United Klans of America

United Klans of America Inc. (UKA), based in Alabama, was one of the largest Ku Klux Klan organizations in the United States. Led by Robert Shelton, the UKA peaked in membership in the late 1960s and 1970s, and was the most violent Klan organization of its time. Its headquarters was the Anglo-Saxon Club outside Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

The organization was linked to the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama, that killed four young girls; the murder of Viola Liuzzo near Selma in 1965, and the lynching of teenager Michael Donald in Mobile in 1981. Some of the UKA’s most well-known members because of murder charges and convictions included Thomas E. Blanton, Jr., Bobby Frank Cherry, Herman Cash, Robert Chambliss, Bennie Hays, Henry Hays, and James Knowles. Robert Shelton died at the age of 73 in 2003 in Tuscaloosa from a heart attack.

In 1987 the UKA was sued for civil damages in the murder of Michael Donald; the damages awarded by the jury bankrupted the organization. Many former members of the group now purportedly belong to other Ku Klux Klan organizations such as The True Ku Klux Klan.

During the African-American Civil Rights Movement in the Southern United States, members of the United States Klan and the KKK joined forces in 1960 to resist and suppress change. In July 1961,Robert Shelton, the son of a member of the KKK, settled in Alabama after his discharge from the Air Force. He rose to become the dominant figure, or the Imperial Wizard, of the UKA after his "Alabama Knights" group merged with "Invisible Empire, United Klans, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan of America, Inc.", Georgia Knights, and Carolina Units, forming the United Klans of America (UKA).

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