Staff at the Mississippi Department of Public Safety (MDPS) recently found a blue suitcase packed with 1960s-era Ku Klux Klan materials. The suitcase contained full robes, meeting minutes, a ledger listing members and their dues, and propaganda pamphlets, including one titled The Ugly Truth About Martin Luther King. The discovery happened while the agency was preparing to move from its old headquarters in Jackson to a new location in Rankin County.
MDPS spokesperson Bailey C. Martin told reporters that the agency believes these materials were used for investigations in the past. The MDPS made a joint announcement about the find, together with the Mississippi Department of Archives and History (MDAH), which has since taken possession of the items for preservation.
According to the MIssissippi Free Press, MDPS Commissioner Sean Tindell said that preserving these artifacts and bringing attention to such organizations helps make sure future generations are not misled by that kind of hate. The MDAH expects processing the materials will take months, involving careful housing, description, scanning, and indexing for researchers.
The Mississippi Highway Patrol had a complicated and dark history with the Klan
The Mississippi Highway Patrol, which was entirely white at the time, was actively targeted by the Klan for infiltration. Many in Mississippi’s Black freedom movement saw the highway patrol as a tool of white supremacy, with Black drivers often reporting brutal beatings on state roads. The Klan’s reach into communities has surfaced in disturbing ways even in recent times, such as when children in a Pennsylvania town received KKK business cards, prompting locals to confront their town council.
In 1963, state trooper John Lutellas Basinger arrested Black activists in Winona, Mississippi, including Freedom Democratic Party leader Fannie Lou Hamer. They were tortured for days by local police. Hamer later described the experience as “the most horrifying experience I’ve ever had in my life.”
Mississippi Department of Public Safety officials stumbled across a cache of Ku Klux Klan materials while cleaning out a closet to move to the department’s new headquarters. https://t.co/XTyoAeVuWq pic.twitter.com/8Jv0JibSj5
— Mississippi Today (@MSTODAYnews) March 24, 2026
After the 1964 “Mississippi Burning” murders of civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, which involved both Klan members and law enforcement, the Mississippi Highway Patrol began investigating its own members for Klan ties.
Governor Paul B. Johnson eventually fired several troopers found to be Klan members. However, just months before those murders, in March 1964, Johnson had asked the Legislature to triple the size of the all-white highway patrol, despite protests from Black freedom activists.
The suitcase also contained a charter from the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan of the Sovereign Realm of Mississippi, dated May 21, 98 A.K., Anno Kuklos, or “Year of the Klan,” with their dating system starting in 1865, likely placing the document on May 21, 1963.
Mississippi Department of Public Safety officials stumbled across a cache of Ku Klux Klan materials while cleaning out a closet to move to the department’s new headquarters.
— zamohappy (@zamohappy) March 24, 2026
Inside a small blue suitcase, they found a handbook for the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, the most… pic.twitter.com/t87InwnqaU
The charter charged its recipients with the “Sacred Responsibility for preserving Christian Civilization, and with the task of effectively and intelligently destroying any and all agents or agencies of Satan, whensoever they may detect any such demons in human flesh at their evil and treasonous Work.”
Other items included news clippings about the MDPS, the Mississippi Highway Patrol, and documents related to the civil rights Freedom Riders. Public figures have historically taken strong stances against the Klan, most notably Jerry Springer confronting the KKK on live television, something his fans still remember.
Barry White, the incoming MDAH director, said these records will give researchers broader access to documentation that deepens understanding of Klan activities in Mississippi during the 1960s, noting it is especially significant to receive materials including both administrative records and propaganda from a chapter known for its intense secrecy.
