Dateline St. Augustine; 3; A Gathering of the Klan

Dateline St. Augustine. On the spot coverage of the struggle for civil rights in America's oldest city. One Klansman had asked another Klansman if he'd ever smelled a nigger burn And the other one said No and the other one said well that's a mighty good smell. A gathering of the Klan. This program is not for the squeamish. A gathering of the clan is a narrative in two parts. WGBH FM reporters T.F. Conley and Ted Mascot have been in St Augustine Florida since Saturday March 21st. Members of the Massachusetts unit of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference also left Boston on that same day and are now in St. Augustine. They answered a call issued by Dr. Robert B. Hayling of the St. Augustine chapter of the SCLC to help in seeking a remedy for the conditions existing for Negro citizens of that town. At a training session on nonviolent action held on Tuesday March 24th Dr. Hayling told the New Englanders of his experience at a Ku Klux Klan meeting held last September north of St. Augustine off of highway

U.S. 1 when he and several other negroes were badly beaten. I'll tell you this if you think that it's hard when you see that when you see the odds are overwhelming it's fairly easy to be nonviolent. Me and many people say well what did you do and so forth when all with us at a Klan meeting and all when we had individuals who stopped us with a pistol and a shotgun over here and a carload of Klansmen behind us with guns. It was nothing else to do in fact when they said get out whatever it was hard to even move. It. And then that phase of nonviolence was was over with us because it would have been suicide. And yet it wasn't all that story because this young man sitting down here when they attempted to take him away in the dark he was the one that really helped to break up the meeting for he had enough left, though he was bleeding severely and so forth, to break

and run. And when they shot at him and missed helped to break up the meeting for they shot and missed. And others said did you get him and so forth and others said no he got away and everything else but he'll have lead in him. But he didn't have lead in him. Thank goodness. But he was weak and so far from loss of blood and he couldn't run too fast and too far. And they sent a group back. But in the meantime somebody said within the group, Well if he got away he'll go to get help or he'll go and get the police. And from that instant then we could see people leaving the carloads. I mean it was just like boom and let's get out of here and there's help break up the entire thing. Because I feel reasonably sure to say. But even after they brought him back and threw him on top of us and we were piled up like logs and we heard calmness within the group if they were soon certain since your saying it on the tape and so forth, but one Klansman

had asked another Klansman if he had ever smelled a nigger burn, and the other one said "No", and the other one said "Well that's a mighty good smell." Say "When poncho so and so gets back with the 5 gallons of gasoline that he went for so you'll be able to smell some niggers burn." And lo and behold that was almost the case. [reporter] T.F. Conley and Ted Mascot travel to Daytona Beach some 54 miles south of St. Augustine on Tuesday March 24th to meet the Reverend Irwin Cheney, the white minister of the First Congregational Church there. Reverend Cheney had attended the September 1963 meeting of the Ku Klux Klan at which Dr. Hayling and three other negroes were beaten. Reverend Cheney soon after the September meeting, wrote down his observations here with his exclusive statement to WGBH FM is Reverend Cheney. It was a murky September evening. The sky was dismally overcast and a strong wind blew in off the Atlantic Ocean. Handbills had been distributed

throughout St. Augustine inviting all white people to attend a rally of the Ku Klux Klan. I was asked to attend as an observer. With a sense of mingled anticipation and apprehension, I made my way to the site of the evening meeting. The place chosen was outside the city, Approximately one half mile off US Highway number one down a narrow dirt woods road. The spot selected was a clearing at the edge of the woods. On turning off the highway I noticed a number of robed and hooded men, most of whom were directing the parking of cars. No law enforcement officer was in evidence, either at the highway or directing traffic, or at the meeting to ensure orderly procedure. A dozen or more children ranging in age from 8 through 12 years were positioned at irregular intervals along the lane. They were selling confederate automobile tags. I was told by a

