America's Secret Jihad: The Hidden History of Religious Terrorism in the United States (60 page)

23
.
    
Boylan, “A League of Their Own.”

24
.
    
City of Miami Police Department, “Report of Detective Lochart F. Gracey, Jr.,” Harold Weisberg Archive, Hood College, accessed April 16, 2015,
http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/M%20Disk/Milteer%20J%20A/Item%2009.pdf
.

25
.
    
Minutemen, “A Short History of the Minutemen,” Harold Weisberg Archive, Hood College, accessed April 16, 2015,
http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/M%20Disk/Minutemen/Item%20001.pdf
.

26
.
    
Eric Norden, “The Paramilitary Right,”
Playboy 16,
no. 6 (1969), Harold Weisberg Archive, Hood College, accessed April 16, 2015,
http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/M%20Disk/Minutemen/Item%20006.pdf
.

27
.
    
Ibid.

28
.
    
William Turner, “The Minutemen (The Spirit of '66),”
Ramparts,
January 1967, Harold Weisberg Archive, Hood College, accessed April 16, 2015,
http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/F%20Disk/FBI/FBI%20to%201967/Item%2037.pdf
.

29
.
    
Ibid.

30
.
    
Norden, “Paramilitary Right.”

31
.
    
Ibid.

32
.
    
Gerald McKnight,
The Last Crusade: Martin Luther King Jr., the FBI, and the Poor People's Campaign
(Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998), 93.

33
.
    
Ibid., 124.

34
.
    
Jim Ingram, interview with the author, March 2, 2008.

35
.
    
Wesley Swift, “Zero Hour (2-4-62),” Wesley Swift Library, accessed April 16, 2015,
http://swift.christogenea.org/content/zero-hour-2-4-62
.

36
.
    
Wesley Swift, “2-12-67 Bible Study Q&A,” Wesley Swift Library, accessed April 16, 2015,
http://swift.christogenea.org/content/02-12-67-bible-study-qa
.

37
.
    
Ibid.

38
.
    
Don Koenig, “Revelation Commentary: Chapter 14—The Grapes of Wrath Are Crushed,”
Prophetic Years,
accessed April 16, 2015,
http://www.thepropheticyears.com/The%20book%20of%20RevelationRevelation%20Chapter%2014.htm
.

CHAPTER
7

  
1
.
    
Martin Luther King Jr., “Remaining Awake through a Great Revolution” (Oberlin), Electronic Oberlin Group, accessed April 16, 2015,
http://www.oberlin.edu/external/EOG/BlackHistoryMonth/MLK/CommAddress.html
.

  
2
.
    
Martin Luther King Jr., “Remaining Awake through a Great Revolution” (National Cathedral), Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education
Institute, accessed April 16, 2015,
http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/kingpapers/article/remaining_awake_through_a_great_revolution/
.

  
3
.
    
Ibid.

  
4
.
    
Max Herman, “Newark (New Jersey) Riot of 1967,” in
The Encyclopedia of American Race Riots,
vol. 2, eds. Walter C. Rucker and James N. Upton (Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2007), 452.

  
5
.
    
Sandra West, “Negro Reporter Tells Detroit Riot Story,”
Times-News,
July 24, 1967,
https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1665&dat=19670724&id=T59PAAAAIBAJ&sjid=ayQEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6942,1623294&hl=en
.

  
6
.
    
Collins and Margo, “Economic Aftermath.”

  
7
.
    
Marquis Childs, “Guns Sales Mount as Tension Grows in This Strange Moment in History,”
Morning Record,
August 15, 1967,
https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2512&dat=19670815&id=WiVIAAAAIBAJ&sjid=XgANAAAAIBAJ&pg=775,5019331&hl=en
.

  
8
.
    
Martin Luther King Jr., “The Other America,” Gross Pointe Historical Society, accessed April 16, 2015,
http://www.gphistorical.org/mlk/mlkspeech/mlk-gp-speech.pdf
.

  
9
.
    
Tavis Smiley, with David Ritz.
Death of a King: The Real Story of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Final Year
(New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2014), 243.

10
.
    
Federal Bureau of Investigation, “FBI Director to All Offices; Counterintelligence Program, Black Nationalist—Hate Groups, Internal Security,” March 4, 1968.
http://whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/COINTELPRO/COINTELPRO-FBI.docs.html

11
.
    
King, “Remaining Awake” (National Cathedral).

12
.
    
Wexler and Hancock,
Awful Grace of God.

13
.
    
Wesley Swift, “Power in the Word (3-31-68),” Wesley Swift Library, accessed April 16, 2015,
http://swift.christogenea.org/content/power-word-3-31-68
.

14
.
    
Ibid.

15
.
    
Wexler and Hancock,
Awful Grace of God,
21–31. Our original work goes into each plot in greater depth than in the synopsis that follows. We discuss at least one additional plot—in 1964 in St. Augustine—that was never solved and thus cannot be firmly tied to Christian Identity. That plot has been excluded from this synopsis.

16
.
    
Bernie Ward,
Kansas Intelligence Report: The Dixie Mafia
(Topeka, KS: Office of Attorney General Vern Miller, 1974).

17
.
    
Michael Newton,
The Encyclopedia of Unsolved Crimes
(New York: Infobase Publishing, 2009), 199.

18
.
    
Federal Bureau of Investigation, “Airtel from SAC Oklahoma City to Director re: Donald Eugene Sparks,” Mary Ferrell Foundation, accessed April 16, 2015,
http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=145174&relPageId=9
.

19
.
    
