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 Cat ...

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 o ...

. 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

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 Bicameralism, bicameral, composed of a lower body, the United States House of Representatives, House of Representatives, and an upper body, ...

, "for refusing to turn over membership lists to the House Committee on Un-American Activities." In 1984, James Knowles, a UKA member of the UKA's Klavern 900 in Mobile, was convicted of the 1981 murder of Michael Donald. 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 ...

(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 ma ...

on March 17, 2003, in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

References

External links

United Klans of America History

Endnotes: Robert Shelton Biography

Photos 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