Mississippi
KKK Relics Unearthed in Government Building
Published
Officials at the Mississippi Department of Public Safety were packing up and moving to a new headquarters … when they found several items connected to the state’s extremist past stashed in a closet.
Ku Klux Klan artifacts — including a robe, meeting notes, ledgers, propaganda materials and even a list of members who had or hadn’t paid their dues — were discovered in a suitcase in the building.
These date back to the 1960s, when membership in the Klan exploded in response to the Civil Rights movement. The items were donated to the Mississippi Department of Archives and History for preservation. They include …
A charter for the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan was found in the suitcase … and it details the organization’s mission to “effectively and intelligently Destroying any and all agents or agencies of Satan, whensoever they may detect any such Demons in Human Flesh at their Evil and Treasonous Work.”
Officials found a handbook with instructions on how to set up a KKK meeting filled with diagrams … and meeting notes with intentionally vague references so as to protect the identities of members.
To confirm the authenticity of the found materials, local news outlet Mississippi Today reached out to the son of Byron De La “Delay” Beckwith — the man convicted in 1994 of killing Mississippi NAACP leader Medgar Evers in 1963.
Beckwith’s son told the paper the handbook found at the MDPS office — called the Kloran — is authentic … adding the original was written on a long scroll.
The Mississippi Dept. of Public Safety manages law enforcement training and oversees divisions including the Mississippi Highway Patrol, the state bureau of investigation, and the state crime lab.