Jerry Mitchell, “KKK Killed Ben Chester White, Hoping to Lure and Kill MLK,”
Mississippi Clarion-Ledger
, June 10, 2014,
http://www.clarionledger.com/story/journeytojustice/2014/06/10/ben-chester-white-kkk-mlk/10277517/
.

20
.
    
Ibid.

21
.
    
Wexler and Hancock,
Awful Grace of God,
211.

22
.
    
Federal Bureau of Investigation, “From SAC, Atlanta to Director; re: National Knights of the Ku Klux Klan,” Internet Archive, accessed April 16, 2015,
https://archive.org/stream/foia_National_Knights_KKK-19/National_Knights_KKK-19#page/n37/mode/2up/search/nighthawk
, see 38-40.

23
.
    
Interview with the author, November 2009. The source does not wish to be named.

CHAPTER
8

  
1
.
    
While earlier chapters draw heavily from
The Awful Grace of God,
my previous book (coauthored with Larry Hancock), this chapter draws heavily from the e-book update,
Killing King,
released by Counterpoint Press in April 2015.

  
2
.
    
Donald Nissen, interview with the author, November 9, 2009. This interview is one of dozens, formal and informal, conducted with Nissen from 2009 to 2014. His story has never waivered, and he has never sought to profit from it. He kept quiet about his account, provided to the FBI in June 1967 and August 1968, until 2009, when I was able to track him down. A career criminal, Nissen experienced a religious conversion in prison and presently works for church groups that help young ex-prisoners transition from their criminal pasts to productive lives.

  
3
.
    
Federal Bureau of Investigation, “Airmail from Tampa to Director,” July 4, 1974, MURKIN 44-38861; Janet Upshaw, interview with the author, December 15, 2010.

  
4
.
    
House Select Committee on Assassinations, “Evidence of a Conspiracy in St. Louis,” Mary Ferrell Foundation, accessed April 16, 2015,
http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=800&relPageId=389
.

  
5
.
    
“The Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.,” Mysterious Deaths and Disappearances, accessed April 16, 2015,
http://cuchculan.hpage.co.in/martin-luther-king_49125488.html
.

  
6
.
    
Jerry Mitchell, “Did the Mafia Help Solve the Mississippi Burning Case?”
Mississippi Clarion-Ledger,
June 22, 2014. Few reporters are more respected on the issue of civil rights violence and law enforcement's response than Mitchell, who confirmed the use of Mafia don Gregory Scarpa to help solve the Dahmer case. Per Mitchell, “Scarpa
and an FBI agent bought a television from Klansman Lawrence Byrd just as he was closing his business, Byrd's Radio & TV Service in Laurel. Byrd helped carry the TV to the car, and Scarpa shoved him into the back seat, where Byrd was pistol-whipped.” Federal judge Chet Dillard, referenced in Mitchell's article, also firmly believes, based on FBI documents, that the FBI used Scarpa.

  
7
.
    
Jack Nelson,
Terror in the Night
(Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 1993), 139. No book does a better job of covering the rivalry between law enforcement and the KKK in Mississippi.

  
8
.
    
Ibid.

  
9
.
    
Nissen, interview with the author, November 9, 2009.

10
.
    
Federal Bureau of Investigation, “Re: Alleged Offer of $100,000 by the WKKKKOM to Anyone Who Kills Martin Luther King, Jr.,” July 24, 1967, File 157-7990, Jackson Field Office.

11
.
    
“Atlanta Mayor: ‘Get King Away from Him Right Now,”
Jet,
May 2, 1968,
https://books.google.com/books?id=UTgDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA17&dq=ayers+AND+bond+AND+jet&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Hm4nVa4495qxBNbOgPAF&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=ayers%20AND%20bond%20AND%20jet&f=false
.

12
.
    
The Reverend John Ayers, interview with the author, November 16, 2010.

13
.
    
Lamar Waldron, with Thom Hartmann,
Legacy of Secrecy: The Long Shadow of the JFK Assassination
(Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint, 2008), 339–40, 500–501.

14
.
    
Thorne,
Last Chance for Justice.
Thorne does not have page numbers in her book. The relevant passage says that Bob Eddy was told by Bill Holt that a “Brown” from Tennessee had helped train the Cahaba Boys to make an acid detonator. Other sources say that a “Brown” from the Constitutional Party participated in the Birmingham bombing. Together, these clues strongly point to Jack Brown, a known associate of Stoner and Milteer. Thorne notes that the police later cleared Jack Brown because they could verify his whereabouts in Tennessee on the day of the attack. But none of the material presented to law enforcement suggests that Brown participated in the actual September 15, 1963, attack; he may have simply been an accessory.

15
.
    
FBI, “Re: Alleged Offer of $100,000.”

16
.
    
“Fourth Suspected Robbery Gang Member Held,”
Gadsden Times,
July 6, 1966, 16,
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=z2ofAAAAIBAJ&sjid=MdUEAAAAIBAJ&pg=1586,811537&dq=sparks+and+payne+and+mayor+and+robbery&hl=en
.

17
.
    
“James Earl Ray: Selected Chronology,” Harold Weisberg Archive, Hood College, accessed March 30, 2013,
http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/White%20Materials/White%20Assassination%20Clippings%20Folders/Miscellaneous%20Folders/Miscellaneous%20Study%20Groups/Misc-SG-109.pdf
.

18
.
    
Philip Melanson,
The Martin Luther King Assassination: New Revelations on the Conspiracy and Cover-Up
(New York: SPI Books, 1994), 42.

19
.
    
James Earl Ray,
Who Killed Martin Luther King, Jr.? The True Story of the Alleged Assassin
(New York: Marlowe, 1997), 125.

20
.
    
William Pepper,
Act of State: The Execution of Martin Luther King
(London: Verso, 2003), 248.