James R. Venable (January 15, 1901January 18, 1993) was a

white supremacist White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other Race (human classification), races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any Power (social and polit ...

Georgia lawyer and Mayor of Stone Mountain, Georgia from 1946 to 1949. He established the Klan national faction National Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in 1963, which he led for 25 years.

Early life

James R. Venable was born in Stone Mountain Georgia on January 15, 1901. He attended

Lithonia High School Lithonia High School is a public high school located in Stonecrest, Georgia, United States, near Lithonia. A part of the DeKalb County School District, it serves 1,450 students in grades 9–12. Darrick McCray is the current principal. The scho ...

with Nathan Bedford Forrest III, the grandson of

Nathan Bedford Forrest Nathan Bedford Forrest (July 13, 1821October 29, 1877) was a prominent Confederate Army general during the American Civil War and the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan from 1867 to 1869. Before the war, Forrest amassed substantial wealt ...

. Venable's ancestors arrived in the United States in 1683, and settled near

Richmond, Virginia (Thus do we reach the stars) , image_map = , mapsize = 250 px , map_caption = Location within Virginia , pushpin_map = Virginia#USA , pushpin_label = Richmond , pushpin_m ...

. His grandfather and namesake was the first "guinea pig" for surgeon Crawford Long, one of the pioneers of

anesthesia Anesthesia is a state of controlled, temporary loss of sensation or awareness that is induced for medical or veterinary purposes. It may include some or all of analgesia (relief from or prevention of pain), paralysis (muscle relaxation), ...

. The elder Venable later purchased land in the city of Marthasville which was later renamed

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

. His name was given to Venable Street, near Georgia Tech. In the 1870s, Venable's ancestors purchased Pine Mountain, Arabia Mountain, and Stone Mountain, a large rock inselberg, in order to quarry native granite. The Venable quarry operations produced, at one time, all of the

curbstone A curb (North American English), or kerb (Commonwealth English except Canada; see spelling differences), is the edge where a raised sidewalk or road median/central reservation meets a street or other roadway. History Although curbs have ...

s for the city of Atlanta and outlying communities. Stone from the quarries was also used to build structures such as the Cuban Capitol Building and the

Brooklyn Bridge The Brooklyn Bridge is a hybrid cable-stayed/ suspension bridge in New York City, spanning the East River between the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn. Opened on May 24, 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge was the first fixed crossing of the East River ...

Legal and political career

Venable received his law degree in 1930. He worked as a lawyer in Georgia and in several other states. Most notably, he defended the bombers of the Hebrew Benevolent Congregation Temple bombing, which he described as "perhaps one of the hardest cases because the Jewish people spent many thousands of dollars." Venable also defended

Communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

Homer Chase in Atlanta. He won acquittal for a Black client accused of murder and later won an appeal for two Black Muslims in Louisiana convicted on charges stemming from a police raid on their mosque. The $25,000 he won from that suit were funneled into his Klan. Despite never going on vacation, Venable was able to go to 44 states by practicing law. From 1946 to 1949 he served as the Mayor of Stone Mountain. He described Sen. Tom Watson as "perhaps the greatest oliticianduring our century."

Ku Klux Klan

At the age of 13, Venable attended the 1915 revival of the KKK on top of Stone Mountain, alongside his uncle. In 1963, Venable organized the National Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, which competed with other rival national KKK factions. He would serve for 25 years as its Imperial Wizard. Venable often burned crosses on the land he owned at Stone Mountain. Although, he claimed "I hold no ill will against any race, color, or creed."

Personal life

Venable was married to Dorothy Venable, who he had two daughters with. He was a

Presbyterian Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their nam ...

, attending North Avenue Presbyterian Church, and a member of the

Free Masons Freemasonry or Masonry refers to fraternal organisations that trace their origins to the local guilds of stonemasons that, from the end of the 13th century, regulated the qualifications of stonemasons and their interaction with authorities ...

Death

Towards the end of his life, Venable became afflicted with various conditions, including cancer,

Alzheimer's disease Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegeneration, neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and progressively worsens. It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in short-term me ...

, and pneumonia. He died on January 18, 1993, at a nursing home in Lawrenceville, Georgia.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Venable, James R. 1901 births 1993 deaths American Ku Klux Klan members Christian radicals Stone Mountain 20th-century far-right politicians in the United States Ku Klux Klan in Georgia (U.S. state) Mayors of places in Georgia (U.S. state)