John Kasper (October 21, 1929 – April 7, 1998), born Frederick John Kasper, Jr., was a

Ku Klux Klan The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and Cat ...

member and segregationist who took a militant stand against

racial integration Racial integration, or simply integration, includes desegregation (the process of ending systematic racial segregation). In addition to desegregation, integration includes goals such as leveling barriers to association, creating equal opportuni ...

during the

civil rights movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement throughout the Unite ...

Life

Educated at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

, Kasper became a devotee of

Ezra Pound Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an expatriate American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a Fascism, fascist collaborator in Italy during World War II. His works ...

and corresponded with the poet as a student.'The Tale of John Kasper'
/ref> Between 1950 and 1963, Kasper sent 400 letters to Pound and received an unknown number of replies (Pound's letters to Kasper are lost). In the letters Kasper identifies with Pound and, within a short time of beginning the correspondence, he considered himself Pound's main disciple. Directed by Pound, Kasper began a small press ( Square Dollar Press) in 1951, to publish works Pound favored. In 1953, Kasper opened the Make It New bookshop in

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...

, displaying Pound's letters in the shop window. Kasper campaigned against

in the

Southern United States The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, or simply the South) is a geographic and cultural region of the United States of America. It is between the Atlantic Ocean ...

, calling it a Jewish plot. In those activities and others, Kasper believed he was disseminating the poet's ideas. Pound's association with Kasper caused chagrin among those who were attempting to have Pound released from

St. Elizabeths Hospital St. Elizabeths Hospital is a psychiatric hospital in Southeast, Washington, D.C. operated by the District of Columbia Department of Behavioral Health. It opened in 1855 under the name Government Hospital for the Insane, the first federally ope ...

, where he was incarcerated on charges of treason. After running the bookshop in

, Kasper moved to Washington, D.C., where he befriended Pound and set up a company to publish the poet's works, as well as those of others such as

Charles Olson Charles Olson (27 December 1910 – 10 January 1970) was a second generation modern American poet who was a link between earlier figures such as Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams and the New American poets, which includes the New York ...

. Imbibing Pound's

right-wing Right-wing politics describes the range of Ideology#Political ideologies, political ideologies that view certain social orders and Social stratification, hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically supporting this pos ...

ideas, Kasper formed the Seaboard

Citizens Council The Citizens' Councils (commonly referred to as the White Citizens' Councils) were an associated network of white supremacist, segregationist organizations in the United States, concentrated in the South and created as part of a white backlas ...

immediately after the ruling of the

Supreme Court A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...

in the '' Brown v. Board of Education'' case, with the aim of preventing

desegregation Desegregation is the process of ending the separation of two groups, usually referring to races. Desegregation is typically measured by the index of dissimilarity, allowing researchers to determine whether desegregation efforts are having impact o ...

in Washington. During the 1970s, Kasper returned to Merchantville, NJ where he had grown up. In this time, he worked as an accountant for a train company. Also at this time, he fathered a child. His daughter, named Ruthanne Rose, was born in December 1978. After she was born, Kasper left the area. Kasper was known to be in Florida and North Carolina for a time. He married a woman in 1992 and had another child in 1995 before his death in 1998.

Defence of segregation

Kasper came to public attention during the integration of Clinton High School in Clinton, Tennessee. He sought to mobilize opponents of the desegregation order, and was arrested during the resulting unrest. Kasper was acquitted in his trial; the jury included members who served on the arresting auxiliary police force. As a result of this incident, Kasper became a focal point at similar protests across the Southern United States, often an unwelcome one. While he was campaigning, Kasper was jailed for crimes ranging from inciting a riot to

loitering Loitering is the act of remaining in a particular public place for a prolonged amount of time without any apparent purpose. While the laws regarding loitering have been challenged and changed over time, loitering is still illegal in various j ...

. He was a suspect in a school bombing in

Nashville Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and th ...

as well as multiple

synagogue A synagogue, ', 'house of assembly', or ', "house of prayer"; Yiddish: ''shul'', Ladino: or ' (from synagogue); or ', "community". sometimes referred to as shul, and interchangeably used with the word temple, is a Jewish house of wor ...

bombings—he was a virulent

antisemite Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...

—although no evidence was provided to link him directly to any of the cases. In 1956, he was under a court order to desist, which he ignored, prompting his arrest and conviction for contempt of court. He was found guilty, appealed and lost. he was then sentenced to one year in jail. He served eight months for

conspiracy A conspiracy, also known as a plot, is a secret plan or agreement between persons (called conspirers or conspirators) for an unlawful or harmful purpose, such as murder or treason, especially with political motivation, while keeping their agr ...

in 1957. Upon his release, he called for a return to Constitutionalism, and the creation of a

third party Third party may refer to: Business * Third-party source, a supplier company not owned by the buyer or seller * Third-party beneficiary, a person who could sue on a contract, despite not being an active party * Third-party insurance, such as a V ...

to oppose the integration which he said was now supported by both the Democrats and Republicans. He became associated with the National States' Rights Party and ran in the 1964 Presidential election with J.B. Stoner as his running mate. Kasper attracted negligible support: just 6,434 votes in just two states,

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia ...

and

Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the O ...

. Kasper returned to his northern roots in 1967 and effectively left politics, settling down to family life and a series of clerical jobs. He died in April 1998 at the age of 68.Our Campaigns: John Kasper
/ref>

References

External links

John Kasper's FBI files obtained through the FOIA and hosted at the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...