University Daily Kansan / Wednesday, December 5, 1990
5
Ex-KKK leader learns to live with death threats from Klan
Grand Wizard quit Missouri Knights a year after KU forum
By Lara Moritz
By Lara Moritz Special to the Kansan
James Moran's large hands with oil-stained fingernails and his cigarette while beads of sweat formed on his baked skin.
His calm manner and reserved personality seemed to be more that of a one-time police officer than of a one-time Grand Wizard of the Missouri White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.
Two years after Moran appeared with fellow Klan members at a controversial free-speech forum at the University of Kansas, Moran said he had quit the Klan and had been threatened with death.
He now works as a machinist at a Kansas City, Mo. factory.
Laird Wilcox, a KU graduate who studies extremist groups and also appeared at the forum, helped Moran talk to a group of anti-Semitic people.
Wilcox said he knew Moran was not a typical Klansman.
"He was an idealist and wanted Whites to live in harmony," Wilcox said. "He was not a mallastic person in his youth."
"My whole approach to extremists is to understand them, not to challenge them."
Wilcox said he and Moran had become friends after he helped Moran decide to leave the Klan. They remain free.
"That was the funnest night of my life," Moran said of the forum at an overflowing Hoch Auditorium in February 1988. The forum marked the first time he had spoken to a large audience.
He stressed that his purpose in coming to KU was not to recruit students for the Khan. In fact, to his knowledge not all of them were willing.
"I wanted to propagate an idea," Moran said. "I didn't want to recruit. I had some ideas I wanted to throw out on the table and have people think about them."
The University considered not allowing the Klan to appear on campus, and Moran threatened KU with a lawsuit before the forum was allowed to take place. But he said the university is merely for publicity and that he never intended to file suit.
He said he wanted KU officials to consider what might happen if the school violated the First Amendment.
"The universities and colleges across the United States are where our ideas of society come from today," Moran said. "What's going to happen if they close their doors to groups that aren't popular?"
He said that the forum was a victory for KU, not the Klan, and that he hoped other universities would use KU as an example of a school exercising freedom of speech. Moran said he still believed in the racial ideologies of the Kluwer.
"The White race needs civil representation," he said. "It seems that in the 80s and 90s, if you stand up and say, I'm White and I am proud, you're going to get bricks thrown at you. Whereas our racial opposites can congregate at the state's expense and say, I'm Black and I am proud, and be able to get together and be praised." A is
Moran said he would solve discrimination problems and reverse discrimination by having all Blacks live in the city. He said that he was not a victim.
When Blacks and Whites mix, they lose their true identities, he said.
government.
He said Whites should govern themselves in another section of the country.
Moran said that he would have preferred to have formed his own White supremacist group instead of joining the Klan but that he feared he would not have been killed. He said joining the Klan meant immediate attention.
He said he left the Klan because his goals were not being achieved.
Wilcox said, "He was himself as a civil-rights worker." Moran said that he tried to call a special meeting to resign his position but that the members did not want him to quit. They told him he needed a vacation.
In an effort to get reporters off his back, Moran sent a copy of his letter of resignation to the Kansas City Star.
Despite his decision to quit, Moran did not want the Klan to consider him a traitor. But the Klan goes by the motto, "If you aren't with us you must be against us," Moran said.
After he resigned, Moran received a mailed death threat from the Klan.
"I don't know if it was stupidity or ignorance, but it was signed by all the officers from the top down, and just in case you couldn't read their signatures they typed their names," Moran said.
The Klan never attempted to kill him, Moran said. "I don't know why they haven't come after me," he said. "Maybe because they know I know where they live too."
For months after Moran quit the Klan he got an average of 10 anonymous death threats a day, he said.
"I always answered the front door with a 9mm gun in my hand," he said.
told him she would leave him if he did not quit the klan.
"She was afraid to walk from the house to the car."
Moran became interested in the Klan while being trained by police to deal with hostage situations.
Moran and his wife attended a church that preached right-wing ideologies similar to the Klans.
It was at church that Moran met Dennis Mahon, current leader of the Missouri White Knights in Kansas
He informed his boss, the police chief in Kansas City. Mo., that he was attending the church and was interested in the work.
Shortly after meeting Mahon, Moran was photographed with him at a shopping mail passing out literature for the National Association for the Advancement of White People.
Several days later, Moran received a letter from the mayor that said he was fired from the police force.
"I'm not one to say things are a conspiracy, but this was," he said. "It takes a lot to get me mad, but when I am, I'm like a bull in a china shop. All my superiors sold me out."
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VOTE
Where: Engineering Library in Learned Hall When: Today 9:00 a.m.-3:30 p.m.
If your answer to these questions is no, vote against the Engineering Fee.
THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS 1991 SUMMER PROGRAMS
Humanities in Great Britian
Six weeks of interdisciplinary study: a week in
Sixteen, a week in Edinburgh, visits to York,
Oxford, and Exeter. See the British Museum,
Tower of London, Stratford-on-Avon, and Tintagel.
Earn six to nine undergraduate hours in designated
British literature, history, and history of art courses.
June 24 - August 1. Approximately $2,800.
Deadline: February 1.
Intermediate Six weeks; to begin, several days in Mainz, Bad Kreuznach, and Marburg; to end, travel to Berlin and Munich. Enjoy Eutin's own opera festival, nearby lakes, and the Baltic seacast. Live with a German family. Earn up to nine undergraduate hours in german language, culture, conversation, and grammar. May 23-July 18. Approximately $2,250. Early application is encouraged.
**Advanced German in Holzkirchen/Munich, Germany**
Seven weeks of instruction in Holzkirchen/Munich with visits to Berlin, Salzburg, Berchtesgaden, cities in the former GDR, and Francia (Nurenberg, Wurzburg, Rothenburg). Enjoy excursions also to the Museum of Ancient Rome. Take nine hours in courses such as German grammar, conversation, literature, drama and theater, and history and culture. May 23-July 18.
Approximately $2,250. Early application is required.
Italian language and culture in Florence, Italy Four or eight weeks: Learn Italian in the cultural center of Italy. Study in a 14th-century palazzo in downtown Florence near the Armo River and the Ponte Vecchio and live with an Italian family. Weekends and afternoons are free for individual excursions and daytrips. Earn six to ten hours in Italian language and culture, including cooking takes classes taught in Italian by native Italians. June session: June 2-June 28. July session: June 30-July 26. Approximately $2,069 for one-month session and $3,384 for two-month session Deadline: February 1.
Art & Design in Peyresq, France Three and a half weeks: Cross cultural and disciplinary boundaries with students from St. Lucas University of Ghent, Belgium. Tour Ghent, Bruges, and Brussels, then stay in Paris and the Provincial area of France. Absorb picturesque Peyresq, a medieval shepherd's village transformed into an international University Village. Enjoy fine studies, group and individual projects, and time for work and students from different cultures. Earn three hours in Art & Design. July 8 - July 31. Approximately $1,750. Deadline: February 1.
THIS SUMMER
STUDY ABROAD
For applications and more information.
Early Application is advised
The University of Kansas
Office of Study Abroad
203-L Sippincott Hall
Lawrence, KS 65045-1731
French language and culture in Paris
Intermediate Spanish in Barcelona, Spain
Eight weeks: Begin with a two-week tour of Madrid and other cities. Settle in the heart of Barcelona for four intensive weeks at the Instituto Granes, while living with a Spanish family. Then enjoy a 12-day free period for travel in Spain or other countries. Earn up to seven undergraduate hours in Spanish language courses in history, and culture. June 13-August 5. Approximately $2,500. Deadline: February 15.
Six weeks: Tour important French historical sites and participate in classes taught by native French instructors. Two weeks of group travel in Pletry, Normandy, Brittany, and Tourisme, then four weeks in Paris, attending classes at the Etoile: Centre de Langue et Wie Francaises. From courses on all levels, select French grammar, reading, composition, conversation, culture, and phonetics. Earn up to six undergraduate hours. June 17-July 29. Approximately $2,700. Deadline: February 1.
The London School of Economics, England
Three or six weeks: Live and study in central London,
close to the City and Parliament. Enroll in one or two
intensive three-week sessions, one course per session,
to earn three or six hours. Take courses in:
Introductory and Intermediate Micro and
Macroeconomics, upper level accounting,
Quantitative Methods, Mathematical Economics,
and European Integration. First session: July 1-July 19,
approximately $2,050. Second session: July 22-
August 9, approximately $ 2,050. Both sessions:
$3,550. Prices include housing, tuition, no meals.
Early application is encouraged.
Japanese language & business/society in Hiratsuka.
Five weeks: located at Kanagawa University in Hiratsuka, Japan. Lawrence's sister city. Earn up to six hours of language and business/society credit.
Study tours to Japanese businesses and the city of Kyoto are planned. May 31-July 5. Approximately $2,800. ALL DETAILS TENTATIVE. Early application or indication of interest is encouraged.
Japan
Spanish language and Mexican culture in Guadalajara, Mexico Eight weeks: Study Spanish while living with a Mexican family. Guadalajara, Mexico's second largest city, offers music, folklore and folk dance, theater, Mexican and foreign films, restaurants, and discos. Two optional group excursions are offered to Oaxaca and the colonial city of Morelia. In classes with KU faculty and native instructors, earn up to ten undergraduate or graduate hours in Spanish grammar, conversation, and literature; and Mexican culture, history, and literature. June 28- April 15, 2013 KU tuition for some cultural activities, and all program administrative costs). Deadline: April 15.