The Lynching by Laurence Leamer

Author:Laurence Leamer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2016-04-18T16:00:00+00:00

A Political Prisoner

AS ROBERT SHELTON sat at the witness table at the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) hearings in October 1965, he looked not so much thin as emaciated, an impression emphasized by his lean, diminutive wife at his side. He had been a big fan of HUAC, and he found it hard to believe that he was sitting there.

He had enthusiastically supported HUAC in the 1950s when the congressmen attacked Communists and those accused of being close to them in belief, seeing to it that they were sent to prison or headed off into exile when they refused to testify. In the process, many thought that the committee had trampled upon citizens’ civil rights, but Shelton believed HUAC was full of bold patriots protecting American liberties.

Shelton was therefore startled to learn that the congressional committee had decided to investigate the Klan. But he should not have been surprised because after the death of Viola Liuzzo, President Johnson had called the Klan “a society of hooded bigots,” and asked for congressional investigations into the organization, warning Klan members to leave “before it is too late.”

When first approached by HUAC investigators, Shelton told them he would bring down committee chairman Edwin E. Willis in the next congressional election in Louisiana. He threatened to take the robe that Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black had worn as an Alabama Klan member in the 1920s and present it personally to the Smithsonian Institution. What’s more, Shelton said, he would not take the Fifth Amendment like the commies and their defenders were forever doing.

As Shelton prepared to testify, George Wallace had reasons to be worried. He was planning to run for president again in 1968, and his relationship with the Klan leader could prove deeply troubling. People outside the South may have thought of the Klan as low-life kooks running around in sheets, but the governor knew Shelton’s UKA was a crucial arm of his movement and a fearless enforcer of segregation. If Shelton ever truly began to talk, spinning tales about what Wallace told him before the tragic bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church or the start of the Selma march, Wallace’s future as a national political figure might be fatally compromised.

It was an immense relief to all kinds of people that at the last moment, with a lawyer at his side, Shelton decided he would assert his constitutional rights and not say anything. In his afternoon session before HUAC, Shelton invoked the Fifth Amendment more than a hundred times.

Wallace had another reason to feel relieved. The committee had an unprecedented opportunity to educate the American public about the true role of the Klan in American life. They could have questioned Shelton in detail about the violence the UKA provoked. The Imperial Wizard was an important political figure in the South, and they could have asked about his friendships with Governor Wallace, former governor John Patterson, other elected officials across the region and the role the UKA played in their elections. The Klan

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