Klan, Town Battle Court-Ordered Desegregation of Housing Complexes

There are 74 units in the Vidor Villas public housing complex; not a one is inhabited by a black person.

This is not unusual in Vidor--the town has 11,000 residents, none of them black. Federal officials have vowed that even if the town will not integrate, the Villas will. But there has been one complication:

The Ku Klux Klan.

Klansmen are handing out racist literature, touring the Villas neighborhood in buses and full KKK regalia, holding rallies, seeking the recall of Mayor Ruth Woods, raising funds to “Keep Vidor White.”

“It is fantastic!” said Mike Lowe, grand dragon of the Waco-based Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. “Vidor has always been known as klan country. It has been a klan stronghold for years.”

Not everyone in Vidor opposes integration; a weeklong prayer vigil sponsored by 17 area churches culminated in a rally for peace, love and brotherhood in a Vidor shopping center parking lot.

“See, we really can be just like any other little bedroom community,” Tessa Schiesler said, as children sang “Jesus Loves the Little Children.”

But the klan has had its effect. None of six black families who signed up for Vidor housing has been moved from complexes in Beaumont, 8 miles away.

The saga started a dozen years ago, with a class-action lawsuit filed against 72 housing authorities.

In 1990, the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development set out a plan to move black families from the 98% minority projects in Beaumont and Port Arthur to the nearly 100% white projects in Orange County.

The proposal also included parenting classes, financial planning sessions and job counseling--all designed to make residents more self-sufficient and able to advance themselves.

In September, U.S. District Judge William Wayne Justice of Tyler approved the plan.

And then . . . nothing.

“We feel like we want some of the attention to die down, and then we can go ahead and move these people,” said Alfred Harrison, who headed up desegregation for four housing authorities in Jefferson and Orange counties until he was fired--because, he said, he discussed the issue on “Donahue.”

The uproar in Vidor could have been expected. Blacks can work inside Vidor during the day, but strangers are warned that blacks should not travel there after sundown. Black motorists who happen by the tiny town just off Interstate 10 will be honked at.

As recently as the 1970s, Harrison recalled, Vidor residents displayed signs saying, “Nigger, if you can read this, run!”

He said Vidor was home to klan “military training camps” for years and offered KKK bookstores and memorabilia in plain sight.

“The klan used to have a stronger hold on Vidor,” said Paula Strong, who showed her support of the klan by hanging a sheet-clad doll from her porch in the Villas on Halloween. “It’s got to where the klan hasn’t been what it was. But it’s being built up now.”

But part of the Vidor standoff is a result of a battle within the klan--or, to be more precise, a battle between two klans. Lowe’s group is competing with the more militant Knights of the White Camelias, from Cleveland, Tex.

“They’re all trying to claim ground--that Vidor is their territory,” Harrison said. “They’re both battling among themselves.”

Charles Lee, grand dragon of the Knights of the White Camelias, admits that his organization is more aggressive than Lowe’s and would use violence if attacked.

“We get it done any way we can,” Lee said at a recent Vidor rally. “We are militant and reactionary.”

Lowe acknowledges that his organization came to town after learning the previous klan leader in Vidor died about a year ago. Though new to the town, he said his group is fighting integration.

“Someone said that we were outsiders coming to Vidor? No, ma’am. The outsider was that Judge William Wayne Justice who ordered this,” Lowe said.

Lowe said his supporters are not violent, white supremacists. Rather, they are “separatists.” Instead of harassing blacks who move into the area, he suggests residents “isolate them and maybe they’ll get the hint.”

“Anywhere where we have had integration, we have had crime,” contends Lowe. “Where the minorities move in, the elderly become fearful. . . .

“If we allow integration in Vidor, instead of buying computers for our children in our schools so that they can compete in the world, we’ll be buying metal detectors because of the minority gangs that will be in our schools.”

Mayor Woods said before the desegregation issue drew out the KKK, it had been years since there was any visible klan activity in Vidor: “We’ve worked hard for 20 years to change our image,” she said.

And several residents of the Vidor Villas said they see no reason why they should not have blacks for neighbors.

“Black people, they need homes just like we do. They might be a helluva lot better than half the people that already live here,” said Kim Ganze, 26.

Marshall Burns Sr., 41, has lived in the complex for more than a year.

“In my opinion--red, yellow, black or white--I’m not against nobody,” he said. “If the housing authority wants to put them in here, they should. . . . There may be some in this area that don’t like it, but that’s their opinion. I can’t do nothing about it.”

Dallas attorney Mike Daniel, who filed the lawsuit 12 years ago, said housing authorities have encouraged public housing units to remain segregated.

He blames the federal government for fostering racism by continuing to send millions of dollars in aid to cities and counties that are not abiding by decades-old laws ensuring fair housing.

“It’s absurd that in 1992 that a city and a housing authority that is overtly hostile to blacks should continue receiving federal money,” he said. “The U.S. government is worse than the Klan. The Klan’s not providing federal funds to keep places segregated.”