hooded man that I might drive all the way to the end of the road or park alongside the road. I chose to park halfway between the highway and the meeting place, backing into my parking place in case a hasty exit were indicated. No sooner had I arrived at the clearing than a red-robed Klansmen ordered the lighting of the cross. It was my first experience of seeing this well-known desecration of the time honored Christian symbol and I felt a sense of revulsion at it. A huge cross possibly 20 feet high had been wrapped in burlap, soaked in a flammable liquid and placed in an upright position. A match was applied and the cross immediately was covered with flames. Robed Klansmen and Klanswomen two dozen strong walked in a circle around the burning cross, giving a sort of sloppy, left-handed sign of ?unknown? It was

vaguely reminiscent of the salute of the Nazis. As this procession occurred, one could hear the faint strains of The Old Rugged Cross floating across the crowd. A group of girls, early teenagers were humming and singing as the fire became more and more intense. Before this ceremony was to have been concluded, large chunks of flaming burlap were carried by the high winds into the nearby grass and small brush fires were started. It was necessary for the Klansmen to push the cross to the ground and to stamp out the fire. It was mildly amusing to note that this extreme racist group was robed in three colors: white red and black. It seemed ironical that white and black should be mixed so freely in such a meeting. The one sense that the black was coldly symbolic. The meeting was called to order. Our brother Klansman Jean F., the surname is not firmly fixed in my mind though I think I

remember it, will lead in the invocation. Then came the rasping drawl: Oh God we thank you for this occasion which brings these good white people together. We know it is your good will that we be here. that we be stirred to the fact that we've got to fight for what you've given us. Who orders us to do your precious will. Help us to be ready to fight, to shed blood if necessary to maintain our way of life. In Jesus precious name we pray. Amen. Without further preliminaries, the presiding officer said, Brothers and Sisters, our speaker of the evening is a man who has been a minister of the gospel for more than 35 years. It is my pleasure to introduce to you brother Conny Lee of Alabama. No further biographical information was presented.

My friends, Lee began. I want to share with you something of the history. The glorious history of the Klan. The Klan was born out of bloodshed. Out of a real need to protect the southern white man from the carpet baggers. The Jew carpetbaggers. You know of course that the carpetbaggers was Jews and they come down here and they teamed up with the niggers, and they tried to take away everything that the white man had. But they learned that the white man would not take all this lying down. He organized. He organized into Klans. He rose up to defend his honor and his interests and I'll tell you that to this day the Jews and the niggers and all the rest of the colored people are not afraid of anything else but they are afraid of the Klan. For the last 30 years the Klan has not been strong, has not been militant, but the Klan is on the move again and it's not going to let the niggers and the Jews take over our country.

Now some of you say, but Jesus was a Jew. that just goes to show you how these cotton pickin, half witted preachers has fooled ya. Jesus wasn't no Jew. He was a white man. Jesus said that the Jews was descended from Cain a curse out of Creation. He said they was children of the devil so don't let no sentimental fool tell you that Jesus was no Jew. I've been through a lot of battles in my time and I'm still battling for what I know is right. I'm speaking for God and you'd better hear what I say. Not long ago a man from the FBI. Now you know what that is. The Federal Bureau of integration came by to talk to me. I guarantee you there's some of them here in this crowd tonight and some of them jew bastards from the Anti-Defamation League are ?be? ?unknown? is here too. They always spy on me. But anyhow they come by and they said now you don't really advocate violence do ya?

And I said the hell you say, the niggers is declared all out war on the plan of God and on God's family, the white man. And in a war you shoot. Then they said to me, do you know who bombed the church in Birmingham. And I said no and if I did I wouldn't tell you, but I'll tell you people here tonight if they can find those fellows. They ought to pin medals on 'em. Somebody ain't it a shame that them little children was killed. Well they don't know what they are talking about. In the first place they ain't little. They are 14 or 15 years old. Old enough to have been venereal diseases. And I'd be surprised if all of them didn't have one or more. In the second place they weren't children. Children are little people, little human beings and that means white people. They're little monkeys but you don't call them children they just little monkeys. There's little dogs but you know call them children they just little dogs. And there's little cats and apes and baboons and skunks, and there's also little

