Robert Marvin Shelton (June 12, 1929 – March 17, 2003) was a former car-tire salesman and printer who became nationally famous as the Imperial Wizard of
United Klans of America
The United Klans of America Inc. (UKA), based in Alabama, is a Ku Klux Klan organization active in the United States. Led by Robert Shelton, the UKA peaked in membership in the late 1960s and 1970s,Abby Ferber. '' White Man Falling: Race, Gender, ...
(UKA), a
Ku Klux Klan
The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and ...
group.
Career and KKK activities
Shelton was a factory worker and a car-tire salesman.
He also owned a printing business, with an office on Union Boulevard.
In the late 1960s, Shelton ran for Police Commissioner in
Tuscaloosa, Alabama
Tuscaloosa ( ) is a city in and the seat of Tuscaloosa County in west-central Alabama, United States, on the Black Warrior River where the Gulf Coastal and Piedmont plains meet. Alabama's fifth-largest city, it had an estimated population of 1 ...
. He finished in fifth place.
Following the death of Imperial Wizard
Eldon Edwards
Eldon Lee Edwards (June 8, 1909 – August 1, 1960) was an American Ku Klux Klan leader.
Biography
Edwards was an automobile paint sprayer from Atlanta, Georgia, and rebuilt the Klan beginning in 1953. In his book ''The Informant: The FBI, the ...
, the original KKK organization began to fracture during the leadership of Imperial Wizard
Roy Davis during the 1960s. Shelton started a new KKK organization, the
United Klans of America
The United Klans of America Inc. (UKA), based in Alabama, is a Ku Klux Klan organization active in the United States. Led by Robert Shelton, the UKA peaked in membership in the late 1960s and 1970s,Abby Ferber. '' White Man Falling: Race, Gender, ...
in an effort to unite the various KKK factions, and served as the UKA leader starting in 1961.
which peaked with an estimated 30,000 members.
By 1965, Shelton's organization had outgrown the other KKK factions to become the largest in the United States, according to the FBI. In 1966 Shelton received a year in prison and $1,000 fine for contempt of the
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washing ...
, "for refusing to turn over membership lists to the
House Committee on Un-American Activities
The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), popularly dubbed the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives, created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloy ...
."
In 1984, James Knowles, a UKA member of the UKA's Klavern 900 in Mobile, was convicted of the 1981 murder of
Michael Donald
The lynching of Michael Donald in Mobile, Alabama, on March 21, 1981, was one of the last reported lynchings in the United States. Several Ku Klux Klan (KKK) members beat and killed Michael Donald, a 19-year-old African-American, and hung his ...
.
At trial Knowles said he and Henry Hays killed Donald "in order to show Klan strength in Alabama."
In 1987, the
Southern Poverty Law Center
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit legal advocacy organization specializing in civil rights and public interest litigation. Based in Montgomery, Alabama, it is known for its legal cases against white su ...
(SPLC) brought a civil case, on behalf of the victim's family, against the United Klans of America for being responsible in the lynching of Donald, a 19-year-old black man.
Unable to come up with the $7 million awarded by a jury, the UKA was forced to turn over its national headquarters to Donald's mother, who then sold it.
Morris Dees
Morris Seligman Dees Jr. (born December 16, 1936) is an American attorney known as the co-founder and former chief trial counsel for the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), based in Montgomery, Alabama. He ran a direct marketing firm before fou ...
and Steve Fiffer. ''Hate on Trial: The Case Against America's Most Dangerous Neo-Nazi''. Villard Books, 1993. page 11 During the civil trial Knowles said he was "carrying out the orders" of Bennie Jack Hays,
Henry Hays' father and a long-time Shelton lieutenant.
In 1994, Shelton said, "The Klan is my belief, my religion. But it won't work anymore. The Klan is gone. Forever."
Death
Shelton died of a
heart attack
A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when blood flow decreases or stops to the coronary artery of the heart, causing damage to the heart muscle. The most common symptom is chest pain or discomfort which may tr ...
on March 17, 2003, in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
References
External links
United Klans of America HistoryEndnotes: Robert Shelton BiographyPhotos of Robert Shelton from the Moncrief Photograph Collection at the Mississippi Archives
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shelton, Robert
1929 births
2003 deaths
People from Tuscaloosa, Alabama
Leaders of the Ku Klux Klan
Activists from Alabama