The National Knights of the Ku Klux Klan is a Klan faction that has been in existence since November 1963. In the sixties, the National Knights were the main competitors against Robert Shelton's United Klans of America.[1]
The National Knights were founded by James R. Venable, a second generation Klansman whose family owned the property on Stone Mountain where the Second Era Ku Klux Klan was founded. Venable had been a member of a succession of Klans since 1927 by the late 1950s, when he had risen to the rank of Imperial Klonsel of the U.S. Klans. When that group began to be rent with factionalism in 1960, Venable joined the new United Klans of America, holding the Imperial Klonsel position there, as well as in the US Klans. On April 11, 1962, Venable founded the Defensive Legion of Registered Americans. July fourth of that year saw a joint rally of this organization with the UKA and the National White Americans Party at Stone Mountain. Originally charted for 35 years, the organization seems to have lapsed sometime in 1964.[2] Venable teamed up with Wally Butterworth to create a series of radio programs and phonograph records under the Defensive Legion label, as well as under the name Christian Voters and Buyers League. The radio program was eventually taken off the Atlanta radio station WJUN, but the records remained popular in white supremacist circles and were used as Klan recruitment tools. One of the issues that the phonograph records tried to popularize was the so-called kosher tax. Venable put up the money for the creation of these records himself, and even though some income was derived therefrom, the operation was a financial loss.[3][4]
Venable charted the National Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Inc. with the Secretary of State of Georgia on Nov. 1, 1963. The other incorporators were Wally Butterworth, also of Stone Mountain, Georgia, William Hugh Morris of Buchanan, Georgia and H.G.Hill of Atlanta.[5]
In 1964 the National Knights began to organize in Ohio, incorporating a realm on Oct. 25, 1964. Klaverns were established in Columbia, Cincinnati and Oregonia This was the first Klan presence in the state since 1944.[6][7] However, dissension arose and Grand Dragon Harvey Flynn was ousted in May 1964, going on to become Grand Dragon of a competing UKA realm.[8] Later, after the National Knights state charter was revoked, a new Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Inc. was founded in the state, led by veteran Alabama Klansmen Emperor William Morris Hughes, which may have acted as a front for the National Knights.[9]