Fighting the Devil in Dixie: How Civil Rights Activists Took on the Ku Klux Klan in Alabama

353 Pages·2011·4.27 MB·English

by  Wayne Greenhaw

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F I G H T I N G
THEDEVILINDIXIE
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Also by WAyne GreenhAW
nonfiction
A Generous Life: W. James Samford (2009)
The Thunder of Angels: The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the People Who Broke the Back of
Jim Crow with Donnie Williams (2006)
My Heart Is in the Earth: True Stories of Alabama and Mexico (2001)
Alabama: A State of Mind (2000)
Beyond the Night: A Remembrance (1999)
Alabama: Portrait of a State (1998)
Montgomery: The Biography of a City (1993)
Montgomery: Center Stage in the South with Kathy Holland (1990)
Alabama on My Mind (1987)
Flying High: Inside Big-Time Drug Smuggling (1984)
Elephants in the Cottonfields: Ronald Reagan and the New Republican South (1981)
Watch Out for George Wallace (1976)
The Making of a Hero: Lt. William Calley and the My Lai Massacre (1971)
novels
The Long Journey (2002)
King of Country (1994; revised edition 2004)
Hard Travelin’ (1972)
The Golfer (1968)
short fiction
The Spider’s Web: A Novella and Stories (2003)
Tombigbee and Other Stories (1992)
poetry
Ghosts on the Road: Poems of Alabama, Mexico and Beyond (2007)
drama
The Spirit Tree: F. Scott & Zelda Fitzgerald in Montgomery
Rose: A Southern Lady
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F I G H T I N G
T H E D E V I L I N D I X I E
HOW CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVISTS
TOOK ON THE KU KLUX KLAN IN ALABAMA
O
W A Y N E G R E E N H A W
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Greenhaw, Wayne, 1940-
Fighting the devil in Dixie : how civil rights activists took on the Ku Klux
Klan in Alabama / Wayne Greenhaw.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-56976-345-2 (hardcover)
1. African Americans—Civil rights—Alabama—History—20th century.
2. Alabama—Race relations—History—20th century. 3. Ku Klux Klan
(1915– )—Alabama—History. I. Title.
E185.615.G687 2011
323.1196'0730761—dc22
2010030114
Interior design: Jonathan Hahn
© 2011 by Wayne Greenhaw
All rights reserved
Published by Lawrence Hill Books
An imprint of Chicago Review Press, Incorporated
814 North Franklin Street
Chicago, Illinois 60610
ISBN 978-1-56976-345-2
Printed in the United States of America
5 4 3 2 1
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In memory of our friends
Irma Fegas, Stan Richman,
Tom Cork, and Claude Duncan
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Ain’t nobody gonna turn me ’round,
I’ll keep a-walkin’, I’ll keep a-talkin’,
Marching up to freedom land.
—“Marching up to Freedom Land”
O, deep in my heart,
I do believe,
We shall overcome some day.
—“We Shall Overcome” by Reverend Charles
Tindley with Guy Carawan and Pete Seeger
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CONTENTS
AUTHOR’S NOTE ix
PREFACE O Death on the Highway: A Recollection xi
1. Willie’s First Day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3
2. The Legacy of Willie Edwards . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19
3. Klan on Trial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31
4. Hound-Dog Determined . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .47
5. “Fight Everything Segregated” . . . . . . . . . . . . . .55
6. The Making of a Segregationist . . . . . . . . . . . . .71
7. The Pair from Howard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .83
8. “Segregation Forever!” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .97
9. Education of a Liberal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .111
10. Country-Boy Lawyer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .137
11. The Alabama Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .153
12. Requiem for Jimmie Lee Jackson . . . . . . . . . . .161
13. Don Quixote of the South . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .181
14. The Southern Courier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .195
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15. The Rise of John Hulett . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .209
16. Southern Poverty Law Center . . . . . . . . . . . . .219
17. The People’s Attorney General . . . . . . . . . . . .239
18. Breaking the Klan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .263
19. “Forgive Me, for I Have Sinned” . . . . . . . . . . . .271
20. “Like a Mighty Stream” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .279
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 281
SOURCES 283
BIBLIOGRAPHY 291
INDEX 301
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AUTHOR’S NOTE
I look back on a world suffering from racial schizophrenia.
In the aftermath of the federal court’s ruling that ended legal segre-
gated public education, most white adults in my home state of Alabama
were silent while a small minority rode nightly, terrorizing black people,
bombing houses and churches, castrating and killing. The silent whites
simply demanded that their children go to school, come home, and stay
out of trouble.
But there was another reaction to the violence. That story is a long
and twisting road through emotional hills and hollows. As it moves
around curves and through unseen pitfalls, we see the number of black
attorneys in Alabama increase from four to five, six to seven, and more.
As the roads become bumpy and dangerous, a few Southern white attor-
neys blossom in Alabama and fight the good fight next to their African
American brothers and sisters.
Fighting the Devil in Dixie is the story of these people and their
struggle.
ix
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