1930 жылдардағы АҚШ-тың нәсілшіл террористік ұйымы – «Қара Легион»

American white supremacist terrorist organization active in the 1930s

The Black Legion was a white supremacist terrorist organization and hate group which was active in the Midwestern United States in the 1920s and the 1930s. It split off from the Ku Klux Klan and grew to prominence during the Great Depression. According to historian Rick Perlstein, the FBI estimated that its membership numbered "at 135,000, including a large number of public officials, including Detroit's police chief." The Black Legion is widely viewed as an even more violent and radical offshoot of the Klan. In 1936, the group was suspected of having killed as many as 50 people, according to the Associated Press, including Charles Poole, an organizer for the federal Works Progress Administration. Eleven men were found guilty of Poole's murder. At the time of Poole's murder, the Associated Press described the organization as "A group of loosely federated night riding bands operating in several States without central discipline or common purpose beyond the enforcement by lash and pistol of individual leaders' notions of 'Americanism'." Based on testimony which was heard during the trial of Poole's killer, Dayton Dean, Wayne County Prosecutor Duncan McRae conducted a widespread investigation and prosecuted dozens of other Legionnaires suspected of committing murders and assaults. Overall, nearly 50 Legionnaires were convicted of murder, conspiracy to commit murder, kidnapping, arson, and perjury. Additional convictions were obtained against Legionnaires and their sympathizers for contempt of court for refusing to cooperate with the investigation. Within a year, the organization had been crushed. The prosecutions and associated negative publicity resulted in a rapid decline in Legion membership. The sensational cases inspired two related films, one starring Humphrey Bogart, and two radio show episodes which were produced from 1936 to 1938.

In 1915, the release of D. W. Griffith's film, The Birth of a Nation, inspired a revival of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) in Atlanta, Georgia. Gradually, the new Klan, often appealing to migrants to cities as a fraternal order, established new chapters nationwide, particularly in urban areas, including the rapidly changing cities of the industrialized Midwest. Throughout the 1920s, cities such as Detroit, Cleveland and Indianapolis were centers of an increase in Klan membership and activity in local chapters, in reaction to high rates of immigration from Eastern and Southern Europe, and the internal migration of African Americans from the Southern United States. A sexual scandal in the Ku Klux Klan's national leadership in 1925, and local actions by opponents who were determined to unmask the secrecy of Klan members, caused the Klan's membership to drop rapidly through the late 1920s. Initially, the Black Legion was part of the Klan. It was founded by William Shepard as a paramilitary force which was called the Black Guard in the 1920s, in the Appalachian region of East Central Ohio. Its original mission was to protect regional officers of the KKK. The Black Legion formed chapters all across Ohio, and it expanded into other areas of the Midwestern United States. One of its self described leaders, Virgil "Bert" Effinger, lived and worked in Lima, Ohio. Like the KKK, the Black Legion was largely made up of native born, working class, Protestant white men in the Midwest. These men feared the rapid social changes underway and resented competition with immigrants such as Italians and Jews. They also feared migrants in the industrial economy of major cities, such as Detroit. Their list of enemies "included all immigrants, Catholics, Jews and blacks, nontraditional Protestant faiths, labor unions, farm cooperatives and various fraternal groups." Membership was concentrated in Michigan and Ohio. Black Legion members created a network for jobs and influence. In addition, as a secret vigilante group, the Legion members operated in gangs in order to enforce their view of society, sometimes attacking immigrants to intimidate them at work, or to enforce their idea of moral behavior. They generally opposed socialism and union organizing. They had a reputation for frequent violence against alleged enemies, whether political or social. From 1933 to 1936, they were rumored to be responsible for some unsolved deaths that had officially been attributed to suicide or unknown perpetrators. In 1931, a chapter of the Black Legion was formed in Highland Park, Michigan, by Arthur F. Lupp, Sr. of that community, who styled himself its major general. Throughout and perhaps fueled by the economic and social upheaval of the Great Depression, the Black Legion continued to expand across Michigan until the mid 1930s, when its estimated membership peaked at between 20,000 and 30,000. In general, Black Legion members in the state were native born Protestant men. One third of its members lived in the city of Detroit, which had also been a strong center of KKK activity in the 1920s. The Michigan Legion was organized along military lines, with 5 brigades, 16 regiments, 64 battalions, and 256 companies. It boasted of a membership of one million Legionnaires in Michigan, but observers estimated that it had between 20,000 and 30,000 members. One third of them were located in Detroit, with many living in Highland Park.

