Originally published: . Volume 13, No. 8. Source pages: 12, 13.
by J. Nelson
I was nine years old when I received my earliest lesson in the First Amendment. It was the 1960s, and my father took on the Ku Klux Klan. He was the editor/publisher of a weekly newspaper in what was surely the poorest, most backward place in God’s green creation–Coushatta, Louisiana, the county seat of Red River Parish. It was a long battle over secrecy and ignorance, with lots of skirmishes to protect the public's right to know what was really happening in their community.
One evening just after dark, our family was sitting at the dining room table, finishing supper. As was typical, my father was talking and everyone else was listening, or at least pretending to listen. My mother and father were both classically trained journalists in the small, sleepy little parish. They always talked about the human dramas that unfolded in this backwoods, rural community, the people and the news. This night was no different.
Our dinner table was situated in front of three large windows and I had a view of our large, half-acre yard, now black with night. I was finishing dinner when a small light flickered out in the dark and caught my attention. I squinted. I waited and watched the light grow brighter and brighter. Finally, I pointed to interrupt my father, and asked, “What is that?”
Everyone at the table turned to look. Then we all saw it. The light grew larger and took shape. In the middle of the yard was a burning cross. Not just any cross, but one of those famous KKK crosses, now fully ablaze. The wood was burning away and the flames were dripping down to the grass. The yard was catching on fire and flames marching to the ditch and down the highway.
What seemed to be only minutes later, the local fire department truck roared into our driveway, and slammed to a stop. Men jumped down and began to water down the fire.
We discovered later that the KKK members had waited across the road in a cow pasture to see my father’s reaction. But when no one in our family noticed the cross, fire, or how it was spreading, the Klan members, who were also members of the fire department, had to call for help themselves. Coushatta was a very small town. It was not a particularly successful cross burning. The next day my father had me draw up a sign that said, “See genuine KKK cross, 25¢” and we placed the sign next to the burned cross. He took a photo of the cross, the sign, and the yard, and put the photograph and the whole story of what had happened on the front page of the newspaper for the next week’s edition.
It was just the beginning of the 60s Civil Rights era.
In 2014, I had the honor of meeting W.C. “Dub” Shoemaker who spoke to attendees at the joint Mississippi–Louisiana Press convention in Biloxi on the topic, “Freedom Summer – 50 years later.”
“Freedom Summer” is the name given to 10 weeks in the summer of 1964, depicted in the movie Mississippi Burning. Dub called this the "Pearl Harbor" of the Civil Rights era. He covered the events as a reporter for the Jackson Daily News.
Almost 60 years ago in Philadelphia, Mississippi, near Meridian and not far from Jackson, three Civil Rights volunteers were murdered by members of the Ku Klux Klan. Two young white men and one African-American man had come from New York to register Blacks to vote. In a planned attack, aided by members of the local sheriff’s office, the men were killed and their bodies hidden.
Dub told the audience that he felt the 1960s Civil Rights era held the same significance in our country’s history as the Revolutionary War, Civil War, and Industrial Revolution.
Only after the presentation did it dawn on me the timeline connecting the Freedom Summer and what my father called “The Klan Wars.” –– my fathers efforts to challenge and expose the Klan in Red River Parish.
It was not 1964, but February 1961, when my father snuck into the trees surrounding a Klan organizing event. The Klan had marched from Shreveport to rally members in a field not too far from Coushatta and the next day my father published his front- page editorial, “Against the Fall of Night.”
The editorial was a bold shot across the bow. He wrote that the Klan was a subversive group, that its members operate “in the shadow of darkness,” and that they were capable of murder. He wrote that there was no vacuum in the law for the Klan to fill in the parish and for them to “… get the Hell out of Red River Parish.”
Letters poured in both supporting and condemning his editorial and him. He lost advertisers. One wrote in his ad, “Please forgive Gordon, he knows not what he did.” And, “… if the Klan does something I don’t like, I hope I have the sense enough not to antagonize them.”
