Macedonia Baptist Church v. Christian Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, et al.
"The Church Arson Trial"
Klan Grand Dragon challenged with own words as he denies encouraging violence
MANNING, SOUTH CAROLINA, July 21 (Court TV) -- Despite being shown a video in which he threatened to "burn niggers out of South Carolina," Horace King, the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan in South Carolina, denied on the stand that he ever encouraged his Klan members to burn black churches or commit other acts of violence against blacks.
King was one of 10 witnesses called to the stand by plaintiff attorney Morris Dees. Officials of the Macedonia Baptist Church believe that King's speeches encouraged his followers to burn black churches. This, the plaintiffs believe, inspired four of his Klansmen to burn down the Macedonia Baptist Church in 1995, and they believe King and the Klan as a whole should be found liable for damages in the church fire. King and the Klan say the four Klan members decided to burn down the church on their own.
During direct examination, King was shown a videotape of a Klan rally in Washington, D.C. in which he referred to blacks as "bastards" who needed to be burned out of South Carolina. "If we had this garbage in South Carolina, we would burn the bastards or run them out of town," King said on the tape.
Another tape admitted at trial showed King at a Klan rally near the Macedonia baptist Church approximately two weeks before the blaze. Here, King referred to the United States as "a white man's country" and said that blacks needed to be sent back to Africa on a rowboat.
Despite this damaging evidence, King repeatedly denied encouraging violence against blacks to his followers. He said that he only told his fellow Klansmen that they should be prepared to arm themselves in self-defense during a race war.
Dees, however, continued to undermine King's testimony by calling some of his former followers, including Gary Cox, one of the Klan members who pleaded guilty to setting the fire that destroyed the Macedonia Baptist Church. Cox, who is now in the Federal Witness Protection Program, testified that King not only condoned violent actions against blacks but inspired them. Cox said that during a Klan rally, members were encouraged to beat up blacks whenever they saw them walking down a street and no one was around.
That next weekend, Cox said, he and his friends beat up a black man they saw while returning from a fishing trip. They stopped the black man on the side of a road, beat him up, and stabbed him. Cox said he did not care about his actions; he was following King's instructions, saying, "I did it for my organization."
"I normally wouldn't have done something like that," Cox said. "Where I grew up in Virginia, some of my best friends were black people."
Timothy Welch, another former Klansmen who admitted to the church burning, testified that King agreed with others to burn a church at a Clarendon Klan rally. According to Welch, King told him and his Klan brothers that "we wouldn't spend any time in jail."
Another witness, Clayton Spires, testified that King suggested the idea to shoot up a local black nighclub in 1996 in which three blacks were killed.
During cross-examination by defense attorney Gary White, Cox and Welch denied that the Klan placed heavy emphasis on Christian values. Welch said that the group used the Bible to say that blacks and Jews were not human. He also denied telling a fellow member that Klan was "a bunch of old men who just sat around and talked and did nothing."
Officials from the Macedonia Baptist Church were also called to the stand, and they testified that less than a month before the fire, a Klan poster was tacked to the church's door. The poster, which advertised an upcoming Klan rally, depicted a skull and cross-bones and a picture of a hooded Klansman. The officials said it cost $200,000 to rebuild the church.
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