Robert Shelton (Ku Klux Klan)

Robert Shelton ( born June 12, 1929 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, † 17 March 2003, ibid ) was a Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. He led from 1961 until the dissolution of 1987, the United Klan of America ( UKA ).

Life

Shelton was a factory worker for the BF Goodrich when he joined the Ku Klux Klan in the 1950s. In the U.S. Klan Eldon Lee Edwards, he was appointed leader on in Alabama until he was ousted in spring 1960 by Edwards. Instead of giving up, he started his own clan group, the Alabama Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. He started several Klaverns record and won rapid new members. In 1961, he renamed the Alabama Knights into the United Klan of America. They became the largest sound Ruppe their time and had at times almost 30,000 members and a large number of passive supporters. Shelton led the Klan again as a secret society, which was very secretive. In 1966 he was sentenced to one year in prison after he refused to forward membership lists of the Klan to the Committee on Un-American Activities.

During his time as clan leaders there were numerous crimes, especially against civil rights and African-American, committed by Klanmitgliedern. 1987 Beulah Mae Donald sued, the mother of the murdered Michael Donald, the UKA with the support of the Southern Poverty Law Center for damages and got the sum of 7 million dollars awarded. Shelton sparked then the financially ruined Klan.

Then moved to Shelton to North Port near Tuscaloosa and disappeared from the public eye. In 1994 he was interviewed by the Associated Press and told them:

"The Klan will never return. Not with the robes and the rallies and the cross lightings and parades, everything did made ​​the Klan the Klan, the mysticism, what we called Klankraft. I'm still a Klansman, always will be. The Klan is my belief, my religion. But it will not work anymore. The Klan is gone. Forever. "

" The Klan will never come back. Not with the robes, the rallies, the burning crosses and the parades. All that mattered the Klan, the mystical, what we called Klankraft. I 'm still a Klansman, will always be one. The Klan is my faith, my religion. But it no longer works. The Klan is gone. Forever. "

Shelton died at age 73 of a heart attack in Tuscaloosa. He left behind a son and a daughter, both of which do not share his beliefs.