The Banishment of the
Johns Family by the
KluKlux Klan
Charles Wesley “C.W.” Johns
C.W Johns was the youngest of Henrietta and Sherman’s six children, and was set to take over the running of the Johns’ family businesses in 1925 when Sherman died. One of the older black town people, Ms. Annie Lou Brown, used to describe to Charles how many of the blacks in town used to work in the Johns family’s cotton fields, and at their cotton gin, from “sun up to sundown” and that it was much better to work for the Johns family than for the white farmers. The Johns family also ran a general store that was frequented mostly by the black citizens, and also ran a lumber mill. The Jim Crow laws were in full effect in Brundidge and kept black citizens, and the black owned businesses, separate from their white counterparts. Just as occurred in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and throughout the South, the Johns’ family’s success in Brundidge was antithetical to the position the white citizens felt the “negroes” of the town should occupy. As mentioned previously, the white farmers were furious that the properties taken from them by G.C. Collier in legal proceedings because of loan defaults were, ultimately, inherited by Henrietta - his illegitimate mulatto daughter! They clearly wanted the Johns family run out of Brundidge, and with the death of Sherman Johns, they saw their chance to banish the six children of Henrietta & Sherman and take over the Johns family’s properties & businesses.
The Klu Klux Klan in Brundidge & Opelika
It should be noted that 1925 and 1926 was when the KKK was at its peak of power throughout the South and, especially, in Brundidge where the town had its own chapter of the Knights of the Klu Klux Klan and its members would have included the white civic leaders of Brundidge, as well as the white businessmen, merchants, doctors, lawyers, politicians, church leaders, of the town. Less than a month before Sherman died (March 22,1925), the Troy Messenger reported, on the 25th of February, 1925, there was the largest public gathering to have ever to have ever occurred in the Brundidge, with 500 cars, and 3,000 people attending a Klan rally where a large American flag was presented to the local consolidated school. At this rally the Klan’s Imperial Lecturer gave a very well received speech and denounced all who opposed the Klan , and made an appeal for the Brundidge Klansmen, and all present, to use their influence with their senators & congressmen to get Klan supported legislation passed. This was a proud & glorious moment for Brundidge, and music was supplied by a “splendid brass band composed of Brundidge boys and girls.” Given the Klans well known violent tendencies against blacks, and the supporting sentiment & fervor of the white citizens in Brundidge, it is not surprising that the six Johns children were threatened to leave town or pay with their lives! Aside from the article in the Troy Messenger, there are no readily available pictures of the Klan rally that occurred there. A similar rally took place in Opelika, with the presentation of a large flag, and notable Klan speakers.
The Johns Family Flees to the North
After C.W., and the rest of the Johns family left Brundidge, the white families took over all of the Johns family’s properties & businesses. When Charles was growing up, in the 1970’s and 80’s several older black townspeople, who were alive in 1925, would tell Charles about how well his family had been doing before the banishment by the KKK. Mr. Clem Pugh took Charles to a particularly high vantage point in town and told Charles “your family had land as far as you can see, and then as far as you can see after that” and that after the Johns family had fled to the North “the white people came in, overnight, and told us that they now owned everything.” When Charles was talking on the phone to a cousin of his, Mr. Joe Johns, who was living in Ohio, his cousin said that he was surprised that there were any Johns’ still living in Brundidge, after what had happened to the family in 1925. He told Charles that the family had been given an ultimatum by the Brundidge Klan “Once you bury your father [Sherman], if you don’t want to die, you had better leave town.” C.W. Buried his father in the family plot at the St. Paul Ame Church cemetery, and then took his family to the Chicago/Detroit area. Charles once asked his grandfather why the knuckles on his hands were so big, and C.W. told him that they got that way while he was working in the steel mills up North.
C.W. was very shrewd however and, although he knew he could do nothing directly in the town of Brundidge, or Pike county, or the state of Alabama for that matter, due to the political power held by the local the white families & the Klan, he went to the Federal Land Bank in New Orleans and took out loans on the families properties. He then used those monies to buy out his brothers & sisters interests in those properties, since he knew that his brothers & sisters would never be going back to Alabama ever again. C.W. however, planned on going back, and in the 1950’s he returned with his wife, Mittie Johns, and their son T.K. Johns, to Brundidge and ran a grocery store. He very diligently paid off the property loans, and even after his death in 1982 the last payment was made in 1988 and the ownership of the properties was consolidated under his descendants names. A map from 1931 shows that there was, indeed, property in Brundidge where the Federal Land Bank in New Orleans was listed as the lien holder.
