Robert Shelton (Ku Klux Klan)

Shelton was a factory worker and a car-tire salesman.[1] He also owned a printing business, with an office on Union Boulevard.[1] In the late 1960s, Shelton ran for Police Commissioner in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He finished in fifth place.

Shelton served as the UKA leader starting in 1961,[1] which peaked with an estimated 30,000 members.[2] In 1966 Shelton received a year in prison and $1,000 fine for contempt of the United States Congress, "for refusing to turn over membership lists to the House Committee on Un-American Activities."[2]

In 1984, James Knowles, a UKA member of the UKA's Klavern 900 in Mobile, was convicted of the 1981 murder of Michael Donald.[3] At trial Knowles said he and Henry Hays killed Donald "in order to show Klan strength in Alabama."[3] In 1987, the Southern Poverty Law Center (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.[4] 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.[5] 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.[3]

In 1994, Shelton said, "The Klan is my belief, my religion. But it won't work anymore. The Klan is gone. Forever."[2]

Shelton died of a heart attack on March 17, 2003 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.[2]

• United Klans of America History
• Endnotes: Robert Shelton Biography
• Photos of Robert Shelton from the Moncrief Photograph Collection at the Mississippi Archives