Silver Dollar Group
{{short description|Ku Klux Klan organization}}
The Silver Dollar Group was an offshoot of the Ku Klux Klan white nationalist terrorist group, composed of cells that took up violent actions to support Klan goals. The group was largely found in Mississippi and Louisiana, and was named for their practice of identifying themselves by carrying a silver dollar. The group is believed to have had only some twenty members.{{cite book|title=The Ku Klux Klan and Related American Racialist and Antisemitic Organizations: A History and Analysis|author=Quarles, C.L.|date=1999|publisher=McFarland|isbn=9780786406470|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fhcnmDIQOW8C&pg=PA124|page=124|accessdate=January 6, 2016}} The group formed in 1964 at the Shamrock Motor Hotel in Vidalia, Louisiana by Raleigh Jackson "Red" Glover,[http://www.hannapub.com/concordiasentinel/frank_morris_murder/article_5d924188-4328-11e3-8269-001a4bcf6878.html Cold Case: James Ford Seale: A sheriff's election, nine deaths and a silver dollar] amidst dissatisfaction at the lack of forceful action by Klan groups in the region.
The group killed a black man, Frank Morris, by arson in Ferriday, Louisiana, and is suspected in two car bombings of NAACP leaders in Natchez, Mississippi, George Metcalfe and Wharlest Jackson.{{cite book|title=The FBI and the KKK: A Critical History|author=Newton, M.|date=2005|isbn=9781476605104|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YcOSCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA151|page=151|publisher=McFarland |accessdate=January 6, 2016}} Morris had a shoe repair shop in Ferriday, and died after his shoe repair shop was burned. The group is also suspected in the disappearance and murder of a black employee of the Shamrock Motel, Joseph Edwards. Some members of local law enforcement, including Concordia Parish Sheriff Department deputies Frank DeLaughter and Bill Ogden, were members of the Silver Dollar Group.[https://www.hannapub.com/concordiasentinel/frank_morris_murder/cold-case-who-killed-joseph-edwards-doj-names-suspects-closes-1964-case/article_71dc31ee-424c-11e3-848f-0019bb30f31a.html Cold Case: Who killed Joseph Edwards? DOJ names suspects; closes 1964 case]
2007 prosecution
In 2007, Silver Dollar Group member James Ford Seale was charged and convicted for the May 1964 kidnapping of Henry Hezekiah Dee and Charles Eddie Moore, two black young men in Meadville, Mississippi.{{Cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6298013.stm |title=Americas | US man in 1964 race attack charge |publisher=BBC News |date=January 25, 2007 |accessdate=February 13, 2011}}
References
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{{Ku Klux Klan}}
Category:1964 establishments in Louisiana
Category:Ku Klux Klan crimes in Mississippi
Category:Ku Klux Klan in Louisiana
Category:Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi
Category:Ku Klux Klan organizations
Category:Adams County, Mississippi
Category:Lynching in the United States
Category:Franklin County, Mississippi
Category:Organizations established in 1964
Category:Racially motivated violence against African Americans in Louisiana
Category:Racially motivated violence against African Americans in Mississippi