(actual episode page)

Daniel:

Alright and Welcome to I Don't Speak German, episode 31. 1

Since again you're hearing my voice first it means Jack is not joining us today. He has better things to do apparently, being on the other side of an ocean from me. 2

Anyway, I do have a very special guest, I believe the first time this person has ever appeared on a podcast. I am joined by Betsy Phillips. Betsy, say hello. 3

Betsy:

Hello! It's actually the second time I'm on a podcast, but I'm still very new to it. [laughs] 4

Daniel:

Well, that means we can't do this then, alright... 5

Betsy:

Aw, it's canceled, oh no! [laughs] 6

Daniel:

No, thank you very much for joining us. And we're going to be talking about, Betsy – sorry, may I call you Betsy? 7

Betsy:

Yes please. 8

Daniel:

Betsy here has written a book entitled Dynamite Nashville, which will also be the title of this podcast, which is going to cause all kinds of either SEO goodness or immense confusion among the people who would either listen to this podcast or read the book. And we will find out which when the book is released. 9

But – the book is about – it's a book about the Klan and history and Tennessee and Nashville and bombings and really awful people. And you and I were kind of talking about it just on Twitter DMs and it seemed like, yeah, you should definitely come on and chat about this. 10

So... just for the listeners who have not read the draft of the book as I have: can you tell us what the book is about? 11

Betsy:

Sure. So it's called Dynamite Nashville: The KKK, the FBI and the Bombers Beyond Their Control. And it's about three unsolved bombings here in Nashville: Hattie Cotton Elementary School in the fall of 57, the Jewish Community Center in the spring of 58, and then Councilman Z Alexander Looby's house in April of 1960. And those three bombings remain unsolved. 12

So I, three years ago, set out to solve them. And because I thought it would be like Birmingham, where everybody knew, they just never brought it to court. So I just was like, I just need to fall into the circle of gossip and this will all become clear. 13

Except for that I couldn't find the right circle of gossip. 14

Like it really, genuinely seemed like nobody knew. 15

And the other weird thing is that nobody had connected the three bombings. So the city was treating it as if, like, we just had three random bombings and then they stopped. But they never, like, went back to suspects from the first bombing, like during the second or third bombing. It was very weird. 16

So I started digging into it, and I had a friend tell me, contact the FBI right now. Do all your FOIA requests, anything you can think of, right now, because they will never get back to you. Or when they do get back to you they're going to stonewall you. Like, you need to start the ball rolling right now. 17

So I did my FOIA requests and they told me they'd destroyed the file on the Looby bombing. And I was like, isn't this a sitting US politician who somebody tried to kill by blowing up his house. Why would you ever get rid of that file. Like, of all of the files you'd think the FBI would keep, that would be one. And so that kind of started me down the rabbit hole of, oh no, what's really going on here. Like, did you just – you know, it was just that clue that something wasn't right. And then, when I got down to Birmingham to dig in their archives, it was like, oh, okay, because JB Stoner's down here bragging to everybody here, like, here's the gossip circle I was missing. 18

Daniel:

Right. 19

Betsy:

And I was like, oh, it's no real mystery to anybody down here because he's like here is how I did it, here is how I set up my terror cells, and here is how I keep them from getting caught, and if they do get caught, well I have a law degree, so I'll go ahead and, you know, represent them. It's like – 20

Daniel:

[laughs] 21

Betsy:

It's like this – I mean I think I told you on Twitter he's like a Batman villain. Where you just – normally, if you just, like, you'd think of a bad guy was like, hey everybody, here is how I do things. Here is how I accomplish them. At some point, somebody would be like, thank you for confessing. Here are your handcuffs. But instead he's just like, running around. I mean, he started bombing things probably in 56 or 57. And he didn't go to prison until the 80s. 22

Daniel:

Right. 23

Betsy:

And even then it was like for two seconds. Well, not two seconds. But it wasn't very long. 24

Daniel:

Right [laughs] Yeah, we're allowed to do hyperbole here, although that does mean that every other fact that we stated on the podcast is therefore suspect and wrong. 25

Betsy:

Right. Utterly false. 26

Daniel:

Utterly false. You know. I once got the link to David Duke's audio book wrong and it means nothing else on this podcast – you don't have to pay any attention to it. It's fine, you know. 27

So yeah, let's... 28

Betsy:

I was going to say – I mean, this is one of the things that – like, I've listened religiously to your podcast because I'm like, this is exactly – like nothing has changed. You could just go in and like change names and it would be the exact same story. So I was like man, this is really fascinating. To like be sitting there looking at stuff from the 1950s forward and then listening to your podcast and it's like, oh wow, this is – these are all, you know, like – I'm studying like the intellectual grandparents of the guys you're studying. 29

Daniel:

Right, exactly. I was reading the book and just kind of – just got that nod of recognition. Like, yup... yup... yup... over and over again. Yeah that sounds familiar. You know, these are a bunch of like, you know, racist dipshits who can't get along for more than fifteen minutes, but in that fifteen minutes they manage to do some really awful things. 30

Betsy:

Yes! Exactly. 31

Daniel:

So yeah... 32

Betsy:

[incomprehensible 06:37] like other – like wife fucking, like... 33

Daniel:

[laughs] 34

Betsy:

I genuinely – this is the part that I'm still like – how do you have time, you got to get up in the morning, fuck three other guys' wives, have lunch, bomb a school, complain about Jews, like – I mean at least I guess because David Duke does have his nutritional regiment, like I can see how he keeps up the energy, but like [laughs] everybody else, how do you have the time for this? 35

Daniel:

Have you read Zeskind's Blood and Politics? I would assume you're at least familiar with the book? 36

Betsy:

Yes. Yeah. 37

Daniel:

Okay, yeah, no, one of the delights of that book is just the amount of sleeping around that David Duke is just obviously doing all the time. And just how, like, matter of fact Zeskind is about it. You know, like, yeah, he just stepped out of this woman's hotel room, and it's like personal observation. It's one of the really delightful things, delightful I guess for me reading about it, kind of going yeah, that's the side of David Duke that he doesn't quite like to portrait quite as openly, but... 38

So yeah, let's back up just a little bit. As much fun as I'm having, the audience might like a little bit of background info. So... let's start out... tell me about Looby. Who was Looby? 39

Betsy:

Okay. So, Z Alexander Looby was an African American lawyer in Tennessee. And for most of the first half of the 20th century he was the only civil rights attorney in the state. 40

So every advance that black people made in the state, he was usually – he was involved in. He was the – one of the lawyers for the families who desegregated Clinton, Tennessee. He worked on the desegregation of Oak Ridge. He worked on the Nashville desegregation. 41

If you've ever heard of the Columbia race riots, he was the defense attorney of the black people who were arrested during those riots. 42

And then in 1951, he was elected to the city council. 43

So... and, by the time his house was bombed, he was also the lawyer for the kids who were doing the sit-ins downtown. 44

Daniel:

Right. 45

Betsy:

So... a really prominent, important person. Also one of the leaders of the NAACP. So, like, I'm trying to think how people – well, for instance, whenever he did these cases and the NAACP was involved, he was regularly, you know, like, working with national-level attorneys – like, I'm drawing a blank on his name – Thurgood Marshall! 46

Daniel:

Oh yes, yes. 47

Betsy:

And then was Looby like expanded his practice, Marshall's cousin came to work for him. Evan Williams. So you know he's got these really prominent ties to the civil rights movement. But interestingly enough, because he's so much older than the kids who were involved in the civil rights movement, he really thought what they doing – he thought what they were doing was necessary but he thought how they were doing it was stupid. 48

But he still would show up for them. You know, even when he – like, I went and read his papers – his papers are all at Fisk University – and I'm reading through and he's like complaining, basically kids today, they just go and [incomprehensible 10:28] they just should be trying – should do it this way or whatever. But I really appreciated that about him, that even as much as he disagreed with them or their tactics, he was still like, but I'm going to go, I'm going to show up for them, they need me, so that's what I'm going to go do. 49

Daniel:

Well, in reading about the history of the civil rights era and kind of getting past the sort of hagiography level of this stuff, you find that – the Twitter beefs, the lefty Twitter beefs, and the sort of arguments that we have about – what kinds of tactics are most effective. This was – this is in no way unique, as well. 50

We are also still circling the same arguments over and over again. Because, you know, people kind of hold up Martin Luther King as the kind of nonviolent resistance guy, but it's like, that's mostly a tactic. And there were plenty of people who disagreed with him. And even the arguments about – we put the white kids answering the phones because they're going to be better at getting money out of people, but also that disempowers the African American kids who are involved in it. All those kinds of debates – we've been having those since the beginning of the civil rights era and, I'm sure, long long before that. 51

You know, there is something with that. I'm wondering – just in your opinion, what do you think – you know, I've revealed this on this podcast: I grew up in Alabama, so I feel like – we think of the civil rights era, we think of Alabama, Mississippi, slightly less in Georgia. But Tennessee gets a little bit overlooked in terms of these kinds of discussions. And I'm wondering if you have any kind of opinions about why that might be, or even if you – I mean, do you agree with that, or... 52

Betsy:

Oh, no, I completely agree. And I think – you know, it's interesting because we had the earliest desegregation in the South. In terms of schools. And there were huge protests. And like in the case of Nashville there were these bombings. 53

