The sons of a high-ranking Silver Dollar Group Klansman, Earcel Boyd Sr., remember how their father and his friends would often experiment to try and perfect their homemade bombs. The Silver Dollar Group is thought to be responsible for the car bombing of two Natchez NAACP leaders.
Joe "Joe-Ed" Edwards was an African-American employee at the Shamrock who disappeared mysteriously in 1964. One Klansman's son recalls the Klan unit called the Silver Dollar Group forming at the Shamrock and at one point, meeting Joe Edwards.
The arson that killed black shoe shop owner Frank Morris came at a surprisingly tense time in Ferriday, where it was not uncommon for Klansmen and police officers to blame civil rights workers for crimes against blacks. Beyond the violence, many were ostracized via leaflets accusing them of interracial sexual liaisons.
In 2006, the FBI launched a Cold Case initiative to investigate civil rights cases that are still unsolved. They announced a $10,000 reward to anyone with information leading to the death of shoe shop owner Frank Morris.
Three men who all worked for the International Paper Company and were all members of the Klu Klux Klan, are «persons of interest» in the arson case of Frank Morris, according to FBI records.
Transcripts from two interviews of shoe shop owner Frank Morris while he was in the hospital during his last days provide insight into who may have set his shop on fire.
George Metcalfe and Wharlest Jackson survived 1964, one of the bloodiest and most violent years for the Klu Klux Klan. Many people were murdered, beaten and flogged. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in real estate was bombed and set on fire.
The night Wharlest Jackson was murdered will remain in his wife’s memory forever. Those who committed the murder have yet to be found, but are believe to be members of the Silver Dollar Group, a violent cell of the Klu Klux Klan.
