Klan Organization News Today

someone has taken a young man, hung him in a tree. who would do something this hideous? >> michael donald was an innocent good samaritan, not a thug. >> the mobile police department just didnt want to believe that mobile would still have klan in it. but they did. >> thats why we kept marching and protesting, letting them know we were going to take this lion down. >> the admitted klansmen turned to action as the words, guilty of capital murder, sank in. >> it was the first time since at...

Arresting, charging, and helping to convict four officers who killed a black man. >> im so tired of the police saying i was afraid. afraid of what? you got a gun with 15 shots. you can call in backup from everywhere. but what are you afraid of? >> the klan, at a time when they were being sort of dismantled, they directed many of their members to do, was to go into police departments and other institutions where they would maintain power. the fbi issues a report only a few years ago about the eff...

(vo) get internet that keeps your business ready for anything. from verizon. mrs. donald bankrupted the structure of the organization, but not the mentality. >> we still got klan in alabama. we dont have to have them because they bankrupt, but that dont mean anything. >> that aint going to stop them from hurting people. i know its not. i know its not. >> the settlement in the michael donald case certainly was something that organizers in the white power movement were paying attention to as the...

Suspected were klan members, but very few of them were actually apprehended. i thought to myself, if i ever get an opportunity to get on the other side of the fighting those that did it, id do it in a minute. i decided id go down to mobile and watch michael donalds criminal trial. i wanted to know everything i could. >> so following the criminal trial, thats when my father, michael figures, and morris dees teamed up to bring a $10 million civil suit against the klan. >> morris dees came and he t...

Person to kill. just any black person. we also filed a civil suit against robert shelton when he was the imperial wizard of the united klans of america. my take on robert shelton was that he was very smart. you could tell by the way he organized, the way he dressed. he wore klan uniforms and paraphernalia around klan gatherings and stuff, but not in the public. he was a coat and tie kind of guy. and he set up an organization that was pretty sophisticated. >> sheltons chapters were responsible fo...

Most significant and important moments in civil rights history, like the beating of the freedom riders, like the murder of viola liuzzo. at one point, he actually testifies to the senate and he tries to disguise himself in the most bizarre way of putting a white napkin over his head shaped in such a way that it looked as though he was wearing a klan hood. >> i had been instructed to disrupt, discredit, or disorganize the klan organization to the best of my ability. >> and to get the information,...

Beulah Mae Donald and her attorney Michael Figures join forces with Morris Dees and the Southern Poverty Law Center to wage a multi-million-dollar civil suit...

City, this state, would prefer preserving that white nationalism and that white supremacist mindset over arresting, charging, and helping to convict four officers who killed a black man. >> im so tired of the police saying, "i was afraid." afraid of what? youve got a gun, with 15 shots. you can call in backup from everywhere. so what are you afraid of? >> the klan, at a time when they were being sort of dismantled, they directed many of their members to do, was to go into police departments and ...

Was used to tie the local folks actions on to the national klan organization. >> you dont have to show that the head of the united klan, robert shelton said, "kill michael donald." we had shown all these other violent things he had done. all you had to do with this corporation, and it was a corporation, was show some of his top officials were behind and promoted the killing. >> some of the conspirators were high-ranking officers in the united klan. in fact, bennie hays was the second or third hi...

So for this trial, i had to show that the united klan had a history of carrying out its white supremacy acts with violence. >> youre going to hear evidence today and tomorrow and the next day that i believe is being heard for the first time in a courtroom. >> we started by the things that the klan had done and that robert shelton, the leader, had been behind. >> now, fortunately we have a piece of evidence i think thats going to convince you that this national organization did more than just esp...