But I think that Nashville made a really concerted effort, even during the time of the civil rights movement, to portrait themselves as, well, we're doing it right. We're not like Birmingham, where they're all these violent yahoos. Our black kids are nice, they just took a walk downtown and asked for desegregation and we gave it to them and like nobody really had a problem at any of the schools, like, just historically watching the way that they've kind of smoothed over everything. And I think also because no-one here died, frankly. 54

Daniel:

Right. 55

Betsy:

So it's like, you know, there's not that kind of like unsolved tragedy. But like I argue in my book, it's only because the bombers weren't good enough yet to kill people. [laughs] 56

Daniel:

Right. 57

Betsy:

It wasn't because they weren't trying. 58

Daniel:

And it's also, it's like – the nazis today, you know, they'll sort of make the argument, oh, lynching only killed a few thousand people over like so many decades. And you know, this is really kind of a minor thing. But it's like, okay, you killed one and terrorized a thousand. 59

Betsy:

Exactly. 60

Daniel:

That's the point of lynching. That's the way it works. 61

Betsy:

Right. 62

Daniel:

And so, you bomb one house or one prominent person, you know, you bomb one place, with the goal of putting every other place that could be targeted by that and – I guess this is the way to kind of get into Stoner himself, who... 63

You know, as someone who – I don't have – I know the name, obviously, and I run across it occasionally. He's not much talked about in terms of, you know, the people I follow. I mean he's really never mentioned except occasionally you see it some of the Identity Dixie guys who kind of bring up Stoner. 64

But your book kind of argues that he's in many way equal in importance to even like George Lincoln Rockwell. And I – it really kind of perks my ears up to kind of give him a lot more attention. I'm hoping to read a lot more about him in the near future. Why don't you lay that argument out, or kind of tell us who JB Stoner is. Basically I just want to summarize the book in this podcast so that no-one has to read it. 65

Betsy:

Right, exactly. 66

Daniel:

No, no, not at all, not at all. 67

Betsy:

No problem. 68

So... Stoner is an interesting guy. I think he's really fascinating in part because he's been so forgotten, whereas like – he's like a one-man Behind the Bastards episode. 69

Daniel:

[laughs] 70

Besty: So, we was born... 71

Daniel:

Be careful, Robert Evans is going to steal your thunder. He's going to listen to this – [laughs] 72

Betsy:

Well good, because he's going to know who all like – like looking through this stuff I'm like, some of these names I know are important but I don't know like how big a resonance they're going to have. But I think Robert Evans is going to be like, oh wait, holy shit, what? So this part was just me – dedicated to Robert and his knowledge of these old racists. 73

So,. Stoner was born in 1924 in Stone Mountain, Georgia... 74

Daniel:

Stone Mountain, Georgia, has its own particular resonance with this audience... 75

Betsy:

Oh, I'm sorry. Not Stone Mountain, Georgia. Lookout Mountain, Georgia, which... 76

Daniel:

Okay. Just restate the sentence then, it's fine. 77

Betsy:

His – he had polio when he was a kid, and his dad died when he was really young. And his uncle, who was the police chief of the town and the fire chief of the town, kind of took it over as like his father figure. So by 1940, Stoner was corresponding with the Nazi propagandist, Lord Haw-Haw. They were pen pals, which is – you know, like straight-up Nazi shit right there. 78

Daniel:

Right, right. 79

Betsy:

I don't have a Nazi pen pal, uhm... 80

Daniel:

Well, I'd like to say that I don't, but I have enough of them in my Twitter DMs that I probably do have Nazi pen pals at this point. But that's not because I'm friends with them. 81

Betsy:

Right. 82

Daniel:

That's not a, you know – that's not because I agree with them, let's put it that way. 83

Betsy:

Right. 84

So, Haw-Haw mentions Stoner on his radio show. And he says, young Mister Stoner, you are a brave lad, I will try to see it that you get the services of a German surgeon when the war is over. To help, you know, fix his polio issues. Because he has one leg that's like a lot shorter than the other. 85

Daniel:

He's like 16 at this point, right? 86

Betsy:

Yes. He's 16. But also, like, to me the funny part, like, in a cringy way, is that this is like the height of the Nazi's T4 program, where they're killing sick and disabled children. So, like, it was secret but it was like an open secret, right. People knew that was going on in Germany. So it's like – I wonder – I think, to Stoner I think this was life-changing. Like that he felt like these Nazis care about me, I'm going to devote my life to it. And I think that Haw-Haw was – like I think his audience in Germany would have been like, yeah, we're going to take care of the American, ha ha. You know, like... 87

Daniel:

That's interesting that, like, Haw-Haw's audience is literally like, yeah, fuck that American kind. Well, you know, so many – I mean, so many times you find these guys who kind of get into this as teenagers because they find, you know, validation or they find a community or they find a father figure or whatever. I mean, that's... 88

Betsy:

Right. 89

Daniel:

I mean even David Duke, I mean – he met William Luther Pierce when he was I think 17... 90

Betsy:

Right. 91

Daniel:

…or something similar. James Mason was like – wrote to, again, Pierce and was like, I'm going to shoot up a school. [Pierce's reply:] Oh no, maybe just join the movement instead. There's a definite parallel there – patterns repeating over again. 92

Sorry, please continue. 93

Betsy:

So... in 41, Stoner is a member of the America First Committee and if that sounds familiar, that's because that's the group supported by William Regnery, and Charles Lindbergh was like their public spokesperson. So again, like, he's in these nazi groups already. 94

Daniel:

I think Regnery's son or grandson is still – still runs Regnery Publishing... 95

Betsy:

Yes. 96

Daniel:

...and was one of the major funders of the NPI, the National Policy Institute, which is run by Richard Spencer. 97

Betsy:

Right. 98

Daniel:

Again, [laughs] it's not like this shit goes away, right? 99

Betsy:

Right. 100

Daniel:

So we're just drawing connections here, we're just... 101

Betsy:

Nope. 102

Daniel:

...trying to make sure that, like, it's very clear that, like – there's a very clear through-line through all of this. None of this is new. 103

Betsy:

Exactly! Exactly. 104

So in 42, Stoner at the least joins the Klan. But most sources say that he recharters the Klan in Chattanooga. So he is 17, 18 at the time. In 46... 105

Daniel:

A whipper-snapper, right? [laughs] 106

Betsy:

[laughs] Right! In 46... 107

Daniel:

A precocious little tyke, you know. 108

Betsy:

[laughs] I know! I know! 109

In 46 he starts the Stoner Anti-Jewish Party. Which was his political party, that was based on, you know, being anti Jewish. And that's how he meets Ed Fields, who is like the peanut butter to his jelly, or vice versa. But from here on out, for the rest of Stoner's life, they're inseparable. If one of them is doing something, the other is nearby. 110

Daniel:

And... there is some implication, if I remember this correctly, that they're maybe something more than just a professional relationship going on between these two? 111

Betsy:

Right. Fields slept, as far as I can tell, with everyone. Like, you might not have realized it if you were alive back then, but if you had a hole he could stick something in, he did it. 112

Daniel:

[laughs] 113

Betsy:

Male or female. But I never – as much as people claimed Stoner was a womanizer, I never found any evidence of that. But regularly – like when he would go visit Ed, they slept together. Like, in the same bed. And while they were complaining about how gay Hoover was. 114

Daniel:

[chuckles] 115

Betsy:

But I found this really – I didn't include it in the book because it wasn't really applicable, but – they're at the National States Rights Party meeting in Louisville. And they were like fifty people at the meeting, and fife of them were FBI informants. So, like, ten percent of the people at the meeting are FBI informants. 116

And all of the FBI informants are talking about this weird event that happens where they all go over to Fields' house and his quote-unquote niece is there, and she is furious. And no-one actually believes this is his niece. But it's clearly also not his wife. 117

And she is angry and drunk and trying to fist-fight Stoner. And finally it's like so bad that they have call her dad to come get her, which... [laughs] 118

Daniel:

[laughs] 119

Betsy:

But apparently the reason that she was pissed off, as finally comes out – like one of the informants was at the event long enough to figure it out what the problem was – is that when Stoner would show up at Fields' house, she had to sleep on the couch, so that Stoner and Fields could sleep together. 120

Daniel:

Ohhh, welll, you know.... 121

Betsy:

I guess, you... But I'm the mistress! 122

Daniel:

Mistress outranks gay lover, right? 123

Betsy:

Right? 124

Daniel:

At least in – you know, I just love the idea that, you know, your parents have to come pick you up from Nazi camp, like, that's just.... [laughs] 125

Betsy:

[laughs] I know! 126

Daniel:

I do not want to play that game of capture the flag, personally... 127

Betsy:

[laughs] Like, try to imagine this guy having to come get his poor – his daughter. This is just not a proud moment. 128

Daniel:

Again, you know, just one more way that the patriarchy is going to fuck with these people and – well, I think we'll to get to that towards the end of this podcast. And other, various specific answers to that. But, so yeah... Stoner and Fields meet up and hook up and do whatever they do... 129

Betsy:

Right. 130

Daniel:

I mean, the sexual peccadillos aside, you know, whatever... we're more interested in the fact that they're nazis. So we should – we should move after that. 131

Betsy:

They're... friends who support each other. Let's... so.... 132

Daniel:

We love the friendship, we don't like the bombings. 133

Betsy:

