The Black LegionJ. Edgar Hoover and Fascism in the Depression Era

In the Valley of the Shadow

"Dear Sir, Would you please inform me if there is such an organization as, THE BLACK LEGION, and if so, is it in the United States?" wrote a concerned citizen to J. Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI, on 9 August 1938.¹ Amidst the uncertain times of the Great Depression, a short but palpable panic gripped the United States, stemming from doubts about the New Deal and fears of dangerous antigovernment conspiracies.

The organization this letter's author refers to was the Black Legion, a violent and little-known offshoot of the Ku Klux Klan founded in late 1924 or early 1925 in Bellaire, Ohio, by a beloved local physician and Ku Klux Klan Grand Cyclops named William Shepard. Known to the to residents of Bellaire for his warm bedside manner, "Dr. Billy" was "the little doctor of the poor" who accepted sexual favors as his fee for performing abortions.² What the residents of Bellaire did not know about Dr. Billy was that he was the founder of a secret society called the "Klan Guard" which evolved into the "Black Guard," the "Black Night Riders" and ultimately the Black Legion. Shepard founded the society in response to the self-imposed and widespread commercialization and trivialization of the Ku Klux Klan in the mid-1920s.³ He felt that the popular Klan, too transparent and too political, had moved away from its origins in enforcing conservative Protestant values, and away from defending the purity of American communities by scaring away blacks, Jews, Catholics, and communists. Night riding, the enforcement mechanism used by the Klan of the early 1920s, became the primary tool of the Black Legion for enforcement of the Klan's core values in communities in Michigan and Ohio, and amongst the groups of Legionnaires themselves.⁴

Figure 1.

"In the Valley of the Shadow—," Washington Post cartoon showing the Black Legion menace, ca. 1935 or 1936. FBI File No. 61–7398, section 3c, p. 25.

In 1932, a new captain took the helm of the Black Legion, an unemployed electrician named Virgil "Bert" H. Effinger. After serving as a Klan Grand Titan in Ohio, Effinger assumed command of the Black Legion to recreate a serious national movement bent on protecting "good, white Protestant" America from communists, radicals, "Jewish moneylenders," foreigners, "race mixers," and politicians. Under Legion "General" Effinger's leadership, the Black Legion conceived plans to exterminate the American Jews and overthrow the Roosevelt Administration and the New Deal, although none of these matured.⁵

Though no Legion-generated evidence survives beyond reports or accusations of plans to storm Washington, DC, or assassinate President Roosevelt, testimonies from Legionnaires found in local and federal investigations from 1935–1938 report that the Black Legion planned for armed uprisings at specific locations when Legion officers issued the codewords luxor or lixto followed by the name of a city or place.⁶ For example, "Lixto, Washington" would have triggered the appearance of armed Legionnaires in Washington, DC.

Perhaps the reason the attack on Washington never materialized was because the intense secrecy surrounding the Black Legion shattered in 1936.⁷ In his 1983 article, "Vigilante Fascism: The Black Legion as an American Hybrid," Peter H. Amann noted that ultra-secrecy was a fundamental tenet of the Black Legion, implemented by Shepard in order to distinguish his group from the mainstream Klan of the 1920s.⁸ In order to leave no trace of existence, the Black Legion did not collect membership dues and therefore never bureaucratized. With no funds, the Black Legion did not produce meeting minutes, or hard copies of plots for dissemination. This lack of bookkeeping fit Shepherd's vision for intense secrecy and a refocus on ideals and action, rather than recording and accounting. However, the veil of secrecy broke in 1936 when twelve Legionnaires were arrested based on the confession of a Black Legion triggerman named Dayton Dean for the murder of one Charles Poole.⁹ Poole was a Works Project Administration employee accused of...