Former Ku Klux Klan terrorist finds God

Press, 24 May 1977, Page 26

Former Ku Klux Klan terrorist finds God

By TOM MADDEN of of United Press International (through NZPA) Jackson, Mississippi. Thomas Albert Tarrants 111, a former Ku Klux Klan terrorist turned bornagain Christian, says that the Klan is not dead and political, social, and economic conditions in the United States today are conducive to the growth of the organisation. "There is no doubt in my mind that the Klan is still alive. I think a lot of the political, social, and economic factors that are operating in society today render conditions much more conducive to their (Klan’s) growth and development than in previous times,” Tarrants said in a telephone interview. He was recently granted an early release after serving eight years in the Mississippi State Penitentiary for an attempted firebombing at a Jewish businessman’s home. Tarrants is now attending college. “They (the Klan) are trying to present a respectable middle-class image, a non-violent approach, in order to

reshape their public image and gain greater support by trying to tap into the middle class,” he said. Tarrants, who is 30, who in his first semester at the University of Mississippi finished on the dean’s list, said that the Klan seemed to be growing. "There are a lot of issues they can exploit today to win over the average middle-class American and they seem to be gaining in strength,” he said. Tarrants, at one time a prize pupil of the Klan, said that the Klan had distorted the Bible to justify its own ends. “They have missed the whole message of the Bible — which is the love of God and love for your fellow man. “I don’t want to appear to be trying to condemn them. I did the same thing. I was using the Bible to prove and substantiate my prejudices.” Tarrants’s prejudices became known throughout the United States on June 30, 1968, when he attempted to place a bomb at the home of Mr Meyer Davidson, a prominent Jewish business leader in Meridian, Mississippi.

The attempt was preceded by terrorist bombings, threats, and other incidents in the area. It was foiled by a police stakeout at the Davidson home. Tarrants was apprehended after a'gun-battle. A young woman companion, Kathy Ainsworth of Jackson, was killed in the shooting. Three persons — Tarrants, a policeman, and a bystander — were wounded. Tarrants, in a diary found by the police, proclaimed himself a guerrilla fighter combatting the “Communist-Jewish” conspiracy. He pleaded insanity, but a group of c o u r t-appointed psychiatrists declared him mentally competent. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison, and after an attempted escape in 1969, spent three years in maximum security. While in maximum security Tarrants said he was “born-again” and decided to dedicate his life to God. He repudiated the Klan as an “organisation of hate.” A two-year effort by Tarrants to gain an early release from Parchman Prison to attend college

was finally successful in December, last year. “I can’t say I have had had any problems since starting college. It is just a process of readjusting,” said Tarrants, a Mobile Alabama, native. “People at the university have just been great. No one has said anything out of the way.” Tarrants, who is majoring in Greek, said he hoped to teach in divinity school upon graduation. “While in prison I matured as an individual. I also developed some goals and values in life. Becoming a Christian and experiencing the new birth laid the foundation for all the rest,” he said. The Klan, Tarrants said, has made no effort to contact him since he was released from prison. “I think I am an embarrassment to the Klan. It is very embarrassing for them to have reports that Eldridge Cleaver, Charles Colson, Harold Hughes, and I are together praising the Lord,” he said. “This, coupled with the fact that I have repudiated Ku Klux Klan ideology, is most embarrassing to them.”