Right. 134

So... Ed Fields is living in Atlanta. He becomes a Columbian. So, that's a racist group in Atlanta, famous for blowing up a black person's house and getting in a fist fight with a different black person before Atlanta was like, okay, you guys are stupid, that has to stop. 135

But in the Columbians was also Emory Burke. And his name is going to come back up because he was, like, this – like, he wasn't just in the Columbians, he was the leader of the Columbians. And then goes on – for the rest of his life, he's like right-wing – kind of like the Godfather of the right wing. He's like constantly supporting people and giving them his blessing and then – also giving boring speeches. [laughs] 136

Daniel:

[laughs] Right. 137

Betsy:

So, [in] 1948 Stoner runs for Congress as the Stoner Anti-Jewish candidate. I don't know how you would, like, make that into an adjective. And he receives 541 votes. So good for Georgia for, like, not turning out for that. And then he gets kicked out of the Klan. 138

Daniel:

[laughs] 139

Betsy:

Because of his anti-Jewish activities. 140

Daniel:

Right. 141

Betsy:

Which... at first I was like, whaaat. But then I looked into it, you know, I studied this more because I was like, why would the Klan have problems with somebody being anti-Jewish? But right at this time, in 48, 49, Klan leaders are by and large World War II veterans. 142

Daniel:

Right. 143

Betsy:

So the last thing that they want to be associated with are Nazis. Because they've just fought the Nazis and the Nazis have killed their friends. So... 144

Daniel:

Yeah, that's one of the things that we kind of ran across in the David Duke episode that we did. In episode 2 was, you know, the idea that, like – and I get this claim from Zeskind, there are other sources for it, but that – Duke, like, nazified the Klan. But it's probably more accurate to say that Duke re-nazified the Klan, ultimately. 145

Betsy:

Right. Right. 146

Daniel:

And of course there are many different Klans and they had different kind of organizational structures but – you know, the Klan is not always throughout its history as deeply anti-Semitic. At times it's downright, you know, welcoming to, well, maybe not welcoming, but at least... 147

Betsy:

Well, to that one Jew in Georgia that they kept turning to, like – all throughout the 50s, in all their propaganda, there's like – Everyone is welcome in the Klan! There is even a Jewish Klan member in Georgia! And I'm like, he's like the Bigfoot of this book. 148

Daniel:

[laughs] 149

Betsy:

Like, everyone claims to have seen him but nobody can like nail down exactly who he is, or get a picture of him. [laughs] 150

Daniel:

No, and I guarantee you the nazis listening to this – because, again, there are nazis listening to this – they're going to – they're basically going to respond to that and be like, "well, that is just a sign the Klan was always controlled by them and, you, it's ultimately..." – et cetera et cetera. Anyway.... 151

Betsy:

Right. 152

Daniel:

We should... So, yeah... 153

Betsy:

But... so, Stoner believed – the specific conspiracy theory that Stoner believed was that Jews ran black people. 154

Daniel:

Right. 155

Betsy:

So if you could kill of the Jews, black people would, like, go back to being happy and subservient. 156

Daniel:

Right. You see this again – today, I mean, and this is very, very common among the people that – African Americans and other non-white people are the pets of, you know, both white liberals, and white leftists, and the Jews, ultimately. 157

You know, you get rid of the Jewish problem and, you know, it's not that the blacks, quote-unquote, the blacks will stop being violent, as much as you can kind of put them off and their segregated areas and they just – they won't be so much of a problem because they won't get uppity and demanding their rights and all that sort of thing... 158

Betsy:

Exactly. 159

Daniel:

So, yeah... 160

Betsy:

Exactly. 161

Daniel:

Again, wheels within wheels here. [laughs] 162

Betsy:

Right. And one of the things that Stoner did on – he and John Kasper both did this but they both seem to have started it kind of on their own, so... they may have been influenced by somebody further back who I just don't know about, but... 163

So they start making this argument that Jews are secret communists., right? So opposing Jews doesn't make you a nazi, it makes you a good American standing up against The Reds. 164

Daniel:

Right. 165

Betsy:

So... But you can pretty easily trace Stoner's influence on Southern Klans by who is openly and, like, virulently anti-Semitic. That's like a huge flag of Stoner's influence. Because that was his hobbyhorse. 166

Daniel:

It's like the meme. You just track the meme through the Klans. 167

Betsy:

Yes! 168

So by 1949 Stoner is back in the Klan. So that was like short-lived. Which then pissed – I think Samuel Green was the leader of the Klan, like, of what would become the UKA. So he got so pissed by this that he kicked Chattanooga's Klavern 317 out of the Klan. The whole Klavern. Which is pretty impressive. 169

Daniel:

Right. 170

Betsy:

Um... 171

Daniel:

How many people are we talking about? 172

Betsy:

You know, it's funny because they claimed hundreds, but I've... 173

Daniel:

More like dozens. 174

Betsy:

Yeah. Yeah. 175

And then the Klan let them back in once Stoner moved to Atlanta. So it was really clearly just about purging Stoner from this one Klavern. 176

Daniel:

Right. 177

Betsy:

So... But at this time, in 1950, is when Stoner pops up on the FBI's radar for real. And they're asking around town about him, and he, because he is a campy Batman villain, just shows up at the Chattanooga field office and tells them his backstory. 178

Daniel:

[laughs] 179

Betsy:

And, like, I'm reading through that... 180

Daniel:

Did he start – does the file start with, "We're not so different, you and I". 181

Betsy:

Right. [laughs] Just like you can tell the – the poor agent like writing the report is like, what the fuck? Because you know, when you're pursuing people, you're not really used to them, like, knock knock knock, here I am. And you know, and he is – admits everything, like yes, I'm an anti-Semite, I'm in this group, I'm in that group, I did this. And then he's like, what are you going to do about it? And the guy is like, uhm, nothing, I guess? 182

Daniel:

[laughs] 183

Betsy:

So off he goes, to Atlanta, where he and Emmet O'Neil Morris start the Christian Anti-Jewish Party, which is, as you might guess, very similar to the Stoner Anti-Jewish Party. Except for, I guess, that you need to be Christian. 184

Daniel:

Right. 185

Betsy:

So the members that we know of for sure were Ed Fields, of course, and Richard and Robert Bowling, who, like, go around the South blowing everything up later. So this is like the first moment that we kind of know that they're on the scene, these two brothers. 186

And people I suspect may have belonged are Emory Burke, who was in the Columbians with Fields. Wallace Allen and George Bright, who were both suspects in the Atlanta Temple Bombing in 58. And Asa Carter, who – we can talk a little bit about because he's scary and hilarious... 187

Daniel:

Right. 188

Betsy:

And Kenneth Adams. So Kenneth Adams is – a lot of people know him because he is the Klan leader who attacked the Freedom Riders in Alabama. 189

Daniel:

Right. 190

Betsy:

First is Anniston and then over in Birmingham. That was him and his group. Now, Asa Carter was a radio disk jockey for a while. He was anti-rock'n'roll, so he is well known for running around giving speeches about the evil of rock'n'roll. And he was just a virulent racist. He had also left the Klan because they weren't violent enough, and started renegade offshoot klan. they attacked Nat King Cole on stage once he was performing. When Asa was up here helping bomb the – allegedly or maybe – helping bomb... 191

Daniel:

Yeah, we can just put an allegedly in front of everything on this podcast. This is, you know.. but yeah, please continue. 192

Betsy:

When he was up here helping organize the bombing of Hattie Cotton Elementary School, his men were kidnapping a black World War II veteran and castrating him. 193

Daniel:

Lovely. 194

Betsy:

Leaving him for dead, but, because Asa's people are in general fuckups they failed to kill him. So, terrible, right? That's – he becomes George Wallace's speech writer. 195

Daniel:

Which is how I know him. He wrote the Segregation Forever speech, didn't he. 196

Betsy:

Exactly. Exactly. 197

Now, after all that he decides he wants to be a novelist. 198

Daniel:

[laughs] Please tell me he writes florid romance novels under like a name like – like a Danielle Steel type. Please tell me that that's what he writes. 199

Betsy:

Oh no. Are you – no. It's better, slash worse. 200

Daniel:

Okay. Please continue. 201

Betsy:

He invented Josie Wales. 202

Daniel:

Ohhh... I did not know that detail. 203

Betsy:

He wrote the Josey Wales books. 204

Daniel:

Right, I did – I had run across that at some point. Yes. Yes. I do remember that now. 205

Betsy:

And, under his pseudonym, he wrote The Education of Little Tree. Which Oprah then picked as one of her Oprah's Book Club books... 206

Daniel:

[laughs] Right. 207

Betsy:

...before people in Alabama were like, wait, wait, time out! [laughs] 208

Daniel:

Uhm, maybe not someone we should be supported with, like, the biggest brand in book selling right now. Yeah. 209

Besty: And it's only because, you know, like the book, which is supposed to be autobiographical, is like my Cherokee grandpa raised me in the hills of Tennessee. And everybody in Alabama is like we know Asa – we know Asa Carter's grandparents. They live right here. They're not Cherokee. But what's interesting is that the Klavern that Stoner had belonged to in Chattanooga, that Klavern 317, was lead by the Brown brothers. 210

And they actually did have a Cherokee grandma. 211

Daniel:

Aha! 212

Betsy:

So I think Asa stole the story. [laughs] 213

Daniel:

[laughs] 214

Betsy:

