The Klan

Sims Patsy

Stein and Day publishers, New York, hardcover with dustjacket, illustrated.
Dustjacket is damaged.


The Klan lives. Its extent and vitality will surprise and dismay many readers. Ms. Sims attempts to take an objective look at the organization and its leaders and members in a series of profiles, with the history, news events, arrest records, and the experiences of law enforcement officials and victims woven in. While Ms. Sims does not condone the Klan's beliefs or the deeds attributed to it over the years, she nevertheless allows the Klan's people to speak for themselves.

"I can take five men in a city of twentyfive thousand, and that is just like having an army. That five can almost control the political atmosphere of that city." -Calvin Craig, former Georgia Grand Dragon

"I'd say I'm probably the best-known American outside of Jimmy Carter."David Duke, National Director, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan

"I'd rather kill them than have them kill me!"- Virgil Griffin, Grand Dragon, North Carolina Knight of the Ku Klux Klan

"We don't want no killin's because killin's will bring the FBI an' ever'body else. All we want's a peaceful town." -Bobby Leland
"I get so tired of talking about the Klan and killing people."-A poet and klansman

"I'd find life very dull if I didn't fight for the white race. I get pleasure out of it. I guess I'm what you could call a happy warrior."-Jesse B. Stoner, Chairman, National States Rights Party

"I can't help the way I think. I was brought up that way."-Bob Jones, former Grand Dragon, North Carolina

"Long as there's a white man in this country, there'll always be a Klan. I've stayed with the Klan from the day I joined, and I'll die a klansman."-James Venable, Imperial Wizard, National Knights

Ms. Sims shows clearly that there is not just one Klan; there are many, competing with each other for members and for power. And she portrays the hidden force that has made the initials KKK synonymous with terror in many parts of the United States, north and south.