The Black Legion's tactics were "to lure potential recruits to a meeting—kidnap them, if necessary—then threaten them if they didn't join and [make them] swear they’d never tell anybody." They would also beat up members if they threatened to quit. The Legion wanted sports figures as members. It was looking into recruiting Mickey Cochrane, player manager for the Detroit Tigers. He had a nervous breakdown in 1936 and removed himself from the team over Black Legion suspicions. One of these Legion members, Dayton Dean, broke their code and told the authorities of Black Legion's illegal activities. Dayton Dean participated in two of the murders that the Black Legion committed.

On May 12, 1936, Charles A. Poole, a federal organizer for the Works Progress Administration, was kidnapped from his home by a gang of Black Legion members. They claimed that Poole, a French Catholic married to a Protestant woman, beat his wife, and that they intended to punish him for this. Authorities arrested and prosecuted a gang of twelve Legionnaires. Dayton Dean pleaded guilty and testified against numerous other members; ten others were convicted of first degree murder or second degree murder, nine by a jury and one in a bench trial.

AccusedVerdictSentenceDayton DeanFirst degree murderLife imprisonment"Colonel" Harvey DavisFirst degree murderLife imprisonmentErvin D. LeeFirst degree murderLife imprisonmentUrban LippsFirst degree murderLife imprisonmentPaul R. EdwardsFirst degree murderLife imprisonmentEdgar BaldwinFirst degree murderLife imprisonmentJohn BannermanFirst degree murderLife imprisonmentLowell RushingFirst degree murderLife imprisonmentThomas R. CraigSecond degree murder10 to 20 years imprisonmentVirgil MorrowSecond degree murder5 to 15 years imprisonmentAlbert StevensSecond degree murder7.5 to 15 years imprisonmentJohn S. VincentSecond degree murder3 to 10 years imprisonment
Dean provided considerable testimony to authorities about other activities of the Black Legion. Prejudiced primarily against Catholics, particularly Italian and Slavic immigrants, he and his collaborators had never learned that Becky Poole had a great grandmother who was African American. Dayton Dean died in prison on January 18, 1960, at the age of 59. In June 1960, Urban Lipps, another man convicted in the case, had his sentence commuted to 71 years by Governor G. Mennen Williams. Lipps, who was determined to have had the least involvement in the murder, was the first convict to be recommended for clemency. At the time of his release, Lowell Rushing, Paul Edwards, Edgar Baldwin, Ervin Lee, John Bannerman, Harvey Davis, and Charles Rouse were still in prison. Harvey Davis died in the prison in the 1960s. In 1966, Ervin Lee, now 60, had his sentence commuted by Governor George W. Romney. The commutations were granted with the recommendations of the Michigan Parole Board.

Hollywood, radio and, later TV, responded to the lurid nature of the Legion by producing works that referred to it. Legion of Terror (1936) starred Ward Bond and Bruce Cabot, and it was based on this group. Black Legion (1937), a feature film starring Humphrey Bogart, was based on the events which led to the murder of Charles Poole, but the details of the case and the names of the people who were involved in it were changed in the film. It depicted the devastating effect of domestic terrorist groups like the Black Legion on an ordinary American man, his family, his neighbors, and his coworkers. The National Board of Review named Black Legion the best film of 1937, and it named Humphrey Bogart the best actor for his work on the film. True Detective Mysteries, a radio show which was based on the magazine which had the same title, broadcast an episode on April 1, 1937, which directly referred to the Black Legion and Poole's murder. The radio show The Shadow, with Orson Welles in the title role, broadcast an episode on March 20, 1938, titled "The White Legion"; the group which was described in the episode was loosely based on the Black Legion. Since the late 20th century, the group has received renewed historic and popular attention. Malcolm X and Alex Haley collaborated on The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965). Malcolm noted that the Legion had been active in Lansing, Michigan, where his family lived. Malcolm X was six years old when his father died in 1931; he believed that his father was killed by the Black Legion. In 1998, the TV series History's Mysteries presented an episode about the group entitled "Terror in the Heartland: The Black Legion". Author Tom Stanton's 2016 nonfiction book Terror in the City of Champions (2016) details the group's activities. The TV series Damnation (2017) features the group.