LBJ Declares War on Klan

Mar. 26, 1965 - President Johnson declared war on the Ku Klux Klan today after announcing the arrest of four Klansmen in connection with the slaying last night of a white woman civil rights worker in Alabama.

In a televised appearance, the President warned members of the Klan to get out of the white supremacist organizations that bear that name “before it is too late.”

He promised to offer legislation to bring the Klan “under effective control of law” and suggested a Congressional investigation of this “hooded society of bigots.”

Johnson was in frequent contact during the night with FBI director J. Edgar Hoover in connection with the shooting of Mrs. Viola Liuzzo. The victim had been transporting Negro demonstrators to Selma after the civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery.

The President identified the four men arrested by the FBI today in Birmingham, Ala., as Eugene Thomas, 43, of Bessemer, Ala.; William Eaton, 41, of Bessemer; Gary Rowe Jr., 31, of Birmingham; and Collie Wilkins Jr., 21, of Fairfield, Ala.

Johnson said the four men were being charged with the Federal crime of conspiring to violate Mrs. Liuzzo’s civil rights. They could not be charged with murder by Federal officers. In Birmingham, the four men were arraigned on the Federal charge and jailed.

Johnson appeared in the East Room of the White House at 12:40 p.m., flanked by Hoover and Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach. 

The President’s manner was almost sorrowfully solemn, and his tone was one of controlled indignation as he denounced the Klan and “the horrible crime” that cost Mrs. Liuzzo her life.

Of Klansmen he said: “My father fought them many long years ago in Texas, and I have fought them all my life because I believe them to threaten the peace of every community where they exist. I shall continue to fight them because I know their loyalty is not to the United States of America but instead to a hooded society of bigots.”

“So if Klansmen hear my voice today,” Johnson continued, “let it be both an appeal and a warning to get out of the Ku Klux Klan now and return to a decent society before it is too late.”

Johnson said the four arrested men were members of the United Klan of America, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Inc. — the largest of a number of Ku Klux Klan organizations. Total Klan membership has been estimated at from 48,000 to 65,000.

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