Document 10: Excerpt from Betty J. Blair, "Klan's ‘Spies’ Plan to Disrupt Feminist Parley," Detroit News, 1 September 1977. Reprinted in National Women's Conference Official Briefing Book: Houston, Texas, November 18 to 21, 1977 (Washington, D.C.: National Commission on the Observance of International Women's Year, 1977), p. 227.

Introduction

   The Ku Klux Klan, infamous for its racist attacks on non-whites, hoped to disrupt the mission of the NWC in part through sending members of the Klan's Ladies Auxiliary to the Houston meeting to challenge the National Plan. Like other conservative opponents of feminism, the Klan tried to discredit feminists by labeling them lesbians. Robert Shelton, the Klan's imperial wizard, claimed that the women's movement harbored "all the misfits of society, including self-admitted lesbians." These derogatory accusations were contested at the NWC during the sexual preference debate (see documents 50A, and 50B).

Klan's ‘spies’ plan to disrupt feminist parley
By BETTY J. BLAIR
News Staff Writer

   The Ku Klux Klan has quietly infiltrated the women's movement and now plans to help disrupt the upcoming International Women's Year (IWY) national meetings in Houston.

   The Klan tactics, which were disclosed yesterday by Robert Shelton, imperial wizard of the United Klans of America, Inc., strengthen earlier predictions of a stormy confrontation at the National Women's Conference among feminists and a coalition of anti-feminists, John Birch Society members and representatives from conservative church groups.

   Shelton said the Klan began its infiltation several years ago because it opposes the women's movement as a haven for "all the misfits of society, including self-admitted lesbians." He said that hundreds of members of the Ladies Auxiliary of the Klans have been "working against the women's movement for the past three to four years. Our women also were present at most of the state International Women's Year meetings, opposing the women's libbers."

   The Klan leader added that his group resents the use of taxpayers' money to help organize the state meeting that selected delegates to the national conference. If Congress can authorize $5 million for that, he said, "then it should give $5 million to the Klan to fight for segregation."

   Shelton's disclosure of his organization's anti-feminist activities, which he admits have not been fully effective, did not catch women's groups entirely by surprise. Says Dorothy Haener, a national International Women's Year commission member:

   "Shelton's statements verify what we have suspected for all summer during the state IWY meetings across the country—that the Klan was active in a number of those meetings. But we didn't suspect it until then."

   Shelton, the 48-year-old, full-time president of the United Klans, who lives in Tuscaloosa, Ala., told the Detroit News in a telephone interview:

   "I will be in the vicinity of the national IWY meetings in Houston (Nov. 18-21), and the Klan's attorneys will be there to advise our auxiliary members and sympathizers, even though we won't be able to attend the meeting. But some of our women members and sympathizers"—he would not say how many—"will be in the meetings as delegates to oppose what is going on. But our men also will be there to protect our women from all the militant lesbians who will be there. It's not safe for a decent woman to be there—some of our women were approached by lesbians at the state meetings.

   "Our women are open with their sympathies in some states and secretive in others, but they're active in most states. It's been difficult to infiltrate some of the IWY's secret meetings. By the time of the Houston meeting, we'll have infiltrated enough to be somewhat effective. I'm afraid we got into this too late to be effective, but we'll keep working.

   "While we are an independent organization, we work with any group with a Christian base; and, yes, we are working with some Christian groups — it's time they have come out and taken a stand against the women's movement and the IWY meetings in particular. We are not working with the John Birch Society, though.

   "These women libbers are trying to destroy all the principles and heritage that I cherish."

   The National Women's Conference organizers hope to bring women from all over the country to Houston to recommend ways of eliminating barriers to male and female equality. The conference grew out of the Commission on the Observance of International Women's Year, which former President Ford created in 1975.

   The commission's aim was to review progress of American women toward equal status with men and to eliminate inequities. Toward this end, Congress appropriated $5 million to help organize meetings in every state for the election of delegates to the national conference. Final reports from the national event will be given to Congress.

   If the stormy state-level meetings held this summer to send 1,442 voting delegates to the national conference are any portent, Houston will be the scene for a Texas-size collision as feminists and anti-feminists meet head on.

   Since 35 state delegations voted for the resolution supporting the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) resolution and for abortion, feminists will dominate the conference. But the opposition, estimated at up to one-fourth of the conference delegates, no doubt will be as vocal as it was during the state conferences.

   International Women's Year spokeswomen and other feminists admit they are worried about a confrontation and disruption in Houston. "Phyllis Schlafly (leader of the opposition to feminists goals) is seeking a resurgence of the far right by exploiting the women's movement," said a spokeswoman for the group. "Fundamentalist church groups also have been drawn into the movement, as evidenced at several state IWY meetings this summer."

   Mrs. Schlafly of Alton, III., predicts that the conference will "end the women's movement."

   Anti-feminist slates were elected at conferences in a number of states, including Alabama, Indiana, Mississippi, Montana, Oklahoma and Utah. And, in many of the states in which feminists slates were elected, the opposition was loud and disruptive.

   

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