In an attempt to bolster the proposed appointment of U.S. District Judge Charles Pickering Sr. to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which is scheduled to be voted on this week by the Senate Judiciary Committee, his supporters are trying to soften his anti-Black image by depicting him as courageously standing up against the Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi.

That’s only part of the story. The other part is that Pickering’s opposition to the Klan, like that of many other powerful Whites in Laurel, Miss., was prompted by the KKK attacking members of the White establishment, not trampling on the rights of African-Americans.

Even the “Washington Post” praised Pickering in an editorial, saying “…he testified publicly against the Ku Klux Klan in the 1960s…as a young prosecutor, he aided the FBI’s efforts against the Klan.”

Significantly, it is Pickering, not his opponents, who keeps bringing up his decision to testify against the Klan. When Pickering was first considered for a federal judgeship in 1990, he cited that act to counter the NAACP’s opposition to his nomination.

In the Judiciary Committee’s first round of hearings last October to consider his elevation to the appeals level, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) questioned Pickering about affirmative action in higher education. Again, Pickering mentioned his anti-Klan testimony in an effort to portray himself as the equivalent of White Freedom Riders of that period who risked their lives by helping desegregate interstate travel in the Deep South.

Pickering served as County Attorney for Jones County in the mid-1960s. He had grown up in Laurel, Miss., the seat of Jones County and a hotbed of Klan activity. In fact, Sam Bowers, the head of the White Knights of the KKK, had his headquarters in Laurel.
Pickering and other members of the White establishment did not take on the Klan until they felt they were losing control of the city. The Klan had been implicated in a series of bombings, including the destruction of “Lauren Leader-Call” newspapers in May 1964, even though the paper supported racial segregation.

Most of the tensions at that time centered around the efforts of the Masonite Corp., a hardwood producer and the town’s largest employer, to comply with the 1964 Civil Rights Act. As the company and the union became more diverse, there was a corresponding increase in attacks on the union and the plant. There were two strikes, in 1964 and 1967, dynamite explosions, beatings and shooting into homes and cars.

According to the book, “Clear Burning,” written by Chet Dillard, who was the Laurel city attorney at he time, Pickering was serving as his Jones County counterpart, “…The violence had reached the proportion of a regular civil war, with the Masonite plant in a state of siege, because of the violence involved in striking and the Klanish activities.”

It was Henry Bucklew, the mayor of Laurel and a top official in segregationist Alabama Gov. George Wallace’s presidential campaign, who had rallied the White establishment to take on the Klan, mostly for safety and economic reasons. He was quoted in one 1966 news account: “I am a segregationist but I’m not a criminal. For that reason, I’m going to accept the law.”

A group of law enforcement officials, including Jones County Attorney Pickering, issued a statement expressing the same sentiment. According to “Clear Burning,” the statement read: “…While we believe in continuing our Southern way of life and realize that outside agitators have caused much turmoil and racial hatred, let there be no misunderstanding, we oppose such activities, but law and order must prevail.”

The reference to the “Southern way of life” was unmistakable: Racial segregation should be maintained. White Southerners of that period always blamed “outside agitators” for stirring up racial tensions, not their White supremacy views.

In March 1968, Sam Bowers, the Klan leader from Laurel, went on trial for the murder of civil rights activist Vernon Dahmer (Bowers’ first trial ended in a hung jury but he was later convicted). It was in that first trial that Pickering testified.

Defense Counsel: Do you know of Sam Bowers’ reputation in the community?

Pickering: Yes.

Defense Counsel: Is it good or bad?

Pickering: It’s bad.

Defense Counsel: Do you know that Sam Bowers teaches Sunday School?

Pickering: Yes.

Defense Counsel: Thank you. That will be all.

And that’s what we’re supposed to applaud Pickering for?

A more accurate reflection of Pickering’s views of the period was evidence of his support of the Sovereignty Commission, the state-funded agency that spied on civil rights leaders and compiled dossiers on activists. As a state senator, Pickering voted twice to appropriate state money to “defray the expenses” of the commission.

In 1990, Pickering testified at his Senate confirmation hearing, “…I never had any contact with the Sovereignty Commission.” However, commission documents released subsequently, painted a different picture. A staff memo dated, Jan. 5, 1972, noted that Pickering and two other state senators were “very interested” in a commission investigation into union activity at a Laurel, Miss., company, presumably Masonite. It said the senators had “requested to be advised of developments” to infiltrate the union and sought information on the union’s leader.

Regardless of how hard they may try, Pickering supporters can’t whitewash his White supremacy record.