Federated Ku Klux Klans Inc.

The Federated Ku Klux Klans Inc. or the Federated Knights of the Ku Klux Klan was a Ku Klux Klan organization founded in the mid 1940s and incorporated on June 21, 1946 by William Hugh Morris, who styled himself at different times as "Imperial Wizrd" or "Grand Dragon".

The group held meetings at the Fraternal Hall above Cotton's Furniture Exchange at 2213 3rd Avenue North. Other officers included physician E. P. Pruitt and real estate developer Robert Gullege.

It is likely that Morris' group was involved in at least some of the long list of bombings of Black homes in formerly-segregated neighborhoods. Its efforts were also directed against labor unions and undertook to police various charges of immorality, in particular with regard to their conception of "race mixing".

The group was responsible for raids on Camp Blossom Hill and Camp Fletcher, Girl Scout camps, in June 1948. A year later the group assaulted restaurant owner Steve Marshlar in Brookside and Mrs Hugh McDanal, whom they accused of "selling whisky" and threatened to burn at the stake.

In response, attorney Abe Berkowitz founded Citizens Against Mobism, a coalition of business and civic groups which demanded better enforcement against Klan terrorism. In 1949 Governor Jim Folsom signed an "Anti-Masking Bill" aimed at reducing Klan activity.

Morris was jailed for contempt during a trial for flogging in 1949. Pruitt went on to found the Federated Klans of Alabama, a group that complied with the anti-masking law, that July. For his part, Morris announced a merger with Samuel Greene's Association of Georgia Klans in November, but no such combination was ever made.

In 1950 Morris' group held a "treason trial" against Baptist minister Alvin Horn of Talladega, a former leader in the association who had been working with a rival Atlanta-based KKK group. Horn was later forced out of the U.S. Klans, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan Inc. for marrying a 15-year-old girl. His downfall opened the way for Robert Shelton to assume leadership among Alabama klansmen.

References

• Thornton, J. Mills (2002) Dividing Lines: Municipal Politics and the Struggle for Civil Rights in Montgomery, Birmingham, and Selma. University of Alabama Press ISBN 9780817311704
• Newton, Michael (2016) White Robes and Burning Crosses: A History of the Ku Klux Klan from 1866. McFarland & Co. Inc. ISBN 9781476617190