Like, passed it off as his own. Because what – they were – well, their dad, and, like, what's their family going to do? Like, hi, we're a bunch of white supremacists, uh, and we're also secretly Cherokee? Like, so I think he knew he had a good story he could steal because no-one was going to complain about it. 215

Okay, so back to Stoner's early – the other thing – so in 54 he and the Bowling brothers go to DC and picket outside the White House. And I think that's where he met John Kasper, who is like a thorn in the side of Nashville throughout the end of the 50s. 216

But in 57, and this is really important, even though this though just existed for like two seconds, Stoner and Fields organized the United White Party. 217

Daniel:

M hm. 218

Betsy:

And in that were – founding members were Emory Burke, so the Columbian leader again. Dan Kurtz, who was in the Christian Front in New York, [the] Nashville Renaissance Party, and then the National States Right Party. Wallace Allen, again, one of the suspects in the Temple bombing. Ned Dupes, who was just a Knoxville racist. John Kasper, who was an acolyte of Ezra Pound... 219

Daniel:

Right. 220

Betsy:

...and [incomprehensible 36:55] Pound's publisher in the United States. Matt Cole, who goes on to lead the American Nazi Party. And Fields and Stoner. 221

Daniel:

Right. 222

Betsy:

So, like.... 223

Daniel:

So like the all-stars of American racism at that point. 224

Betsy:

Yes! Exactly! Everybody! 225

And then, like, by the end of 58, George Lincoln Rockwell is down in Tennessee, helping organize the National States Rights Party, which comes out of this United White Party. So this is all the before he hits the big time. He's like already made all these connection with, like, a who's who of racists. And then he decides that, like, we should start blowing things up. 226

Daniel:

Now, just, doesn't – I may be misremembering this so my apologies if I – doesn't the National States Rights Party eventually transmute into the American Third Position Party, which is now the American Freedom Party? Or I am getting my details mixed up there? 227

Betsy:

I'm not sure because... the National States Rights Party, there have been at least two of them. 228

Daniel:

Okay, so there may be another one that's... okay, yeah. 229

Betsy:

Right. 230

Daniel:

One of the issues I run into, and I'm sure everyone listening to this podcast has sort of gotten a sense of this, and I know you do, but I'll just reiterate it now – so many of these of these names run together because, you know, there is American Vanguard, there is American Guard, there is Vanguard America, there is the National Vanguard. These are all completely separate organizations with completely separate leadership. And trying to keep track of them, even now, is a giant challenge. 231

And once you go back like two decades it's like – just forget about trying. You have to diagram this stuff in order to keep track of it half the time. 232

Anyway. 233

Sorry, just wanted to... I was curious if there was a direct connection there. 234

Betsy:

Like, I feel like a little bit like I'm cheating, because in the day that I'm looking at, they all legally incorporated this stuff. 235

Daniel:

Oh! That's nice. 236

Betsy:

So [I'm] just like, fine. You know, like, who's this? I'll just pull up their incorporation papers, okay. 237

Daniel:

[laughs] 238

Betsy:

I'm also like, why is the state helping these people like form these corporations? 239

Daniel:

It's almost as if the states have their own racism problems or something, like... 240

Betsy:

Right. 241

Daniel:

It's almost as if white supremacy is just endemic to this, I mean like not just that time and place but today – I can't image why I would say – that's just silly. We should just, you know, not even entertain that notion. So... 242

Betsy:

Right. 243

Daniel:

Yeah, let's continue. We haven't even gotten to the bombings yet. And I know we want to describe the bombings. [laughs] 244

Betsy:

Right. Okay, so here we go. Let's... 245

September 10th, 1957, Hattie Cotton blows up. That's an elementary school here in Nashville, where one black girl went. 246

For one day. 247

And then Stoner bragged about blowing that school up. 248

Mid-September 1957, Klavern 317 gets kicked out of the Klan again. So if we're wondering, who helped Stoner in Nashville? Where did he get the dynamite? I'm deeply suspicious his old Chattanooga buddies helped him. And then... 249

Daniel:

Sure. 250

Betsy:

You know, and then... 251

Daniel:

And then somebody finds out about it and they kick them out. Yeah, no, like you rascally kids! I just imagine like in a guy in a Klan hood with like a rake, you know, like shaking it at, you know.... 252

Betsy:

Right. 253

Daniel:

...the younger... sorry, I'm doing like The Little Klan or something in my head. 254

Betsy:

[laughs] 255

Daniel:

Like a cartoon, but... Dennis the Menace, but... 256

Beetsy: November 11th, 1957, there is an attempted bombing at Temple Beth-El in Charlotte, North Carolina. 257

February 9th, 1958, there is an attempted bombing at Temple Emanuel in Gastonia, North Carolina, which is very near by to Charlotte. 258

March 16th, Beth El Temple in Miami and the Jewish Community Center in Nashville both blow up. Beth El Temple is in the morning and the Nashville is at night. 259

April 27th, 1958, a black high school and a Jewish synagogue in Jacksonville, Florida blow up. And then the next day the Temple Beth El in Birmingham, someone tries to blow that up. 260

And then in mid-May, the Southern Conference on Bombing convenes, because southern states had been like, help us, FBI, help us! We think all these bombing are related! And the FBI is like, we don't have any legal grounds to get involved. And so the southern law enforcement had this conference to try to share information. And they basically, at that time, say JB Stoner is behind all these bombings. 261

But this to me is like – this is my favorite story of this whole mess, because at the conference, they are sharing names of known violent racial terrorists in each state. And Bull Connor is on the list of Alabama racists who are known to be violent. And Bull Connor is also Alabama delegate to the conference. 262

Daniel:

[laught] Right. 263

Betsy:

So... 264

Daniel:

Again with that, like, there's no issue with these people being in positions of power at all... 265

Betsy:

This really hurt Connor's feelings. 266

Daniel:

[laughs] He's just so hurt that they would put him on that list, just because he's a violent racist who does terrible things to African Americans, like... 267

Betsy:

So he comes home and he's like, I'm going to catch a racial terrorist so that I can prove that I'm not one. 268

Daniel:

[laughs] Right! 269

Betsy:

So he sets out to catch JB Stoner, the one thing no-one has been able to do 270

So his brilliant plan is to have two undercover police officers approach Stoner and, posing as local businessmen who are tired of the Klan, the local Klan not being able to get shit done in Birmingham... 271

Daniel:

Sure. 272

Betsy:

And then they'll pay him to blow up Reverend Shuttlesworth's church. And Reverend Shuttlesworth at the time was like one of the biggest civil rights proponents in Birmingham. He was, like, he was the guy who told King to either shit or get off the toilet in terms of activism. 273

And Shuttlesworth is like a lunatic badass. Like, he single-handedly integrated Birmingham's schools. He regularly got beat up by the Klan. Like one of the things, one of the reasons that Bobby Cherry was finally convicted of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombings is because they were able to show him beating up Shuttlesworth and thus prove he was a racial activist. 274

Daniel:

Right. 275

Betsy:

Yeap. So these undercover cops meet up with Stoner and they offer him, I forgot, I think like 200 dollars to blow up this church. And he's like, okay, throw in another 800 and I'll kill Marin Luther King. Which is interesting because it proves that even that early, in 58, Stoner had his eye on King. 276

Daniel:

Sure. 277

Betsy:

So they're like, okay, we want you to blow up this church in July. 278

But of course, like, Stoner isn't a moron. He's a supervillain. A stupid, like, a silly, silly supervillain, but he's a supervillain. So he comes to Birmingham from Atlanta the week before they're expecting him and dynamites the church. 279

And the only reason it's not blown up is because, like, a passer-by sees the bomb and it able to move it out into the street before it explodes. But he, like, he succeeded in... 280

Daniel:

Right, he succeeds in bombing the thing, he succeeds – he outsmarts the... 281

Betsy:

Right. 282

Daniel:

I mean, there is a Keystone Cops element to that, right? 283

Betsy:

Exactly. 284

Daniel:

You know, a couple guys wearing like Groucho disguises walk into his office and go like, we would like you to bomb this particular church. Here is money. 285

Betsy:

Right. [incomp 45:38] like Stoner had connections to all, like – he and Bob Chambliss were friends. Dynamite Bob. So, like, the big red flag it had to be for Stoner when people from Birmingham were like, we have nobody to blow things up in Birmingham! Of course he's going to see through that, right? 286

Daniel:

Right. 287

Betsy:

This is also about the time when Stoner calls the FBI again, because Stoner is just like, oh wait, isn't it time for me to taunt the feds? And he told the FBI like, hey, here is a list of license plate numbers of cars that have been following me. I know it's you because the GBI can't afford cars that nice. 288

Daniel:

[laughs] Right. 289

Betsy:

And they're like, uhmmm. And he's like, so back off or I'm suing you And they they do. Which I'm like, nooo! [laughs] 290

Daniel:

Now is this down – this is a big question and, you know, far be it from me on this podcast to criticize the Federal Bureau of Investigation, or law enforcement more generally. We are very good people who draw within the lines on these things and have no suspicions of law enforcement. 291

That was sarcasm. 292

Betsy:

[giggles] 293

Daniel:

For those who may not have tuned in to that. 294

Is this incompetence or is this complicity at this point? And I understand that's a difficult question to answer concretely and that's a difficult question for – we're just going to, again, put alleged over all of this, but... 295

Betsy:

Right. 296

Daniel:

What's your feeling on some of this? You know, is this just a Keystone Kops routine or are they looking the other way? 297

