United Klans of America in Milford

The first place I went when I read in the Connecticut Post that the United Klans of America had leafleted in Milford was the Southern Poverty Law Center. The SPLC is, in my opinion, the best tracker of hate groups. 

And, I was surprised to find that the SPLC does not have an entry in its "intelligence report" for the UKA. But, I did find this, which basically says that the UKA died in the 1980s after the SPLC sued it on behalf of a victim of the group's actions. Here's their summary of Donald vs. United Klans of America:

"Nineteen-year-old Michael Donald was on his way to the store in 1981 when two members of the United Klans of America abducted him, beat him, cut his throat and hung his body from a tree on a residential street in Mobile, Ala. 

Angry that an interracial jury had failed to convict another black man for killing a white police officer in Birmingham, the Klansmen selected Michael Donald at random and lynched him to intimidate and threaten other blacks. On the same evening, other Klan members burned a cross on the Mobile County courthouse lawn. 

The two Klansmen who carried out the ritualistic killing were eventually arrested and convicted. Convinced that the Klan itself should be held responsible for the lynching, Center attorneys filed a civil suit on behalf of Donald's mother, Beulah Mae Donald vs. United Klans. In 1987, the Center won an historic $7 million verdict against the men involved in the lynching. 

The verdict marked the end of the United Klans, the same group that had beaten the Freedom Riders in 1961, murdered civil rights worker Viola Liuzzo in 1965, and bombed Birmingham's 16th Street Baptist Church in 1963. 

The group was forced to turn over its headquarters to Beulah Mae Donald, and two additional Klansmen were convicted of criminal charges."

Obviously, anyone can up and call themselves anything. But one of the questions I'll be seeking to answer today is what this group is and how it relates to the former United Klans of America. Check the New Haven Register's website for more on this story.

This isn't the first time Milford has been linked to a white supremacist group. In 2010, a local member of the White Wolves was indicted on federal weapons charges.