Sam Bowers Dies (Former KKK Imperial Wizard)

WJTV Jackson, MS ^ | Rovember 5, 2006 | WJTV

[MichiganConservative]

This might mobilize Dim voters, seeing as how the terrorist wing of the Democrat party has lost an important member.

[EveningStar]

So, what do you think? I think it looks pretty grim unless our people turn out Tuesday.

[Riverman94610]

"I bet he miscegenated many times"
Bet you're right.
I will never forget traveling through Beaumont,Texas in 1970 and meeting a black service station owner who was a musician part time.We struck up a conversation and he invited me to see his band play that night in a social club.Fantastic time,cool people.My first time in the South.
Anyway,after the show we drove across town to pick up his brother who worked as a bouncer in an after hours club.Man,we walked in there and did you know that inside there were NOTHING but well dressed white men moving and grooving with some of the FINEST black women I have ever seen in my life.Yet on the streets of Beaumont you saw NO mixed couples.
Found out later that those"secret"clubs were quite common in the South.I remember telling a class of black 12th Graders in New Orleans about my experience and they just yawned like,"tell us something we DON'T know,Mr. Riverman"

[onyx]

LOL ---- EXCELLENT, Chena!!!

[onyx]

About Tuesday?
I think we hold the House and Senate.

[EveningStar]

You know, a lot of people complain about the overreactions of Reconstruction. But if we hadn't ended it, we wouldn't be having this discussion now. We would be 90 years ahead.

[EveningStar]

I hope so. As long as we vote.

[kcvl]

Former Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan Samuel H. Bowers of Laurel, Miss., is escorted by lawmen from the Forrest County Courthouse, in Hattiesburg, Miss., in this Friday, Aug. 21,1998 file photo following his conviction on murder and arson charges stemming from the 1966 firebombing death of black Hattiesburg businessman Vernon Dahmer Sr. Bowers, who was serving a life sentence for the 1966 bombing death of the civil rights leader, died Sunday, Nov. 5, 2006 in a state penitentiary, officials said. He was 82.(AP Photo/Rogelio Solis, File)

KKK Byrd is probably deeply saddened.

[Chena]

Sorry I yelled though. Nah, no I'm not. LOL ;)

[ReignOfError]

Maybe he can say hi to Idi Amin and Pol Pot for me. I'm pretty sure they'll be in the same waiting room.

[onyx]

He was so full of himself. Absolutely sickening. I happened by chance earlier this year to meet a member of the Dahmer family. Nice, good people.

[onyx]

I loved your post! Bold font = Woo-Hoo!!!

[onyx]

With Saddam joining them soon.

[ReignOfError]

Why do you think there were so many black folk who could "pass?"

If you're a white person from any family that's been in the US for a few generations, and anyone asks you if you have any black relatives, the only honest answers are "yes" or "not that I know of."

[Chena]

LOL! Hey, you were there when I learned how to post in big 'n bold fonts. I was going to add color too but I didn't think Bowers deserved anything but BLACK. ;)

[onyx]

I was going to add color too but I didn't think Bowers deserved anything but BLACK. ;)

Exactly right! Black --- oh the irony.

[Riverman94610]

I noticed that in New Orleans.Many many different shades of"black",some of whom were lighter than many of the Italian kids I went to school with.

[ricks_place]

Ku Klux Klan Imperial Wizard Samuel H. Bowers
Registered Democrat circa. 1966

[HarleyLady27]

You beat me to it.....lol...maybe Byrd can be buried next to him in the KKK Cometary....

[onyx]

Sam Bowers
Sam Bowers was the imperial wizard of The White Knights of the Klu Klux Klan of Mississippi, a white supremacy organization that in 1964 included as many as 10,000 members.  It was Bowers who, in May, 1964, authorized "the elimination" of "Goatee," the Klan's name for Mickey Schwerner, the head of the CORE office in Meridian since January of that year. The murder was intended to send a message to northern civil rights workers to stay out of Mississippi.

Bowers, then a thirty-nine year old businessman from Laurel,  established the White Knights of the Klu Klux Klan in the fall of 1963.  He has been described as "typical of the semi-worldly, semi-literate" men who occupied leadership positions within the Klan.  Bowers was a Navy veteran who briefly attended college, then became a partner in Sambo Amusements, a jukebox and vending machine business.  He was known for his white supremacy, anti-Supreme Court views, a passion for guns and explosives, and "a swastika fetish."

By June of 1964, membership in the White Knights of the Klu Klux Klan of Mississippi was estimated at 10,000.  Serving under Bowers were exalted cyclopses (chapter presidents), leagles, kaliffs, kligraphs, klabees, kludds, klaregos, klexters, and klapeers, not to mention many well-armed tactical squads.  The Lauderdale County (Meridian) chapter, or klavern as the Klan called it, grew tremendously following the arrival in January of Mickey and Rita Schwerner to head a new office of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE).   In a May meeting at a restaurant in Laurel, Bowers announced that Schwerner was "a thorn in the side of everyone living, especially white people" and that he "should be taken care of."

Evidence in the Mississippi Burning trial indicated that Bowers played a lead role in planning the killings.  Delmar Dennis testified that Bowers had overseen the entire operation.  Bowers was quoted as saying after the murders that "It was the first time that Christians had planned and carried out the execution of a Jew."   Bowers was found guilty and served his sentence in Washington state.  After his release from prison, he resumed his management of Sambo Amusements in Laurel.

Bowers was also charged with ordering the 1966 murder of civil rights activist Vernon Dahmer,  Dahmer had earned the Klan's enmity by allowing his store to be used by blacks to pay the $2 poll tax necessary to register to vote. Dahmer was killed on January 10, 1966 in a firebombing of his home in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.  After four previous trials had ended in deadlocks, Bowers was finally convicted in August, 1998, over thirty-two years after the killing, by a jury of six blacks, one Asian-American and five whites.  He was sentenced to life in prison.

Mississippi Burning Trial