Betsy:

I think it's kind of twofold. My suspicion, and this is based on nothing, and I haven't seen this in any FBI files, but I think Stoner had a law enforcement mole. Because like Stoner knew these were FBI cars. Now he claimed it was because they were nicer than GBI, but... 298

Daniel:

That seems – that seems kinda, yah... 299

Betsy:

He knew a lot of names of informants and tried to warn other white supremacists about them. And they never touched – like, the FBI never touched him. So I think there is like a level of complicity of course. But I also suspect that there was some nervousness because they did not know how much he knew about them. 300

Daniel:

Right. 301

Betsy:

But anyway, so then Connor, right, is like, oh shit, I accidentally paid someone to blow up this church. So then he runs to the FBI and is like help me, help me catch JB Stoner. And they're like naaah, no thanks. Which I'm like, dude, the whole point of the stupid conference was, the FBI won't help. 302

Daniel:

Right. 303

Betsy:

The conference you went to that has led to this whole stupid... 304

But anyways... 305

Daniel:

Now it was Connor who like wanted to get JB Stoner... like, it also feels like a sort of professional – like a getting-rid-of-his-competition sort of thing, a opposed to like a real desire to see justice done. Because of we what we know.... 306

Betsy:

Oh no. No. This was Connor had been embarrassed at the conference... 307

Daniel:

Yeah. 308

Betsy:

...and wanted to prove he could do what other law enforcement hadn't been able to do. And then he got embarrassed again. But that's it. Like... 309

Daniel:

Yeah. Yeah. 310

Betsy:

You know. And then, sure, at that point then Stoner became his enemy, but that was just about embarrassment. It wasn't, you know... 311

Daniel:

Right. 312

Betsy:

Otherwise, Connor would have been like, please, go forth and blow many more things up.. 313

Daniel:

[laughs] Right. 314

Betsy:

And then, on October 12th, 1958, Stoner and his buddies blow up the temple in Atlanta. Which was like the big one. And the reason that that like touched a lot of nerves is because, like regularly – the group that was behind the Jewish bombings, the group, and by that I mean Stoner and his friends, would call up and identify themselves as the Confederate Underground and, you know, say we've just blown up your temple, or your center of integration, or whatever. 315

And after they blew up the temple they said, that's the last empty building we're blowing up. 316

Daniel:

Right. 317

Betsy:

So that was like when people were like, uh oh. Oh shit. 318

And then – it is true, like after that, like – Looby was in his house. Stoner had always claimed that he brought in the [dynamite to Birmingham] for the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing and, you know, that clearly was a full building. 319

So it wasn't really until they started like really enforcing, like – they finally were like, we're going to have a database of people who buy dynamite. And once they really started enforcing that, then white supremacists had to like start shooting their victims instead of blowing them up. 320

But – oh, and I forgot, Stoner was also – his crowd was also involved in blowing up the Clinton, Tennessee high school. So he's like... 321

Daniel:

This is – I mean, just to – I feel like a lot of this history – even people who have sort of read books on the civil rights era – I mean, even for me, with the level of depth I've kind of like absorbed this stuff. Even growing up in the South. The level, the number of bombings that were happening... 322

Betsy:

Oh right... 323

Daniel:

It's just – it's just kind of unheard of, you know. 324

Betsy:

Right. 325

Daniel:

It's just huge. Like this is not just a handful of people doing a couple of things – this is a sustained, years-long terror campaign, ultimately. 326

Betsy:

Right. Right. 327

Daniel:

And... 328

Betsy:

And the thing about Stoner, too, is like – which we've been able to piece together because like the Birmingham bombers have talked about it, and the Temple bombers have talked about it, is that like local Klans could basically bring Stoner in as their terrorism teacher. 329

So if you were like, hey, we're really angry, we want to bomb a black church but we're not very – like, none of us have dynamite experience, we don't know what to do, you can call Stoner in. He comes in, he'll, like, he will identify basically the psychopaths in your group. 330

Daniel:

Right. 331

Betsy:

Like, who will hurt somebody and not care about it. If you don't have any, he'll bring his guys in. Usually the Bowling brothers. Because they're psychopaths. And so then all he needs is somebody to drive them where they need to go. So, you know, you can usually... 332

Daniel:

I just imagine, with business cards like, dynamite consultant... 333

Betsy:

Right! [laughs] 334

Um, but he ran, you know, like classes where he would teach you how to make bombs. 335

Daniel:

Is that something you can learn at the Y, I wonder? [laughs] I'm sorry. 336

Betsy:

[laughs] Nah. 337

Daniel:

[laughs] Like an annex course, you know... 338

Betsy:

And then, you know, if you got arrested, he would be your lawyer. 339

Daniel:

[laughs] Right. 340

Betsy:

Which is... and he, you know, he said like he liked to use brothers in his terror cells because he thought it was less likely that they would narc on each other. 341

Daniel:

Sure. 342

Betsy:

So you can see – you know, like, in Chattanooga, which Klavern 317, which you know he was involved in on and off, that was lead by the Brown brothers. He had the Bowling brothers who helped him bomb things. The guys who are, later-on, suspected of the Atlanta child murders are a pair of brothers who know JB Stoner. And this is one of the reasons... 343

Daniel:

He's kind of line the big epicenter of like this huge, like decades-long terror campaign. Which, again, gets – and just to kind of, you know, put a little point on this, or underline it: again, gets interpreted as just sort of like a series of local, quote-unquote lone wolf attacks. 344

Betsy:

Exactly. Exactly. 345

Daniel:

And so the pattern gets lost because, you know, it's – even though there is a guy literally like traveling around and being a consulting bombing expert. 346

Betsy:

Right. 347

Daniel:

And even though there's this guy who is well known to everyone for doing this stuff, there never seems – and you go into this in your book, and we don't have to go into the details here, but, you know – about the methods he uses to essentially allay suspicion. 348

They're always looking for a group of three instead of two, kind of local guys and that sort of thing, and so... 349

And there is – he's very clever in the way that he does this. But he ends up kind of working around the – sort of the blind spots of the law enforcement agencies. And so nobody really ever puts the pattern together. And it becomes this series of, like, oh, there's just a bunch of like crazy nutcases out here. 350

And that's why that sort of crazy nutcase – sorry to be ableist here, but that's why the crazy nutcase stuff is so dangerous in talking about this. Because it absolves any kind of – sense of looking for the larger pattern. 351

Betsy:

Exactly. Exactly. 352

And this is one of the reasons that like if you talk to old-timers in Tennessee – like old-time law enforcement... they have – many of them are convinced that Stoner was involved with the King assassination. Not only because he had started gunning for King back in 58, but because while he was representing James Earl Ray – because of course he was – Ray's brother lived with him. 353

Daniel:

Right. 354

Betsy:

So he knew the family. 355

Daniel:

Right. And of course that's not like actionable in and of itself. 356

Betsy:

No. 357

Daniel:

It's just like, no, we're all on this, like kind of – it's just this very small tight-knit community, right. It's a small, like, group of people who all kind of hang out together. And maybe there's complicity and maybe there isn't, you know. You can draw, like – you can do the, like – you can do the like Always Sunny board... 358

Betsy:

[laughs] Right. 359

Daniel:

You can do that all day long and you can – and you just look like a, you know, like a conspiracy theorist. But also – but ultimately, if you put the pieces together, there's a really compelling case and, you know, ultimately, today, seventy years later, sixty years later, what are you going to find? But – this is why somebody could have, should have been looking at the time, right? 360

Betsy:

Right. Yeah, right exactly. 361

And it's also another reason – like you mentioned that he seemed so well know law enforcement's blind spots that that's another reason I suspect that he had an informant. Or somebody – somebody was talking too much to Stoner, right? 362

Daniel:

Right. 363

Betsy:

Because as much as like the FBI did very, very, very many sketchy things during this time period, they have thousands of pages of – in Stoner's file. I haven't even been able to get it all, it's so many. 364

Daniel:

Right. Some time around 2050 we'll get it all and somebody will... 365

Betsy:

Right, yeah. 366

Daniel:

...solve this, right, you know. 367

Betsy:

Right. 368

But I just – I just believe, if there wasn't some other mitigating factor, they would have got him for something. 369

Daniel:

Right. 370

Betsy:

Because he was making them look like fools. Right? Like... 371

Daniel:

Right. Right. 372

Betsy:

Like, I'm running all over the South, do you know, this bombing? Every knows I'm doing it. The only people who can stop me are you. Ha ha, you're not doing it. 373

Daniel:

Right. Because you just never put the – I mean, you're just lazy, you never put the pieces together, for whatever reason. 374

Betsy:

Right. 375

Daniel:

Whether it's laziness or complicity or whatever. No, I mean, I just – you know, you say this sort of thing and I just can't help but think that, like, the two – the Clark brothers, who were arrested late last year. 376

Betsy:

Right. 377

Daniel:

Who are – one of them went by, like, DC Bowl Gang, which comes right from – if you listen two the last two episodes – that's obviously – they were very active in the Bowl Patrol Discord chats and they were very – interact with all these people on Gab and all that sort of thing. 378

And also, like, worked as camera operators or something for Jack Posobiec, who has straight-up connections to at least this sort of like fringe of the Republican party media apparatus. That does mean that Jack Posobiec is in some way connected to all – you know, is that a connection or is that just sort of like guys going off and doing things, you know. 379