niggers. But they ain't children. They just little niggers and in the third place it wasn't no shame they was killed. Why? Because when I go out to kill rattlesnakes I don't make no difference between little rattlesnakes and big rattlesnakes because I know what's the nature of all rattlesnakes to poison me if it can. So I kill them all and if there's four less niggas tonight then I say good for whoever planted the bomb. We're all better off. Some people say we'll all be in heaven together. The hell we will! Only God's family will be in heaven and niggers and Jews ain't God's family. Ain't gonna be no animals in heaven and ain't gonna be no sons of perdition there. Is just a shame some people brought these black animals over here. Animals highly enough developed so their seed can mix with your seed. But they won't be here much longer because the Klan is getting stronger and people up north are begging

us to come up there and help them organize. Imagine that. They've decided they don't like the niggers too well either and they want help. And we're busy and growing in the south. I believe in violence, all the violence it takes, either to scare the niggers out of the country or have them all six feet under. My old daddy told me never to trust that old kickin' mule we had. And never to trust a nigga. You're listening to the reverend Irvin Cheney a white minister recalling from his notes his in-person observations of what a Klan member said at a meeting of the Ku Klux Klan. Reverend Cheney continues... Some of the niggers say, we want to go to your churches. Well there just ain't but one manly Christian thing to do when they try and that is for you to meet them at the church house door with a baseball bat and a beat their brains out. And I'll tell you something else.

You got a nigger in St. Augustine ought not to live that burred headed bastard of a ? He's got no right to live at all let alone walk up and down your streets and breath the white man's free air. He ought to wake up tomorrow morning with a bullet between his eyes. And if you are half the man you claim to be, you kill him before sun up. At this point an elderly bystander shouted. Tell us about King and Lee screamed back, Oh you mean Martin Luther coon. Why he is the biggest enemy we ever had he's crooked as a snake. He oughta been killed a long time ago. Why I heard him on TV the other night saying the Negro is not satisfied. Well he never will be. Because before they're satisfied they'll all be 6 feet in the ground. That Elijah Mohammed said the other day

that they were ready to sacrifice 10 million niggers in their fight. Well now that's just fine, because if they are willing to sacrifice 10 million, I'll be more than happy to help them sacrifice the other 10 million. They want to mix with you do they? Well listen, if you mix ice cream and axle grease, you don't hurt the axle grease much at all. But to play hell with the ice cream. In spite of what those numb skull idiots on the Supreme Court say, they ain't got no right to mix with you and don't you let them. If you have to fight and shed blood, theirs or yours, you do it. You won't hear the white man whining when he has a few casualties like the niggers do. They scream and cry about those dead animals in Birmingham. But the nigger started the war and when you start a war you expect some to die. More will

die and you'd better be ready to see to it that they do. I am speaking for God and you'd better listen. We've got guts enough to do something about the situation and no other organization has. We need a good strong group in St. Augustine. Now you fellas come and sign up but don't come if you're weak or if you're a coward. This ain't no peaceful organization. We aim to do whatever is necessary to put the nigger back in his place, preferably in his grave. The speech lasted an hour and a quarter. It was met with a frenzied screaming approval and rebel yells especially throughout the first half. The crowd, largely young adults and children with but few oldsters had been at fever pitch emotionally. However after an hour some began to drift away and the crowd dwindled to about two thirds its original size of 250 persons. Following Lee's

address, Gene F. again was introduced and this time he was identified as being from the Klan . He was a singularly dull, inept speaker and the crowd shrunk rapidly until it numbered about 100. The earlier speaker tried to inject enthusiasm and light into his address by shouting approval of what was being said and by calling for the crowd to do so. Two or three times he met with some success but finally only he was clapping and shouting. The crowd had become restless and inattentive having stamped and shouted approval for so long, they now seemed bored. At this point there came shouts from the bushes... Niggers, niggers, niggers. Frantically, Conny Lee jumped from the platform and jerked a gun from his coral colored Cadillac, cocking it as he handed it to a younger man. Another gun appeared as if from out of the air and large knives, sticks and brass knucks appeared on all sides. Twenty or more men went into the bushes to the

