In 1974, Richard Girnt Butler, a 55-year-old retired aeronautical engineer and Christian Identity adherent, uses proceeds from a profitable invention to purchase a 20-acre property near Hayden Lake, Idaho, establishing what will become the nerve center of the white supremacist movement in North …
Richard Girnt ButlerAryan NationsChurch of Jesus Christ ChristianChristian Posse ComitatusThe Order+1 morewhite-supremacydomestic-terrorismhate-groupspolitical-extremismchristian-identity
On June 21, 1964, three civil rights workers—James Chaney, 21, of Mississippi; Andrew Goodman, 20, of New York; and Michael Schwerner, 24, of New York—were murdered by the Ku Klux Klan with the direct participation of Neshoba County law enforcement officials. The killings, during the first week of …
James ChaneyAndrew GoodmanMichael SchwernerKu Klux KlanCecil Price+5 morecivil-rightsvoter-suppressionviolenceinstitutional-racismlaw-enforcement-complicity
On September 15, 1963, at approximately 10:24 AM, four members of the Ku Klux Klan detonated 19 sticks of dynamite attached to a timing device beneath the steps of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. The explosion killed four young African American girls—Addie Mae Collins (14), …
Ku Klux KlanRobert ChamblissThomas BlantonBobby Frank CherryFBIcivil-rightsterrorismviolenceinstitutional-racismjudicial-failure
On May 14, 1961, the first Freedom Ride bus—a Greyhound carrying civil rights activists challenging segregated interstate transportation—arrived in Anniston, Alabama, where an angry mob of approximately 200 white people, including Ku Klux Klan members, surrounded it. Local authorities had given the …
Congress of Racial EqualityBull ConnorRobert KennedyKu Klux KlanBirmingham Policecivil-rightsinstitutional-racismviolencepolice-complicitydemocratic-erosion
On February 6, 1956, the University of Alabama expelled Autherine Lucy, its first Black student, after a three-day white supremacist riot made her presence on campus untenable. University officials blamed Lucy for the violence and used her NAACP-supported lawsuit challenging her suspension as …
The Congress of Industrial Organizations launches Operation Dixie in spring 1946, the most ambitious post-World War II campaign to unionize industry in the Southern United States, particularly targeting the textile industry across 12 Southern states. A permanent Southern Organizing Committee is …
Congress of Industrial OrganizationsVan BittnerGeorge BaldanziUnited Auto WorkersUnited Electrical Workers+4 morelabor-organizingoperation-dixieciocorporate-violenceracial-politics+2 more
Between 25,000 and 40,000 Ku Klux Klan members march down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., in a massive demonstration of the organization’s political power at its peak. Marchers wear white robes but not masks, proudly displaying their faces in an assertion of mainstream respectability. …
Ku Klux KlanHiram EvansD.C. KlanState Governmentsracisminstitutional-capturewhite-supremacypolitical-corruption
The Ku Klux Klan under Grand Dragon D.C. Stephenson completes its takeover of Indiana state government, controlling the Governor’s office, the state legislature, and numerous local governments. Stephenson, a charismatic organizer who built the Indiana Klan from a few thousand members to an …
William J. Simmons, a preacher and promoter of fraternal orders, led a group up Stone Mountain outside Atlanta and burned a large cross, marking the official rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan and beginning a new era of organized white supremacist terrorism. Simmons carefully coordinated the KKK revival …
William J. SimmonsKu Klux KlanD.W. Griffithracial-politicswhite-supremacykkkdomestic-terrorismcultural-capture
D.W. Griffith’s silent film “The Birth of a Nation” premiered in Los Angeles, becoming the longest and most profitable film produced to that date while securing the future of feature-length films and establishing cinema as a serious artistic medium. With assistance from …
D.W. GriffithWoodrow WilsonWilliam J. SimmonsKu Klux Klanracial-politicswhite-supremacykkkmedia-manipulationcultural-capture
On Easter Sunday, April 13, 1873, a mob of approximately 300 armed white men—including members of the Ku Klux Klan and Knights of White Camellia—attacks the Grant Parish courthouse in Colfax, Louisiana, murdering an estimated 150 Black Americans in what becomes the deadliest single incident of …
White Supremacist MilitiaKu Klux KlanKnights of White CamelliaGrant Parish Black Militiaracial-terrorismreconstruction-sabotagewhite-supremacymass-violencedemocratic-erosion
President Ulysses S. Grant signs the Ku Klux Klan Act (Third Enforcement Act) on April 20, 1871, granting the federal government unprecedented power to combat terrorist organizations denying Americans their constitutional rights. The Act—passed by the 42nd Congress alongside the First Enforcement …
Ulysses S. Grant42nd United States CongressAmos AkermanKu Klux Klanreconstructionfederal-enforcementracial-terrorismcivil-rights-protection