Mississippi DPS Discovers 1960s KKK Materials During Headquarters Move, Transfers Items to Archives

A blue suitcase tucked inside a closet at the Mississippi Department of Public Safety's longtime Jackson headquarters held a collection that no one knew was there: full Ku Klux Klan regalia, membership ledgers with dues payments written in blue ink, Klan charters, and a 1964 Imperial Executive Order, all dating to the civil rights era of the 1960s.

The Mississippi Department of Public Safety transferred the materials to the Mississippi Department of Archives and History after the collection was discovered as DPS staff prepared to move into a new headquarters. That move takes the agency from Jackson to a new building in Rankin County. The joint announcement between MDPS and MDAH was made on March 24, 2026.

Inside the small blue suitcase, employees uncovered a cache that included Klan charters, a spiral notebook containing meeting minutes, a ledger book, a 1964 Imperial Executive Order, and numerous pamphlets. The inventory also includes propaganda, among them a United Klans of America pamphlet titled "The Ugly Truth about Martin Luther King," along with file folders containing news clippings about the Mississippi Highway Patrol and DPS, then-DPS Commissioner T.B. Birdsong, and materials related to the Freedom Riders.

The move from Jackson to Rankin County also turned up old Mississippi Highway Patrol folders labeled "Communist Agitators" and "Freedom Riders," which contain photos and reports on the 1961 riders. T.B. Birdsong, then-head of the patrol, falsely claimed Communists were behind these rides and that Russians had trained two riders in Cuba.

MDPS spokesperson Bailey C. Martin offered a measured explanation for why the materials were in the building at all. "We assume that these materials were used for investigations," Martin said. That framing connects the internal Klan records and clipped news coverage to the possibility that state law enforcement monitored Klan activity during the 1960s, though no official documentation confirming that use has been released.

DPS Commissioner Sean Tindell drew a direct line from the discovery to the agency's broader history. "Mississippi Highway Patrol Troopers and Agents with the Mississippi Department of Public Safety have worked for decades with our federal law enforcement partners to shed light on the darkness in which groups like the Ku Klux Klan chose to operate," Tindell said. "By preserving these artifacts and shedding light on such organizations, we help ensure that future generations are never led astray by such hate."

For archivists, the combination of what was found is unusually significant. Incoming MDAH Director Barry White said the agency is "grateful to Commissioner Tindell for recognizing the historical significance of this material," adding that the records "will give researchers broader access to documentation that deepens our understanding of Ku Klux Klan activities in Mississippi during the 1960s" and that "receiving a set of materials that includes both administrative records and propaganda from a local chapter of a national organization known for its secrecy is particularly significant."

Processing the material could take several months and involves the arrangement, housing, and description of archival materials for storage and use by patrons, including writing a collection-level overview for the catalog, an item-level finding aid, and index data for scans that will be produced. All materials will be processed by MDAH to be digitally accessible to the public in the future.

The Department of Archives and History already has a Klan robe and arrest photographs of Freedom Riders on display in the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum. The newly transferred suitcase adds a layer of organizational detail to that record — membership rolls, dues ledgers, and internal directives that document how a local Klan chapter actually operated, not just what it publicly proclaimed.