Betsy:

Right. 380

Daniel:

The other example is – I mean there is this photo that I put up on the – you know, they guys, the TRS guys, the Right Stuff, the Daily Shoah – three hosts of that show standing inches away from James Alex Fields, who murdered Heather Heyer. And Taylor Wilson, who was convicted of a terrorist attack on a train in the Pacific Northwest. I forget exactly where, I think Washington. So... and they're like all right there. And it's like, well, they were all kind of at this one big event. Maybe that's a coincidence. 381

Betsy:

Right. 382

Daniel:

You know, I'm not trying to suggest – I'm not trying to make like kind of an accusation here because there's no – but it's also, like, how do you put those pieces together? And I sound like a crazy person, you know, suggesting it, but ultimately... 383

Betsy:

Right. 384

Daniel:

...it's kind of right there. 385

Anyway. 386

So, what's the – you know, I feel like, god, I feel like we could go on for another two hours on this. I'm trying – we try to keep these less than ninety minutes. What's the rest of the story, I guess, on the Stoner bombings? Like, what haven't we covered so far? 387

Betsy:

Well... 388

Daniel:

And I think – I think have to end with Gladys. [laughs] 389

Betsy:

Right. Right. Well, this is a thing that I wanted to – one of the things I wanted to talk to you about just because I'm really interested in your opinion. Is, like, watching how – again, to go back to him being a Batman villain – is kind of watching how the FBI's response to this activity changed the white supremacist activity in ways that then made it harder for the F... 390

Okay, so, for instance – you know, at first, the FBI is like, we're going to infiltrate the Klan. So we'll – we're going to like find a Klan member and basically get him to narc on his friends. 391

So that was kind of the strategy throughout the early 50s – was like, we'll just, you know... 392

But, like, when I talked to Gladys, because I was like, Gladys, it seems like everybody was an FBI informant. And you know, when you watch like Hollywood movies you think like, oh my god, if you're an informant and they find out, they're going to murder you. But Gladys told me everyone was an informant at one point or another because you didn't have to pay taxes on the money. 393

Daniel:

Right. 394

Betsy:

So... and everybody, you know, being – they don't have great day jobs if they're like.... 395

Daniel:

They don't have like a big funding organization funneling... there's no Peter Thiel funding them with lots of money, right. 396

Betsy:

Right. So they never held it against you for taking the FBI's money. They only held it against you if you told the FBI stuff they couldn't otherwise find out. 397

Daniel:

Right. 398

Betsy:

So... but then, you know, so then the Klan knows that there are people talking to the FBI. So then they start forming what they called action committees, which we could call terror cells... 399

Daniel:

Right. 400

Betsy:

...that were made up of much smaller, like, maybe ten people. And those folks all knew each other and, like, if – and those were the people that, like, if they found out someone in that group was talking to the FBI, they would kill you. 401

Daniel:

Right. Right. 402

Betsy:

Those... 403

Daniel:

And note that this is before – again, not for you, but for the audience – this is prior of kind of Louis Beam writing down the leaderless resistance concept. This is way prior to like Mason writing Siege. And so, like – in a sense, you can definitely from this suggest and make the argument that ultimately Louis Beam is just sort of codifying and making explicit something that was sort of already happening. 404

Betsy:

Right. 405

Daniel:

As a way of getting away from law enforcement, you know, from prying eyes. 406

Betsy:

Right. 407

Daniel:

From [incomprehensible 1:02:53] And that's certainly something that, I mean, you know, Siege is – you know, Jason Mason makes explicit, like, it's not like this is the best strategy because we just want to this. It's like this is the way to not get arrested and spend your life doing this stuff. 408

And in that sense, you know, Stoner is both sort of a – both sort of George Lincoln Rockwell's compatriot but sort of a pre-Mason in a lot of ways. 409

Betsy:

Right. 410

Daniel:

Although he was much more actively kind of pursuing his things as opposed to just kind of writing it down in a newsletter. So... 411

Betsy:

Right. 412

Daniel:

So, yeah... 413

Betsy:

So in 1960 you have the FBI puts Gary Rowe in the Klan in Alabama. 414

Daniel:

Right. 415

Betsy:

So Gary was not in the Klan. So this is different, right, because this isn't like they flip a Klan member. This is a guy who would not have been in the Klan except the FBI was like, go do this. 416

Except it turns out that Gary Rowe was also a racist psychopath. 417

Daniel:

Right. Well, and just to... 418

Eric Striker, who – I promise we'll eventually do an episode on Eric Striker. He's one of the high TRS guys. Not the main tier but second tier. We did a whole talk about CW doing it – doing a debate with him, et cetera et cetera. He's a total shithead. 419

He uses the presence of Gary Rowe in this bombing, which we're going to get to shortly, as evidence that the FBI was just instigating that bombing all along. And that, like, it's another sign that – the infiltration of the Klan, like, this is all the Klan making white supremacists and white nationalists look bad, ultimately. You know... 420

Betsy:

Right. 421

Daniel:

Because... it's never our, it's never like, oh, he was in the FBI and he was a horrible racist who agreed with all this, you know. It's just, you know, oh, the FBI was involved, clearly we're no longer responsible for it. 422

Betsy:

Right. Right. So, Gary Rowe admitted to shooting a black guy in a riot in Birmingham. And the FBI covered it up. 423

Daniel:

Right. 424

Betsy:

The 16th Street Baptist Church bombers claimed that Rowe was on their bomb crew. And I've not been able to substantiate that, but I do know that, when they first arrested, like for the first time, Bob Chambliss – when Bob's lawyer found out that Gary Rowe was on the federal witness list, he started laughing, which caused the state to go back to the FBI and say, oh, why is the defense attorney so excited about this.. 425

And the FBI is like, uh, hold on, we'll call you back. And then they're like, uh, yeah, no, we're not going to put Gary Rowe on the stand anymore. 426

Daniel:

[laughs] 427

Betsy:

And, um – and then he was in the car when Viola Liuzzo was killed. And he is the only person in that car who had ever murdered a black person before. 428

Daniel:

Right. So... he's – it's hard to not say, yeah, he was doing this because he wanted – like... 429

Betsy:

Right. 430

Daniel:

This isn't like, oh, I fucked up, whoops, wrong place, wrong time. 431

This is pretty explicit. And this isn't like – I mean, you know, it's, again, hard to say, at the orders of the FBI. Like it's not like, you know – for all the terrible things the FBI does, I don't think that starting terror cells and killing black people is the, you know – they're more complicit or kind of like looking the other way as opposed to making it an explicit, you know, terror organization. 432

Betsy:

But I think this is the way that they thought that they could know what was going on. Like, I really think from their perspective it was like, it is a shame that people, like a few people, have to die, but we're keeping many more people safe. 433

Daniel:

Right. Which is always the greater good – 434

Danie: Right. 435

Daniel:

That's always the argument they make, right. Yeah, no. 436

Betsy:

Right. 437

Daniel:

You know, there is a great – the Bundyville season 2... 438

Betsy:

Yes. Yes. 439

Daniel:

Leah Sottile interviews – I forget the guy's name, but she interviews a guy who was – the FBI went after this guy for like two years. 440

Betsy:

Right. 441

Daniel:

They infiltrated his – like, he had a little militia. It was like four people or something. And they put like three FBI agents on him and paid informants and stuff. 442

Betsy:

Yes! Right. 443

Daniel:

Like they surrounded him with people, they egg him on for – literally for years. And finally they give him a fake bomb and he like, presses this fake button. And then they try to convict him for it. 444

I mean, this is something – again, the nazis listening to this kind of go like ah, he admits the FBI is.... The FBI absolutely entraps people, we're not disagreeing, you know. It's – and it is, like, well, would this guy have done this otherwise? And you back to – no, there are legitimate, like, this about the Ruby Ridge instant. Like, it's not that like Randy Weaver was like a great guy, but... 445

Betsy:

Right. 446

Daniel:

There's – I mean, this is ultimately an end – also just the questions of, you know, the escalation of tactics, and this kind of like paramilitarization of both sides of this white supremacist conflict. And then the FBI, the law enforcement agencies get more paramilitary in kind of going after them. 447

Betsy:

Right. 448

Daniel:

And then they escalate, and is really is sort of this Batman-Joker blowback kind of concept. I mean, so... 449

Betsy:

Yeah. Right? Like, by the time we get – oh, I'm sorry, but – by the time we get to Gladys in 81, you know, like, there weren't standing terror cells. You had put your terror cell together and hope that there wasn't an FBI person in it. 450

Daniel:

Right. 451

Betsy:

And then now, like, they just don't have cells. 452

Daniel:

Yeah, they just – I mean, all these – there's always a question, I mean – there's even sort of – the FBI releases like chat logs from 8chan and 4chan, which indicate that the person making the post, the person making the fedposting post, is the person sharing the screenshot. 453

Betsy:

Right. 454

Daniel:

Meaning that it's very possibly an FBI person who was like typing all that. 455

Betsy:

Yeah. 456

Daniel:

And you know, like, it's this kind of being done – I mean, the level of complicity, the level of – you know, in terms of kind of the modern guys – I mean, you know, we got – after the El Paso shooter we had so many of these – like forty of these people got kind of rolled up all at once. 457

Betsy:

Right. Yeah. 458

Daniel:

And that's like – this didn't happen because suddenly you noticed, thirty-six hours ago. This is... 459

