Regents of the White Shield

The Regents of the White Shield of the United States of America (R.W.S. of U.S.A.) was a white supremacist organization founded in 1896 by Orion Dozier, S. H. Harris, A. J. Brown, J. C. Miller, William Hunter, W. T. Dozier, and attorney J. W. Bush. The charter members included six former Confederates and six Union veterans of the Civil War.

The group's stated purpose was to, "unite the patriotic white men of America, without regard to section or sectarian influences, into a national order with the purpose of perpetuating the cardinal principles of the American government as enunciated in the Declaration of Independence, and set forth in the Constitution of the United States." The order held that the United States was "a white man's country, and should be ruled and governed exclusively by white men." In addition, the organization hoped to foster fraternalism, promote philanthropy, and to protect, "the women of the country against the assaults of negroes," and the country's business interestes and "white men in general," against, "the negrophile, carpet bagger and scallawags." [sic]

Orion Dozier acted as Supreme Commander of the Head Conclave and oversaw the formation of subsidiary chapters in several Southern cities. The organization published a booklet of by-laws for affiliated conclaves. Hunter succeeded Dozier as Supreme Commander several years later.

The organization was formally chartered by the Alabama State Legislature on February 23, 1899. After the Spanish-American War it was judged that, "the era of good feeling between the sections had firmly set in and with it a confidence among the people of the South that the white men of American would regulate and promote such laws as would maintain white supremacy in the United States." The order languished under those circumstances.

References

• "Regents of the White Shield" in Thomas McAdory Owen & Marie Bankhead Owen (1921) History of Alabama and Dictionary of Alabama Biography, Vol. 2, p. 1191