True Americans

The "True Americans" (T.A.s) were an anti-immigration, racist, and strenuously anti-Catholic political organization which came to prominence in the 1920s in the Southern United States, and most strongly in Birmingham, where it virtually controlled local elections. The group kept its membership secret and likely folded itself into the Ku Klux Klan, which was riding a tide of protectionist sentiment across the United States.

The True American's influence in Birmingham's local politics was bolstered by the Greater Birmingham legislation of 1910 which brought large segments of conservative Protestant whites into the city's electoral rolls. It was those voters, who had already helped pass county-wide prohibition in a 1907 special election.

Led openly by First Baptist Church of Birmingham pastor A. J. Dickinson, the group exerted a clear influence in the 1917 Birmingham City Commission election, where Nathaniel Barrett defeated incumbent George Ward on a platform based on keeping movie theaters closed on Sundays. He labelled Ward, an Episcoplian, as a "tool of the Catholics". Barrett's first act as mayor was to dismiss Catholic police chief Martin Eagan and install Thomas Shirley, a Klan member, in his place. All other Catholics in City employ were similarly removed, except for two patrol officers.

In 1921 Edwin Stephenson, a Methodist minister whose daughter had married a Puerto Rican boy against his wishes, shot and killed St Paul's Cathedral pastor James Coyle in broad daylight. He was acquitted by an all-White jury in a trial marked by race-baiting remarks from defense attorney Hugo Black and reports of signals being exchanged between Black, Judge William Fort (both Klan members), and the jury.

Platform

The platform used by the True Americans in the 1917 election was as follows:

1. complete separation of church and state
2. the public school, no appropriations of public funds or land for any sectarian purposes whatsoever
3. inspection of all public and private institutions
4. civic righteousness
5. the Bible in every school
6. restriction of immigration
7. the election to office of patriots only - men imbued with true American ideals
8. free speech and free press
9. appointment of those men and women only as public school teachers or principals whose Americanism is unquestioned
10. respect for Old Glory as the highest emblem of authority in the land^2.

Notes

1. Breedlove-1980
2. ibid.

References

• Sweeney, Charles P. (November 24, 1920) "Leo Frank and Bigotry in the South" The Nation
• Breedlove, Michael A. (July 1980) "Progressivism and Nativism: The Race for the Presidency of the City Commission of Birmingham, Alabama in 1917". Journal of the Birmingham Historical Society. Vol. 6, Nos. 6 & 7.