Betsy:

Right. 460

Daniel:

You keep [an eye] on these guys and you rolled up like the easy guys you can get on like easy weapons charges and things. And who knows like how many of those charges are going to stick. But we're even now getting like more and more like Atomwaffen guys or sort of, like, ending up arraigned on charges. I mean almost every day it seems like there is another one of these guys. You know, it's kind of hard to keep track of everything in terms of just – I just don't keep track of the details of the legal proceedings, it's... 461

Betsy:

Right. 462

Daniel:

...not something that's in my head all the time. But, yeah, no, I mean, it is really unclear about, like, what, I mean, look, I'm a lefty, I'm a socialist, you don't have to agree with that necessarily. But I think you have to confront the roots of white supremacy... you know, culturally. 463

Betsy:

Right. 464

Daniel:

Obviously you need something to prevent people from bombing or from doing mass shooting or from threatening people and, you know, kind of doing – you have to do something immediate about that. 465

But ultimately, you can't just rely on a sort of a law enforcement framework, or even sort of a combat-em-in-the-streets framework. This is bigger than that. And it has to be cultural. It has to be political. It has do – actually we have to find ways to kind of meeting the material needs of people that are suffering through these economic conditions. And people feel alienated and that's being, like, fed on to by these propagandists, ultimately. The people that I follow are absolutely just taking them in and radicalizing them and turning them into – you know, if not actual terrorists they're turning them into people who are going to push memes, or who are going to go and threaten people, or who are going to push this – push more of this white nationalist, white supremacist narrative. And you know you've got to reach people where they are. 466

You've got to reach people and give them something else in their life. And ultimately, you know, part of the complicity there is also this kind of larger media apparatus, which feeds into that, just calls it – instead of white they call it Western, and then beyond that, it's not the Jews, it's the liberals, and all that sort of thing. 467

I mean this is ultimately the whole – kind of the thing I've been working on, so I'm not going to go into that, but – it does have to be a bigger solution than just sort of let's get this handful of guys who are actually doing this stuff. It has to be bigger than that. 468

Betsy:

Right. Exactly. And because, like, at this point, when you have one lone gunman... like, I can't imagine who they're going to top that, but now there is pressure on them to top it. You know, like... 469

Daniel:

I mean, they're going to have to start – I mean, I already hear people joking about Ryder-Truck Nationalism. Like, essentially repeating the Oklahoma City bombing, you know. We're going to fill up a Ryder truck with explosives. I mean that's obviously harder, but... what has ISIS been doing in Europe? At least they were doing it for – you know, they just drive into a crowd. 470

Betsy:

Yeah... 471

Daniel:

James Alex Fields, what's the... 472

Betsy:

And if you're willing to kill yourself while you do it, it makes it really fucking hard to combat. And I don't think wants white supremacist suicide bombers. You know.... 473

Daniel:

Right. And, well, and not only that, but you get the – the blowback to that. You know, the law enforcement that has to go in to, you know, respond to that. And that's ultimately what – that's what terrorists want. 474

They want, you know, people – they want things to gets stricter. They want people to come and take all the guns. They want this to happen. To increase tension. To increase sort of the pressure on the kind of quote-unquote normies so that they will lash out and do more. And it doesn't have to create like massive, nation-wide race war, where the streets run with blood, for this to get really, really nasty. I mean, you know. 475

I say this a lot to people, I mean, it's hard to get away from this – it's hard to – I really was trying to make this a little bit lighter, but this is going to get worse before it gets better. There is no, like, I don't have any solution for it other than, you know, we just gather, keep digging in our heels on this and keep doing the work. That's the answer I've got. 476

Besty: And also I feel like we need to encourage – like, if you're a racist but you're not a psychopath. Like, consider the juggalo. Because, like, juggalos are also any small group that people make fun of, but, like – they have parties. And they get laid. And they, like, have joy in their lives. 477

Daniel:

Far, far better to embrace the Faygo than the Boogaloo. You know, that's... 478

Besty: [laughs] Right. And it's like – I mean I would just say, like, if – if you're not happy it's not the Jews. It's, like, go to a therapist. Or find a subculture that's not evil. 479

Daniel:

Or, join, like, your local food bank. 480

Like, go and feed people. 481

Go and, like – there are places to find... join the left, ultimately. 482

You know, look, if you're a racist and you want to – there are places for you, you know. And I guarantee you, if you, like, actually start doing the work, and you actually kind of learn, like solidarity. And you learn, like, community self-defense... you're going to end up working with people who are different than you in a lot of different ways. And you're going to find these multi-racial communities, and... you know what, I bet you're going to find out – you know, it turns out that maybe all the things that I believed about the world are wrong. That's my plea. You know, anyway, to... any racists who are – I mean, I have gotten emails from people saying, I was on the path to maybe committing one of these murders, one of these shooting sprees, and then I heard your podcast. I have gotten emails like that. 483

Betsy:

Wow. 484

Daniel:

Just to be clear. 485

And, you know, I do – if you are – sorry, I'm not trying to make the plea too – but I know there are people like that listening. And if you are, like – if you are looking to get out of this thing, I can set you up with people who will help you. I promise. So, please, you know... 486

Betsy:

If you're – if the alternative you're being offered is, like, let's all live in Polk County up in the mountains where there is no cell reception and we all are on dial-up, and the only grocery store is Dollar General. I mean, just look at what you're being promised. Like, versus, if you go out and like find people who actually care about you and want you to have a good life, like... being dirt-poor in Polk Country, Tennessee is not a good life. 487

Whereas, like, I think Daniel and I both would like for you to have a job you like. Have friends who you're not afraid, like – that one of them is going to call you a Jew and that makes all your other friends turn their backs on you. 488

Daniel:

Yeah. Exactly. 489

Betsy:

You can have happy lives. 490

Daniel:

It's not just about race. I promise you. There's more to life than the color of your skin and, you know, the shape of your... whatever. Anyway. 491

I do want to finish off. I do want to talk about Gladys here.We got a little bit maudlin... 492

Betsy:

Right. 493

Daniel:

...a little bit sincere [incomprehensible 1:16:50] there. 494

But, you – so – tell us a little, just give us the ten-second rundown: who was Gladys? 495

Betsy:

Okay. So, Gladys Girgenti was a Klan – well, she's a Klan member. Wanted to be Klan leader, but because she was a woman, she got shuttled off to being, like, head of the Kiddie Klan here in Tennessee in the 70s. And then she tried to kill her Klan leader because she couldn't be – like, he wouldn't promote her. [laughs] 496

Daniel:

Because of, like, ingrained sexism in the Klan, right? 497

Betsy:

Right. As much as I do not believe in murdering your boss if he won't give you a promotion, I kind of admire her willingness to do it. 498

Daniel:

Well, and if your boss is a Klan leader, you know, like – you know, it's kind of complicated, right? Your boss is a Klan leader, maybe he does deserve a little bit of physical punishment. But also, then, you're trying to become a Klan leader! So it's kind of a wash, right? 499

You know, like, yeah, kind of difficult. Morally. 500

Betsy:

So Gladys gets kicked out of the Klan, as has now become a refrain in my story. 501

Daniel:

[laughs] Right. 502

Betsy:

She sets up... 503

Daniel:

My version of that is, like, and then they left the Proud Boys. That happens a lot, you know, with the ground-level people. 504

Betsy:

So Gladys forms a group called The Confederate Vigilantes. And they go to bomb the temple here is Nashville. And I was like, wait a second, the Confederate Underground, after they bombed our JCC, said, and next we're going to bomb the temple. And now here twenty years later is the Confederate Vigilantes and they go to bomb the temple. I wonder if Gladys knows any earlier bombers. 505

So I wrote her a letter. 506

Daniel:

Right. 507

Betsy:

I was like – asked her a list of questions and I was like, do you know JB Stoner. And she's like, yes, but I don't write so well, come talk to me. So I did. I went and talked to her. 508

Daniel:

This is... this is – it's a very good book. This may be my favorite portion of the book, honestly. So please... tell us what this meeting was like. 509

Betsy:

So, Gladys... she is now an old woman. 510

She's pushing 90. 511

She lives in an old folks home, like fifteen minutes from my house. It's, like, old but clean, and she has a cat that's like twice a long as a normal cat should be. 512

She was charming, and funny, and I was like... kind of taken aback because, like, I have a list of crimes I know she's been accused [of]. Many of them, like, are – she's been accused of killing people. Like... 513

Daniel:

Right. 514

Betsy:

She was not a, you know, wallflower of – in the racist, you know, circles. 515

She was David Duke's mentor for a while. She told me this hilarious story about how David was staying at her house and there were FBI agents in a car parked across the street and they'd been following them everywhere. 516

So she and David were going to get up early to go do a TV interview. So she went out to the FBI agents with two cups of coffee and were like, do you need me to set an alarm for you, or you got your own? 517

Daniel:

[laughs] Right. 518

Betsy:

[laughs] And then she gave... 519

Daniel:

[laughs] Which is literally a scene in Goodfellas, right? 520

Betsy:

Right? And then she gave them the coffee. And I'm like, do not drink any coffee Gladys Girgenti gives you. What are you doing. 521

And, you know, her son was there when I first got there and he told me, like, how JB Stoner, like, never wore matching socks. Like, I don't know if he was colorblind or if he got dressed in the dark or what, but they were both laughing about the fact that, like, no matter how impeccably dressed he was, he didn't have matching socks on. And that she had like – the one time she saw him in matching socks, the one sock had a hole in the toe. 522

