America's Secret Jihad: The Hidden History of Religious Terrorism in the United States by Stuart Wexler

war would purify the world, especially of Jews. This ideology continues to have a powerful influence over white supremacists and racist groups to this day.
    The White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan of Mississippi (WKKKK): The most violent Klan group in America, led by Samuel H. Bowers, its Imperial Wizard, the WKKKK was formed in December 1963 with members from the Original Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (out of Louisiana) and others in Mississippi. These men were disaffected with the lackluster response to integration in the South, and pushed for greater and bolder acts of violence. At its peak from 1964 to 1965, the White Knights membership may have had reached ten thousand, though by 1968 membership was less than a few hundred. The FBI credits the group with over three hundred separate acts of violence; most notably, the White Knights are credited with killing three civil rights workers in Neshoba County, Mississippi (the Mississippi Burning murders); killing voting rights activist Vernon Dahmer in 1966; and a wave of bombings against black and Jewish targets from the fall of 1967 on through the summer of 1968. Its most notable members, beyond Bowers, included Danny Joe and Joe Denver Hawkins, Burris Dunn, Julius Harper, Alton Wayne and Raymond Roberts, Byron de la Beckwith, Deavours Nix, and L. E. Matthews. Kathy Ainsworth and Thomas Tarrants may have been “informal” members of the group, as some documents describe them as members of the “Swift Underground” who performed terrorist acts on behalf of the WKKKK.
    The National States’ Rights Party (NSRP): The NSPR was the overt, political face of white supremacy in the 1960s, even as it covertly recruited and inspired groups and individuals to perform acts of extreme violence. Formed by J. B. Stoner and Edward Fields in 1958, the group ran candidates for office, including vicepresident of the United States, although they never received even a small fraction of the national vote. On the other hand, the NSRP was actively involved in some of the most violent acts of resistance to integration in America, acts so extreme that they even offended local Klan groups, such as the United Klans of America in Alabama. The NSRP had its headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, and then in Birmingham, Alabama, and it focused its activities in the Southeast. Its major publication, The Thunderbolt, was a major source of information for racists across the nation.
    The National Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (NKKKK): This was, in the 1960s, the second-largest Klan organization in the United States, after the United Klans of America (UKA), in terms of membership. Headquartered in Stone Mountain, Georgia, the NKKKK was led by Imperial Wizard James Venable. The NKKKK had affiliated groups and Klaverns across the country, including in Ohio and California. Notably, the California Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (CKKKK), formed in 1966 and led by Wesley Swift minister William V. Fowler, were an offshoot of the NKKKK. James Venable spoke to the CKKKK on several occasions in 1967.
    The “traveling criminals” or “Crossroaders” or “Dixie Mafia”: These were loosely knit groups of outlaws willing to commit crimes, especially robbery and theft, across long distances. More of a phenomenon than an official organization, career criminals would join forces in decentralized gangs and work across state lines for major “jobs.” Primarily engaged in bootlegging across state lines as some states remained “dry” after Prohibition was repealed in 1934, these criminals expanded their activities in the late 1950s and through the 1960s. This became more and more common as increasingly available phone communication and interstate travel, by plane or over the new interstate highway system, made cross-state activity more possible. The “traveling criminals” were especially active in two regions: the Southeast (stretching from the Mississippi Delta to Florida) and