent a reporter into the Deep South on a fact-finding mission. Reporter Stan Optowsky spoke plainly in his assessment, calling the Councils “a loose federation [with the] avowed purpose [to] battle the principle and practice of integration, and to crush all – the Negro and white – who dare advocate the colored man’s rights.”
After spending five weeks doing research, the reporter declared the “actual purpose was to elect the ‘right’ candidate; to maintain cheap labor; to eliminate a gnawing business competitor; to protect a shaky job; and to make ‘a few fast bucks.’”
Help in growing Citizens Councils soon came from Patterson’s “neighbor,” Senator James O. Eastland, who wanted to grow an even larger organization for himself. In the summer of 1955, Eastland announced it was “essential that a nation-wide organization be set up” to “mobilize and organize public opinion” throughout the United States in order to combat school desegregation.
The senator said that a “great crusade” would be required to fight the NAACP, CIO, and “all the conscienceless pressure groups who are attempting our destruction.”
And so within a month of Eastland’s statement, the Federation for Constitutional Government (FCG), a short-lived organization, was formed in Memphis. Representatives from twelve Southern states came together with the support of Eastland, Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, former Governor Fielding Wright of Mississippi, U. S. Representative John Bell Williams of Mississippi, and other politicians.
Patterson, Judge Thomas Brady and William J. Simmons were elected to positions on the executive committee. John U. Barr of Louisiana was selected president, and it was Eastland’s intention that the Federation would “coordinate” the work of the Citizens Councils and several other organizations.
Many members of the Citizens Councils did not share this view, however, and in April 1956, sixty-five representatives from Citizens Councils in eleven Southern states secretly met to form their own “overseer,” the Citizens Councils of America. The following October, CCA selected Patterson as secretary.
From 1954 to 1989, Patterson spent his time growing the Citizens Councils through the CCA, as he traveled thousands of miles around the Southeastern states to meet with members and their leaders. As Council numbers grew to over 300,000 members, Eastland helped out, by calling on state governments to fund the movement.
It would be Patterson who with Gordon Lee Baum co-morphed the Councils to their current neo-nazi existence as the CCC or Conservative Citizens Councils in 1985. Baum had been a regional director in the first Citizens Councils.Patterson remains actively involved in CCC, and still writes for the organization’s journal, The Informer.
An Intelligence Report from the Southern Poverty Law Center reported that names of CCC members are not public. But after collecting the names of 175 members mentioned in council publications and elsewhere, the Report “was able to document ties to racist groups of 17 of those members — almost 10 percent of the total.” Claiming 15,000 members in 1999, CCC was in the news when Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott landed in hot water after speaking before the group. Lott spoke again in 2005, as various state legislators and judges were scheduled to attend CCC meetings.
Meanwhile, “a significant number of members have been linked to unabashedly racist groups including the Invisible Empire Knights of the Ku Klux Klan; the Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan; the National Association for the Advancement of White People; the America First Party; and the neo-Nazi National Alliance. Others have ties to militant ‘Patriot’ organizations such as the extreme-right-wing Populist Party and David Duke.”
Patterson is a tough old bird. I spoke to him last fall and learned that at Mississippi State, after catching a long pass for a touchdown, Patterson assisted in the defeat of Alabama, becoming the first state team to win the Southeastern Conference Championship.
After graduation, he entered the military, was assigned to the British Royal Air Force, and was later quartered with paratroop officers from the 82nd and 101st airborne divisions. At the War’s end, Patterson was discharged as a Major; while in Europe he had made a total of 16 parachute jumps in all of the major campaigns.
In the fall of 1951, a polio epidemic struck Sunflower County. Patterson came down with the virus and was sent to the isolation hospital in Vicksburg where he remained for eighteen days. “Neither my family nor anyone else was allowed to visit. I lay on a board and could feel the paralysis settling into my legs and arms.” Patterson finally returned home and gradually regained most of his strength “until no one but me could tell that I was slightly crippled. Of the nine men who were in my ward in Vicksburg, I am the only one who ever walked again or who lived past a few years.”
When “Black Monday” came, Patterson says that he “knew as did most white Southerners that our schools would be destroyed and would be absolutely unacceptable for white children to attend.” At the time, Sunflower County had a black population of about 80 percent. Patterson spoke with “a number of Indianola’s leading citizens and we decided to organize to try to protect our schools and our children.”
Patterson’s sudden interest in this topic was not new. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) noted in 1956 that Patterson had previously written for anti-Semitic publications, including the National Renaissance Bulletin. He told representatives of B’nai B’rith that if their ADL branded him as anti-Semite, he would not deny it.
Patterson was elected executive secretary of the Association of Citizens Councils of Mississippi with an office in Winona. Within a year, the association moved headquarters to Greenwood. Word spread and the organization grew to the point “where we built a fine office building in Jackson and made it our State and National Headquarters.”
Many U. S. Congressmen and Senators plus local mayors, ministers, governors, and other officials were “on our side,” Patterson recalled. W. J. Simmons, [currently a B&B owner in Jackson] the son of a Jackson banking family, joined the movement and became “a valuable leader…. He is also a dear friend.” (Others say that Simmons stole Patterson’s organization out from under him, leaving Patterson to do the footwork.)
Patterson claimed his successes in building the Councils so quickly came from years playing football: “I learned in football the team that makes the fewest mistakes wins.”
At the age of 84, the senior Mississippian used his thick wooden cane tip to tap out the framed certificates on his wall awarded after World War II and for Indianola’s Citizen of the Year. The mid-morning interview took place at his home office in Itta Bena, where a book on the Reich stood out on his mahogany desktop.
The Patterson home is set on a large lot next to a bayou. “We were able to purchase all of the land down to the water. It’s safer and no one can just move next door,” Patterson pointed out.
The conversation moved to the Pattersons’ children and their individual achievements. One daughter married a Moroccan – “Moroccans are like Europeans, you know. They have kings.”
Are the original Citizens Councils still in tact? Patterson said they are still meeting around the Delta. “People would be surprised,” he said with a quick grin.