Samuel Green
*Samuel Green was born on this date in 1889. He was a white-American obstetrician and segregationist.
Green was born in Atlanta, Georgia, and joined the Ku Klux Klan in 1922. By the early 1930s, Green had become the Grand Dragon of Georgia. Starting from the late 1920s, the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan had a problem with declining membership. In 1939, Imperial Wizard Hiram Wesley Evans sold the organization to two Klan members, Green and James A. Colescott. Colescott served as the Imperial Wizard and Green as his assistant. While Colescott was forced to dissolve the organization in 1944, Green began to reform the Association of Georgia Klan, focusing on white supremacy and anti-communism.
In October 1945, the Georgia Klan announced their return to public life with a cross-burning. From 1945 to 1946, the Klan regularly signaled their presence by lighting up "huge fiery crosses" on Stone Mountain. During this period, Green and his associates started contacting former Klansmen and inviting them to rejoin the ranks. On May 9, 1946, this version of the Klan staged its first major initiation ceremony. Green orchestrated a formal revival ceremony on Stone Mountain in October of the same year.
According to historian Robert P. Ingalls, the fiery cross lit for the ceremony was between 200 and 300 feet tall. The initiation ceremony of the night closely followed the patterns established by William Joseph Simmons in 1915. The only problem with the ceremony was that there were more members and initiates present than robes and hoods available to them. Many of them wore handkerchief masks instead of more traditional Klan uniforms. Green sold to Life magazine the rights to take and publish event photos. Samuel Green died on August 18, 1949.
