WIZ rd- m ritu ,
gr
"We deli vot ,"he ays.
.. h n John P tterson ran for
go mor w decided on Sun­
d y night to put one of his
t me on every other tele-
pho pole in th state of Ala-
am . By Monday morning it
w don What 0 her organize­
'twn could do that?"
Tha happened in 1958 when
P tterson ran again t George
w 11 , th n a lib ral-l ning
di trict jud . Wallace had a no­
t Ion that identification with th
KJ n ould work against his op­
ponent. On campaign swings
cross Alab m he hauled a bed
wi h him nd spoke from th
b ck 0 a truck. "Hey John,
wh are you?" Walla would
t unt, and th n peek b n ath
th bedcovers. "You down there
under the sheets with the
Klan?"
Wallace lost. He vowed never
gain to b "ou egged" and
never was. And, with Klan sup-
po , I' in l n
tion in AI ama.
Th Ku Klux Klan was the
creation of six Confederate vet­
erans eight months after the
end of the Civil War,
THEY MET ON Christmas
Eve in 1865 in a one-story brick
1 w office kitty-cornered from
t h courthouse in Pulaski. The
building is still standing.
Th war had left their home­
land a smoking ruin, its econ­
omy in chaos, its society in
urmoil. Time seemed out of
joint as well. As a granddaugh­
t r of one of the six noted in a
1 � ) 4 hi tory. Th n gro consid­
«rr- i r m ynonymous with
-quahty." 0 th was that.
Th six concocted sort of
fro rnity. Their aim, they
la i m d, w to put a little scare
1 nt ho e p sumptuous Black
f lk see what happen. No
h rm intend . They devi ed
gh lik costumes of hoods and
h ts and composed a hier- .
hy of scary titl : Dragon ,
;. -cl p , Ti ns and the lik
They named th ir circle of
: ) k for h G k word for
'J r -l " kuklo ,fiddl it into Ku-
Klux' nd for ti Hit rat ion :
Kl n. Thu gan a I t-
nur ff ation for K-words. Lik
Klankr ft.
KJ n
KKK,88