north and in a few moments they brought four Negro men to the platform. Each negro was prodded by a knife or a gun in his back. There were all sorts of taunts, vile, vicious, frantic. Boy, what are you all doing out here? We just came out to run our fish lines came the reply, in as much as the spokesman wore a short-sleeved white shirt, a tie and neat slacks the crowd screamed in unbelief. One of the negroes was snatched around and ordered, wipe that smile off your face which he attempted to do immediately. I marveled at the negro's apparent composure throughout their ordeal. Two young man whom I observed very closely held guns toward their captives while no one seemed to know what to do. That was considerable swaggering and big talk. But the look at the faces of those who held the weapons indicated that they were perplexed and afraid. A few moments before it had been easy for them to

scream approval of killing all the niggers. But now holding real weapons and faced with real people, they hardly knew what to do. My first impression was that everything was too precise, in this occurrence that probably it was a planned show. I hardly could believe that these negroes would accept pay for such a performance and yet it all seemed quite unreal. The negroes had been produced at a time when the meeting was dying. They were unbelievably calm. Their tormenters was so uncertain that they appeared to be merely bad actors. And besides this was Florida, USA in the year 1963. I was frozen, numb in disbelief. If the white men had fears and were reluctant to do harm, their women took care of that. They cajoled, shouted and prodded the men into action. Children joined in the chorus of demands that the negroes be killed.

At this point two white men stripped their shirts away and began to strike with their fists. At the sight of blood I finally was jolted into an awareness of the fact that this was indeed a tragically real occurrence. My first impulse was to stand silently and unobtrusively in the crowd, seeking to be the most observant witness of which I was capable. After a few moments of this, I realized that the only matter of importance was to try to save the men from a brutal beating and almost certain death. Having observed the confusion and cowardice written in the men's faces, I had a fleeting impulse a step forward and to say, all right I'm a white Southerner too but you've lost your my minds. Shoot these men if you wish but shoot through me. Come on fellows let's go. And then to take them to my car. I still wonder if calling their bluff in this way might not have

worked. I must say however, any plan to follow such a course was short lived. The beating continued. The women persisting with, castrate the bastards! kick their balls out! knock their heads off! Kill 'em! come on, do somthing! They had to trespass to get here. They got no right to live string 'em up! Nearby, a robed woman spoke in a semi-whisper to her husband. Go get the head chopper, and get the rope, and for God's sake take off your robe and leave it in the car. You don't want to mess it up. It was then I knew I had to leave the crowd, make my way to a telephone and summon police help. But I was almost in the middle of the mob and to get away was extremely precarious. My automobile was a quarter mile away. The people had been reminded repeatedly that spies doubtless were present. No one else was leaving at this time and there was no certainty that a person leaving would not be shot. [reporter] Comments by the Reverend Irvin Cheney on a meeting of the Ku Klux Klan and which he was invited to attend

In September 1963. Reverend Chaney, a white man continues... [Reverend Cheney] At each blow of the fist and responding shout from the crowd, I managed to take a few steps through the mob and to take up a new position for a few seconds. Finally after an eternity of seconds I had worked my way to the extreme edge of the gathering. There then was nothing to do but to saunter casually toward my automobile kicking aimlessly in the sand as I walked along. Once in the car I left quickly but not at excessive speed. Stopping at a nearby bowling alley I noticed at least two men who earlier had been at the rally, so I casually asked the manager for enough change for three packages of cigarettes and a couple of phone calls. I had only a $5 bill and two pennies with me. Then I learned that the sole telephone booth in the bowling alley was occupied. I waited two or three minutes drinking a soft drink so as not to appear too

