Eastview 13 Klavern

The Eastview 13 Klavern was a chapter of the Alabama Knights, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Inc., and later of the United Klans of America, which met at the Woodlawn City Hall in the 1960s.

Members of the group were involved in numerous incidents of violence, including the beating of Freedom Riders on May 14, 1961 and the bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church on September 15, 1963. The latter bombing took place after the Klavern's most dedicated terrorists had split away, calling themselves the Cahaba River Group.

The Klavern had been infiltrated by Tommy Rowe, a dubious FBI informant who provided regular reports back to his handler. Because local police sympathized and cooperated with the Klan, and in order to protect their informer, the FBI carefully filtered the information it passed along to local law enforcement. After the bombing the Bureau declined to share information with local prosecutors on director J. Edgar Hoover's assumption that it would be impossible to obtain a conviction in Alabama courts.

Membership

• Robert Thomas, Exalted Cyclops
• Hubert Page, Grand Titan
• Bill Holt, Klokan Chief (- August 1960)
• Tommy Rowe, Klokan Chief (August 1960-) and FBI informant
• Thomas "Pops" Blanton Sr
• Thomas Blanton Jr
• Herman Cash
• Charles Cagle
• Robert Chambliss
• Bobby Frank Cherry
• Robert Conaway
• Jack Crawford
• L. B. Earle
• Fred Henson
• Troy Ingram
• John Jones
• Albert Peek
• Pitts
• Gene Reeves
• Leroy Rutherford
• LLoyd Stone
• Shorty Thompson

References

• McWhorter, Diane (2001) Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama, The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution. New York, New York: Simon and Schuster. ISBN 0743226488
• May, Gary (2005) The Informant: The FBI, the Ku Klux Klan, and the Murder of Viola Liuzzo. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. ISBN 0300106351