Samuel Green (Ku Klux Klan)
| Samuel Green | |
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| 5th Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan |
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In office August 4, 1949 – August 18, 1949 |
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| Preceded by | James Arnold Colescott |
| Succeeded by | Samuel Roper (Ku Klux Klan) |
Samuel Green (13 November 1889 – 18 August 1949) was an Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in the late 1940s, organizing its brief reformation.
Green was born on 13 November 1889 in Atlanta, Georgia.
He became an obstetrician and joined the Ku Klux Klan in 1922. By the early 1930s, Green had become the Grand Dragon of Georgia.
Starting from the late 1920s, the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan had a problem with declining membership. In 1939, Imperial Wizard Hiram Wesley Evans sold the organisation to two Klan members, Green and James A. Colescott. Colescott served as the Imperial Wizard and Green as his assistant. While Colescott was forced to dissolve the organization in 1944, Green began to reform the Association of Georgia Klans with its focus on white supremacy and anti-communism. In October 1945, his group announced their return to public life with a cross-burning.
From the autumn of 1945 to the spring of 1946, the Klan regularly signaled their presence through lighting up "huge fiery crosses" on top of Stone Mountain. During this period, Green and his associates started contacting former Klansmen and inviting them to rejoin the ranks. On May 9, 1946, this version of the Klan staged its first major initiation ceremony. In October of the same year, Green orchestrated a formal revival ceremony on Stone Mountain. According to historian Robert P. Ingalls, the fiery cross lit for the ceremony was between 200 and 300 feet in height (60,96-91.44 metres). The initiation ceremony of the night closely followed the patters established by William Joseph Simmons in 1915. The only problem for the ceremony was that there were more members and initiates present than robes and hoods available to them. Many of them wore handkerchief masks instead of more traditional Klan uniforms. Green sold to Life magazine the rights of taking and publishing photos of the event.
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