anxious. When the telephone was not released I drove north in search of another toll telephone. First I called the sheriff's office and reported the incident. The way in which I was answered with, is that so? thank you...left me with a feeling that he almost had been expecting such a call. And again I wondered if perhaps I had become unnecessarily excited. But with the shouts, the blood, the weapon still vividly impressed in my mind I knew the beatings were not a sham. Aware that local law enforcement had been reputed to be somewhat inequitable along racial lines I still feared that nothing might be done in time to save the four negroes. I had known that negroes recently had been arrested and sentenced for littering when they passed out handbills. I knew also that the Ku Kluxes had not been arrested for doing the same thing on that very day. Or rather that some had been brought in and released. The police say

oh but they weren't littering. Having this anxiety my next step was to call the state adjutant general's office. I was required to give considerable information about myself before making a report on the current fracas. But someone in that office finally did take the information from me. Still wondering if enough have been done. I then placed a long distance call to the FBI in Jacksonville. I fully identified myself by name, profession and address and I made a report on the mob action. It seemed to me that both federal and local laws were being flaunted and that each agency at least should have the information beginning on the local level and going to the top. At the time I had left the meeting I had decided that to call the authorities was about all I could do to alleviate the situation and that it would be dangerous and foolish to drive alone back down the narrow, dark road into the woods.

So far as I know I was the only person to have left the meeting during the fever pitch of excitement. I knew a few within the crowd had seen me leave and that if I rejoined, them my own safety might be in jeopardy. Yet I could not leave the area without knowing that the men either were safe or dead. I then drove back to the bowling alley which was by the entrance to the woods road and parked in front of it. A small group of young men from the rally had gathered by the corner of the bowling alley. They were about forty feet from me. After waiting for about ten minutes I saw a green, unmarked automobile pass in which were two officers and the four negros. With this I felt free to leave and I headed for home. Since then I have learned that four white men from among the mob were arrested on a charge of assault and battery and that they were released on $100 bond each.

This incidentally is as small as the smallest bond exacted of the negroes in recent demonstrations. Some have been as high as $750. The sheriff is reported to have said that by the time of his arrival the crowd had dwindled to nothing. However as I left the bowling alley to return home I looked down the lane and there were many more than four cars still parked along the way to the meeting place. Perhaps some of these brave Klansmen and their vocal women had made for the bushes. And perhaps only four people still were in evidence. But I have no doubt that a minimum of effort would have revealed others. I also have learned that while I was telephoning, the beatings became more brutal than any which I had witnessed and that three of the negroes are hospitalized at this writing. To give proper credit to the sheriff I must say that he arrived on the scene within a very few minutes after he was called.

[reporter] You have heard the reverend Irvin Cheney, the white minister of the First Congregational Church in Daytona Beach, Florida, recalling from his notes what he saw and heard at a meeting of the Ku Klux Klan which took place in September 1963 north of the city of St. Augustine, off of highway US 1. T.F. Conley had this to say. [T.F. Conley] The case is closed but not quite. Producer Ted Mascot and I covered a meeting of the negro coordinators and white volunteers on Monday morning March 23rd. When the meeting adjourned we packed up our mics and tape recorders and returned to our car. There on the front seat was a crudely mimeographed, outdated but potent reminder. And I'd like to read it to you. KKK rally, Saturday March 21st 1964 8:00 p.m.. North Main Street at Cedar Bay

Road. White Public Only Welcome! signed Robert E. Lee number 13. Post Office Box 8 9 Garden City, Florida. This is T.F. Conley. With Ted Mascot in St. Augustine, Florida. [reporter] Dateline St. Augustine. On the spot coverage of the struggle for civil rights in America's oldest city. This special series of programs will preempt all regularly scheduled 8:00 programs through Saturday March 28 Dateline St. Augustine is a special events presentation of WGBH FM Boston and is produced by T.F. Conley and Ted Mascot in St. Augustine Florida and coordinated in Boston by N. Arnold Shaw and Leslie Daran.