John Archibald
and Jeff Hansen
09/21/1997

They were quick with their fists, and often limited in their education.

In 1963, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in Birmingham were a political power and, some say, a terrorist group devoted to white supremacy at any cost.

The FBI files reveal many details about how the Klan operated in the 1960s in its struggle to preserve the segregation that Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace vowed would last forever.

In Birmingham in those days, new recruits were often quickly sent to the front lines, according to thousands of pages of files from the Birmingham Police Department and the FBI.

For instance, after a regular meeting of the East Birmingham Klavern of the Ku Klux Klan on July 18, 1958, a 24-year-old man named Herbert ''was called into a closed room in front of the Klavern hall . . . In the closed room were 10 hooded men, who were unknown to him,'' according to FBI files.

''These hooded men told him that he was to chose two people to assist him in dynamiting a Negro residence,'' the files say.

Outside, a man gave Herbert a sack holding six sticks of dynamite and an 18-inch fuse, the files say.

Herbert got drunk and chose two other Klansmen and the three drove in a 1955 black Buick sedan to the target house - Earnest Coppins' Fountain Heights home at 1104 12th Ave. North, the files say. One passenger lit the fuse before Herbert and another got out. But startled by neighbors before they could put the bomb on the front porch, they dropped the dynamite and ran, according to the files.

Herbert heard his bomb and a second one explode as he drove away. Neighbors caught the other two and beat them before releasing them to police, according to the files. Herbert, who had been in the Klan nine months, was convicted of setting off explosives. He was given probation.

Coppins died in 1989, but never really got over the bombing that destroyed his porch, said his son, Earnest Coppins Jr.

''It stayed with him a while,'' Coppins said. ''My mother died in 1977 and she never did get over it.''

In 1963, Ronald was a 25-year-old mechanic and tree trimmer with an eighth grade education. He lived in Huffman with his wife and three children.

In a November 1963 signed statement, he told FBI agents how he joined the Ku Klux Klan.

''In 1961, I talked with my brother . . . and different neighbors and acquaintances who told me they were members of the Ku Klux Klan and who invited me to join,'' the statement says. ''They talked about the good work they were doing and I decided to join.''

He went to three or four meetings of the Eastview Klavern in Woodlawn. ''I went through the first two stages of the initiation one night,'' he said in the statement. ''There are four stages to go through before one becomes a full fledged Klan member.''

He told the agents the Klavern was divided into four action squads.

''I was never assigned to a squad but talked with members of all squads,'' he said in his statement. ''Each of them talked of beating up Negroes. At times different ones talked to Robert, the Klavern leader, about someone who needed to be worked over, and he would immediately tell them not to tell him about it; that was not his job, but it belonged in the squads.''

Members ''sat around in groups and talked of nothing but going out and beating up some 'nigger,''' Ronald said. ''I should have known better but I fell right in with them and was ready to take part in these beatings.''

Ronald told agents he regretted his Klan role.

''I want to say that I was completely brainwashed by the members of the Klan and did things that I would not have done if I had been thinking straight,'' he said in his statement. ''I want to say that this was a sorry bunch. . .''

Ronald admitted he had a quick temper and didn't mind a fight. He was once in a Krystal restaurant near the Klan meeting hall after talk of whipping Negroes, when ''a taxi stopped outside and two Negro men and a Negro woman got out and came in,'' Ronald said in his statement.

''One of them stood close to me and without any provocation on his part I knocked 'hell' out of him with my fist and a general fight started,'' Ronald told FBI agents. One man ''kicked the Negro who was not in condition to defend himself. Some football players from Woodlawn and a white man interfered and we had to fight a number of whites.''

Ronald said he walked away from the fight to his truck parked near the Klavern hall and was not questioned or arrested by police.

Former Klansman Wyman Lee told a different story about the fracas in a recent interview. The fight happened after an Alabama vs. Georgia Tech football game, and was more about football than race, he said. The blacks who came into the restaurant were Georgia Tech fans, surly over the defeat of their team at Legion Field. They started the fight, he said.

Ronald said in the files he quit the Klan because he couldn't depend on some members to back him up.

Klansman Herman Cash, one of the suspects in the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing who died in 1994, had a reputation for being frightened easily, said Wyman Lee, who renounced the Klan in 1963 and turned to the Bible.

''We called him ''Fearless' Herman Cash,'' Lee said recently. ''They'd tell us to get in uniform and he'd run home as fast as he could. Not only would he get under his sheet, he'd get under his whole bed.''

Neighbor Francis Christy occasionally saw Herman Cash wearing a Ku Klux Klan robe, the files say. She believed he used his membership in the Klan because it ''makes him think he is a big shot or at least a little better than somebody,'' the files say.

The Klan demanded loyalty, secrecy and cooperation.

Once, Klan members were asked to act as decoys in one of nine bombings that hit Birmingham in 1963.

On May 11, Klansmen at a Bessemer Klan meeting were told to go to Birmingham and break out windows of various department stores at midnight, one of them told investigators.

''He did not question as to why he was to break out the windows, but that he, together with approximately 15 picked members of the Eastview Klavern and about five members of the Bessemer Klavern, were to participate,'' the files said.

The men went downtown, took up positions and were ready to smash the windows but ''at approximately one minute to midnight he heard a loud blast, which he later determined to have been the bombing of the Gaston Motel'' (where civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was staying), the files said.

Most of the men left without breaking windows, the files said.

A Klansman named Jefferson told FBI agents in 1964 more details of how a Klan group operated. Jefferson had been Exalted Cyclops of the Eastview Klavern, United Klans of America Inc., Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, but in 1964 had no association with any Klan.

''He stated the Klavern is broken down into various groups; that they have an inner circle called the Knights of the Forest and another inner circle called the Knights of the White Camelia, and that one had to advance in Klan experience to be able to be eligible for these groups,'' FBI agents wrote of their interview.

Klan meetings could be routine, but they could be riotous as well, according to the files.

A special meeting in Prattville on Oct. 10, 1961, was held to merge some Klan units with the United Klan. The Eastview Klan and Klan members from Bessemer and Warrior were among those attending, a Birmingham police informant said in a 1963 file.

At a meeting on Jan. 25, 1962, one man was ''told how to mix a spray to put on Negroes to burn them bad,'' the files say. A Klansman named ''Pop'' won a pistol at the meeting, and an Etowah County police chief was mentioned as being a Klan member, the files say.

The regular meeting of Eastview Klavern No. 13 on Feb. 23, 1962, elected a new Province Titan, the informant told police. The Klan planned a trip to McComb, Miss., at the request of the governor (the file does not say which governor), and the group talked about buying some bread trucks to house radio equipment and to haul security guards, the informant said.

Tommy Blanton Jr., one of the four named suspects in the church bombing who has consistently proclaimed his innocence, considered Wallace a hero, the files say.

An acquaintance named Wanda in 1963 told FBI agents that Blanton was a staunch supporter of Wallace, whom he called ''Uncle George.''