Forgotten about LivCo history
Growing up in Livingston County I saw Klan robes in my best friend's dad’s closet, saw the swastikas scrawled at school, saw robed Klansmen at the train tracks on my walk to/from school, heard the stories from kids who were any other ethnicity being bullied/bricks through their house windows/chased out of town, watched a KKK rally overtake our courthouse downtown, etc.
I’m going to share some information for those interested in learning about the deep racist history here in Livingston County. KKK leader, Robert Miles, was convicted and served prison time for participating in an attack against a High School Principal who had his life threatened at gunpoint while he was literally tarred/feathered for his beliefs on desegregation.
“Five hooded Klu Klux Klan members attacked Brownlee and tarred and feathered him to discourage him from promoting racial harmony at the high school. On the way to his Plymouth home from the meeting, Brownlee was forced to pull over around 10:30 p.m. because a vehicle was blocking part of a bridge ahead. He slowed to a stop and another car pulled up behind, blocking him in. Brownleee said one of the men put a shotgun to his head and told him to turn off his lights and get out of the car. He was then knocked to the ground and one of the men pulled a five-gallon can of hot tar from another car and poured it on him from the shoulders down. They threw chicken feathers on him and released him nearly two hours later.
Brownlee returned to the high school to seek help and a high school student snapped a picture of him covered in tar. The photo, and later Brownlee's story, received national attention and was seen by some as a symbol of hope. . . The fact he showed up to work the next day and said, 'I'm not going to be scared off by this,' he was on the right side of history. I think it was really important. . . Brownlee said in a 1972 article in the The Daily Herald that the incident backfired on the KKK members, who had hoped to instill fear in the community. Brownlee said it had "a lot of positive payoff" in the school and the community. "People felt they had reached their limit and something had to be done," he said. . .
In June 1972, four KKK members were indicted in federal court on conspiracy charges related to what happened to Brownlee. One was charged at a later date. According to the United Press International, Michigan Ku Klux Klan leader Robert Miles was arrested at his farm near Howell. . . In October of 1973 Miles was sentenced to four years in prison on the conspiracy charges. According to the Associated Press, he also received a separate five year sentence for conspiring to bomb empty school buses that were to be used as part of a school desegregation plan in Pontiac. . .Miles said in the AP article."But it was my intent to defend the civil rights of my own children and my neighbors and friends.” Source
Here is an interview from 1991 with this KKK leader;
“Klan membership was commonplace among automotive union workers throughout the state for decades. . . That suspected link was confirmed by one of the group’s most notorious leaders, Robert Miles, in 1991. . .The KKK recruited new members amid the working class, Miles, a former grand dragon of the Michigan Klan, said during an interview for the documentary “Blood in the Face.”
“That’s where our strength is even today,” Miles said. “When we had 2,000 members of the Klan in Michigan back in 1970, the bulk of our people came out of the auto factories. They were the workers at Buick, Saginaw Steering, Chevrolet Gear and Axel, Cadillac, Ford. That’s not the upper class. That’s the working class.” Miles lived on a 70-acre farm in Cohoctah Township, northwest of Howell in Livingston County, and rose to prominence in the Klan in the 1970s. . .
“He couched his racist talk. He quoted the Bible a lot and he did it in a way that people who talked to him might think, ‘This guy makes sense.’” . .
“Miles was very, very savvy when it came to public relations,” Moorehouse said. “He wanted the word out about what he was doing.” He also wanted to keep Livingston County white and preached that message publicly. In 1989 Miles lashed out at a Howell group pushing back against the community’s racist image. During a Michigan Civil Rights Commission meeting that fall, he called the group “a bunch of hypocrites.”Moorehouse was there and remembers Miles telling the commission he was responsible for “keeping the community white.”
U.S. Census Bureau data from 2019 estimates over 96% of Livingston County's residents are white. . .
While the KKK's presence is small, the hate group’s ideology has been adopted by other white supremacy groups. Those principles thrive within them today, McNergney Vinyard said.
“These white nationalist groups that we've seen after George Floyd's death and before, they all have the same mission,” Green said. “The mission is spreading hate, but most important of all, spreading fear." Source
The people Miles preached directly to at his Livingston County “church” not that long ago are dead now, but their kids are currently raising kids in this community- think about that- and it's showing, as evident by all this garbage we are seeing!