The Citizen received a letter from the National Imperial Wizard of the “Invisible Empire: Original Ku Klux Klan,” who wrote, “… your statements were made only from the fact that you are dominated with the eternal hatred that comes from Communists, the NAACP, and the ADL ….” And, “No amount of smears, slander, and misrepresentation by all these groups, plus your own little nonsensical epithets, will stop the Klan in her ride for Americanism, Christianity, and the right to be free men.”
A local reader addressed his envelope to “Know All Nelson,” and asked, “Where do you get the right to tell an organization ‘to get the Hell out of Red River Parish?’ Better make it good.”
Another wrote, “Your big mouth will be the means of your hide winding up in a tan yard and some woman will be toting it around made into a big hand bag.”
But support was just as strong. “It was wonderful and expresses our sentiments exactly. Just wish there were more like you ….” And another, “It was brilliant and brave….”
The editorial was taken up and reprinted around the state and elsewhere, more letters coming in. “Dear Sir, In main editorial of B. Rouge State Times about mid-week I read with Joy of your article & a few quotes therein. To me, yours is first, & B.R. second to come out boldly against K.K.K.”
An editorial in the Lafourche Comet, said, “He minced no words in telling subscribers of his dislike for any man who hid under a bedsheet while attempting to subvert the laws of the state and the country,” and the Comet’s editorial reprinted in the Opelousas Daily World.
Ronnie Hicks, the then assistant director of the La. Press Association wrote, “It is the editor with guts who has made the community newspaper of this country the most powerful voice in the life of its citizens.” […] “It made me awfully damn proud to read that editorial…”
The editorial and later reporting of news, polarized the community and aggravated the Klan. Crosses were burned, including the one on our yard. Threatening calls and letters were on-going. The Klan’s night rides continued.
My father wrote his brother that the joke on the street was, “Who would be the newspaper’s publisher after Gordon?” The FBI sent two agents down and our family was put under guard.
The Klan Wars in Red River parish continued for a while and then ended, not with a bang, but a sputter. Somewhere along the way the Klan took all their files, flags, and icons south to Natchitoches Parish and set up shop in the small township of Campti. Years later my father told me that many of the members resigned after he threatened to put their names in the paper. Most were businessmen and depended on the African- American community’s patronage.
The editorial became a catalyst for retaliatory actions against my father, the Citizen, and our family. The KKK burned crosses and sent death threats. J. Edgar Hoover sent two men in black suits to help ensure the safety of our family. The paper's efforts to expose the secretive activities of the Klan lead to state and national awards and even an informal Honorable Mention from the Pulitzer Prize judges.
But did anything really work? Was it a good thing or a bad thing that my father polarized the community, kicking over the beehive?
After Dub Shoemaker’s presentation, I studied more closely the letters my father received after his "Fall of Night" editorial. This time, one in particular stood out.
The editor-publisher of the Deer Creek Pilot, the newspaper in Rolling Fork, Mississippi, wrote telling my father the editorial was a “darn good job” and important.
Then he said something that in hindsight stands out. “Luckily, we do not and have not had any such activity here. For that matter, I know of no place in the state where the Klan is active in any way.”
Rolling Fork was only 125 miles from where the Civil Rights workers were killed three years later. When the 200 FBI agents sent by J. Edgar Hoover combed through 10 Mississippi counties, searching for those three missing volunteers, they uncovered the bodies of eight other murdered Black men.
Are there bodies buried in Red River Parish? Or did my father successfully chase the Klan away?
My father was certainly no paragon, he was as flawed as the rest of us, maybe more so. But he understood the nature of secrecy and what it can do, and I think he’d seen some things growing up in Mississippi that impacted him.
It’s just part of history now. Many these days may not even understand the role of the small town publishers of weekly newspapers, and the public's right to know.
But to my mind, from all these years later and the luxury of a perspective that my father and mother did not have, it seems it was a fine example of when to kick over the beehive.
This article is part of a historical newspaper archive. Read the original issue for its original layout, photographs and graphics.