Daniel:

[laughs] 523

Besty: Um. But [incomprehensible 1:21:27] she's talking about all these folks that I'm – you know, have been researching, they're like her friends. She knew them for ages. 524

Those also really, like – because she is – you know, she told me that the thing about the FBI, that like, fine to be an informant, just don't tell them anything that they can't find out elsewhere. And when I got home I was like, goddammit, she did that to me! 525

Daniel:

Yeah! 526

Betsy:

[laughs] Everything she told me... 527

Daniel:

[laughs] She didn't give you anything you didn't already know. 528

Betsy:

[laughs] Yes! 529

Daniel:

She just, yeah.... 530

Betsy:

[laughs] And I was like, aaaaah. 531

But I also, you know, like, I wanted to be honest in the book about the fact that I did really like her. And I found her... 532

Daniel:

Yeah! 533

Betsy:

...charming, and smart... 534

Daniel:

A lot of these guys are – I mean, you know, it's – I listen to their podcasts, and I'm like, okay, it's funny like, I do this, like, I very much approach it almost like a fan of these people would. 535

Like, you know, you just kind of, like, listen around and just kind of follow them, you know, just kind of know the world through, you know, the content they produce. 536

And like a lot of these guys are charming. And they – you know, like, it's horrifying racist humor but, you know, it's – I would be lying if I'm not saying like occasionally you get a chuckle, like, okay, that's racist but it – you know, it's clever at least. I mean a lot of times it gets grating and it's terrible. I'm not trying to, like, give them any head pats on this or anything. But, like, it's – so much of the stereotype of white supremacists and Klan people is that they're bucktooth hillbillies, you know, and dumb... 537

Betsy:

Right. 538

Daniel:

No, these are clever people. These are people with motive and drive and motivation and charm and they – how do you get like ten people together to form a terrorist cell or do a bombing? Well, you got to be a leader, you've got the be, like – how do you make a podcast that does 500 episodes? You got to have charm, you got to have personality, you got to know how to produce content and go out there and... 539

You can't discount that, ultimately. And I feel like that's something that I'm at least trying to kind of get across in this project at large. This isn't – these aren't stereotypical southern inbred redneck people. 540

Betsy:

Right. And, you konw – a thing about Gladys, too, that like really shook me is, she pointed out, like, does she blame the FBI but I think it was actually an ATF agent, like, person – who had infiltrated her terror cell. But she was like, I couldn't find a bomber. 541

Daniel:

[laughs] Right. 542

Betsy:

So if they hadn't given her a bomber, like even though the bomb he had was fake... 543

Daniel:

Right. 544

Betsy:

...she couldn't have gone to the temple and planted it. I'm like, from her end it was actually – like, she terrorized the Jews. 545

Daniel:

Yeah. 546

Betsy:

Right? 547

Daniel:

Right. Yeah. 548

Betsy:

Which she would not have been able to do, had the feds not given her a bomber. Because that was the hangup in her plot. She could not find somebody who could make a bomb. 549

Daniel:

Right. 550

Betsy:

And then she said to me, like, if you want justice, look in the dictionary. Because that's the only place it exists. And that has stuck in my head some – and I'm like, I know we're coming at this, like, from different perspectives, because she is like I've been wronged by the feds, whereas I'm like, why isn't anybody catching more people like her. Like, you know... 551

Daniel:

Right. Yeah. 552

Betsy:

But I'm also like, you know, having worked on this project, I'm like, she is right. There is no justice. Like... 553

Daniel:

Well, like Don Black, like invaded the island of Dominica as part of, you know, like... it wasn't like an acolyte of David Duke kind of in these circles literally worked on paramilitary operation, goes to prison for a couple of years, and gets out and starts Stormfront and is still podcasting his tiny little shitty podcast today. 554

Betsy:

Right.. 555

Daniel:

It's like they don't – these guys don't away – like, there's not – again, there' not really any – it's just like trying to isolate them, is sort the, you know – make sure they can't reach out to – again, changing the cultural conditions and changing the soil in which they're able to find comfort. It's kind of almost the, the deep problem. 556

But, yeah, no... the Gladys chapter, that book – and it does have a stinger. I'm actually going to not give that away. I'm going to make people buy the book for that one. Because it's, you know – I had a moment reading it, I was like, no, exactly, that's exactly what she would say. So we're just going to leave that there. We're going to make people buy the book. Which, unfortunately, is not out yet. It's – so when is the book supposed to be available? 557

Betsy:

Okay. Well, I am of course waiting on an FBI file... 558

Daniel:

[laughs] 559

Betsy:

Because... of course.... 560

Daniel:

[laughs] Because you're going to doing that for the rest of your life now...Second editions, third editions... 561

Betsy:

[laughs] So my hope is – well, so I had to get my congressman to write a letter to Christopher Ray, demanded to know why the Looby file had been destroyed. 562

Daniel:

Right. 563

Betsy:

And Congressman Cooper wrote the nerdiest and most badass letter I have ever read. It was just – like, I saw a copy of it, and I was like, this is both great and terrifying... 564

Daniel:

Right. 565

Betsy:

Which then did get the FBI to admit that they hadn't actually destroyed that file. That is was at the National Archive. So which then caused the National Archive to say, yes, we have it, but it has to go through a review before we'll hand it over to you. 566

So I'm supposed to get that in May. 567

If I'm – if I've guessed right about what's in it then the book will be out at the end of 2020. 568

Daniel:

Okay. 569

Betsy:

Maybe early 2021, depend – you know. I mean I'm going to write those chapters as fast as I can. But if I'm wrong, if it turns out that Martin Luther King blew up the house, or aliens blew up the house, or JB Stoner was secretly from Guatemala this whole time or something, I might not know what I'll do. [laughs] 570

Daniel:

[laughs] Right. Right. Yeah, that would, that would be ironic, you know. Turns out, it turns out the real Guatemalans were in our heart all along. 571

Betsy:

[laughs] Yeah. So, yeah, hopefully... 572

Daniel:

So hopefully, so hopefully in either late next year – like, a year and a half most. Like, hypothetically. And assuming this podcast is still – we hope you'll come back and talk to us more when that happens, you know. We never thought it would last as long – this was always kind of a marginal product of, you know, like... I don't know how much longer we're going to do this podcast but I do hope that you will let us know as things go on. 573

You're on Twitter. 574

Do you want people to come and find you and follow you on Twitter? 575

Betsy:

Sure, if they know it's mostly dogs and me complaining about people from the Taft administration... 576

Daniel:

That's delightful as well. I mean, honestly, I've been enjoying your Twitter feed, so, like... 577

Betsy:

[laughs] It's just me being angry about history. 578

Daniel:

It's me being angry about the Taft administration. 579

Betsy:

Dude, I got to tell you... Jacob Dickinson, there is this picture of him with Taft and Dickinson is like, he – because he is – he's fatter than Taft. 580

Daniel:

[laughs] 581

Betsy:

And he's like just standing as if he's got a horse cock, like, just... whenever I'm bummed I'm just like – that's the energy I need. Like, yeah, okay, he's a huge racist. He tried to move the Polks after they were dead. He's sold off many Nashville – but, like, if I ever get a tattoo, it's going to be of that motherfucker just standing there like, yes, I'm taking up all this room and I dare you to move me. 582

Daniel:

[laughs] Well... it sounds like there is Taft book in you... 583

Betsy:

[laughs] Oh Lord. 584

All seven people who care about Taft will read... 585

Daniel:

Oh well, and if that happens you should come back and talk about Taft. That would be delightful as well. 586

Betsy:

[still laughing] Thank you so much. 587

Daniel:

Where to – so yeah, where to... 588

Betsy:

Oh yeah, sorry. 589

Daniel:

Your twitter handle. 590

Betsy:

It's @AuntB. Just the letter B. 591

Daniel:

Okay. There will be a link in the show notes, for sure. And any references you have that people who might want to know more about this – please – I hope you'll give me some of that so I can stick it in the show notes. We always like to have plenty of show notes on this. And we will definitely promote your book in whatever way we can as soon as – if and when it is released. 592

Betsy:

Excellent. Excellent. 593

Daniel:

You can find me on Twitter. I'm @danieleharper, if you want to follow me. Although I would definitely recommend you follow Betsy here instead if you're going to follow one of us, but... yeah, that was episode 31. 594

Next time we're going to do something a little bit more fun. We're going to talk about nazis in pop culture. In particular we're going to use the lens of the Marvel movies and how they absolutely despise talking about them. And we're going to do a little discussion, Jack and I are going to do a little discussion about Captain America. The first Captain America film. So... 595

Betsy:

üüb, are you going to – I'm sorry, you have to then go back and watch the Blues Brothers. 596

Daniel:

Well maybe that's something... people want us to do more movie reviews. And, like, it's something that, like – Jack and I would love to do that, but it's kind of off-brand for, you know, talking about... 597

Betsy:

There are Illinois Nazis in the Blues Brothers! [laughs] 598

Daniel:

I'm aware of that. 599

Yeah, no, so we're going to do that next – we're going to do that next week just to kind of give people a break from all the siegepill stuff, and, yeah, so that's the plan. Thanks for listening. Thanks, Betsy,. for being on the show, and... we'll see you next time. Cheers. 600