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The Vietnamese Fishermen V. the Ku Klux Klan

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The Vietnamese Fishermen V. the Ku Klux Klan FINAL 11-2-2015 The Vietnamese Fishermen v. The Ku Klux Klan I. Introduction NARRATOR 1: At dusk on February 14, 1981, several hundred people gathered in Santa Fe, Texas, a few miles from the town of Seabrook on Galveston Bay. Many were local fishermen. Some were members of the Ku Klux Klan. The local fishermen faced stiff competition from Vietnamese refugees who had resettled in the Gulf Coast in the late 1970s, and they had asked the Klan for assistance. Louis Beam, the Grand Dragon of the Texas Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, addressed the crowd in his white Klan robe. He gave the federal and state authorities what he called a “Grand Dragon’s Dispensation” -- ninety days to resolve the issues in the Bay. Ninety days coincided with the start of the shrimping season on May 15, 1981.1 Beam explained: [BEAM takes center stage.] BEAM: If the authorities do nothing, this entire Gulf Coast is going to be a difficult place to live. It’s going to be a hell of a lot more violent than it was in Korea or Vietnam. If you want our country for the whites, you’re going to have to get it the way our founding fathers got it -- with blood, blood, blood.2 . The Ku Klux Klan is more than willing to select out of the ranks of American fishermen some of your more hardy souls and send them through our training camps. And when they come out, they’ll be ready for the Vietnamese.3 NARRATOR 2: An old shrimp boat had been brought to the rally. On it were painted the words “USS Vietcong.” Someone poured diesel fuel on the boat. With the crowd chanting “fight, fight, fight,” Beam set the boat on fire, shouting: [BEAM SUPPORTERS off stage chant “Fight, fight, fight.”] BEAM: This is the right way to burn a shrimp boat. This is in-service training.4 [BEAM exits.] © AABANY 2015 NARRATOR 1: In the weeks that followed, there was more violence and threats of violence, directed not just against the Vietnamese but also against those who did business with them. And on March 15, 1981, a group of local fishermen and Klansmen, some wearing robes and hoods, some carrying shotguns and assault weapons, steered a shrimp boat up to the dock of the leader of the Vietnamese fishermen, Colonel Nam. They had on board a cannon and a human figure hanged in effigy on the rigging of the boat’s stern.5 NARRATOR 2: Tensions had been rising in Galveston Bay since the late 1970s with the influx of Vietnamese refugees. The Vietnamese population grew until there were more Vietnamese than American-born fishermen trying to earn a living from the limited resources of the Bay. Here are Gene Fisher, the president of the American Fishermen’s Association, and Colonel Nam. [FISHER and NAM take center stage.] FISHER: I served in Vietnam, was wounded six times in combat. And now my government, the Federal Government, is helping these Vietnamese destroy my livelihood. We asked the Government agencies to help us resolve this. They didn’t do anything, so, yes, I called in the Ku Klux Klan so people would know what was happening here.6 What I want to know is: when are the refugees going to stop coming? You say you’ve never seen a good thing come from violence? Once upon a time, some men put on Indian clothes and dumped some tea off some boats, and that’s how this country came about.7 NAM: I was a colonel in the South Vietnamese Army. I have tried to work with Mr. Fisher. We signed rules of the water with him when he complained that we were not honoring the unwritten rules of the bay. I know the bay is overcrowded. If they do not want us to stay, we would go, but we cannot sell our boats by May 15, when the shrimping season begins. We need to earn a livelihood, too.8 [FISHER and NAM exit.] 2 NARRATOR 1: The story of the conflict was covered in a series of articles in the New York Times. When the chief trial counsel and co-founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center, Morris Dees, learned that the Ku Klux Klan had been invited to help the American fishermen, he dialed information for Seabrook, and soon reached Colonel Nam.9 NARRATOR 2: Just a few weeks later, the Vietnamese Fishermen’s Association filed suit in federal court in Houston seeking an injunction to stop the acts of violence and intimidation. In our reenactment today, we will draw on transcripts of the court proceedings and other historic documents and photographs to tell the story of the Vietnamese Fishermen versus the Ku Klux Klan. II. The Vietnamese Fishermen NARRATOR 1: First, some history. In 1975, after the fall of Saigon, the South Vietnamese government surrendered and the Vietnam War came to an end. Hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese fled, often by sea in small fishing vessels. Many of these boat people were lost to drowning, pirates, and dehydration. Some neighboring nations were overwhelmed, and pushed the boats back out to sea. 10 NARRATOR 2: Many Vietnamese refugees were relocated to the United States, with thousands resettling along the Gulf Coast. Many settled in the New Orleans area, drawn by the tropical climate and assisted by the Catholic church.11 Another attraction was the commercial fishing industry of the Gulf Coast.12 Some refugees worked in seafood processing plants while others fished in the Gulf of Mexico in tiny boats so small that local fishermen were amazed.13 Some refugees had worked as shrimpers in Vietnam. They pooled their resources, each family contributing to the larger efforts of the group and, gradually,14 the boats grew in size and number. Here are the Director of Shellfish Programs for the Texas Bureau of Coastal Fisheries and the police chief of Seabrook, Texas: [DIRECTOR and POLICE CHIEF take center stage.] 3 DIRECTOR: The problem is that the number of boats continues to increase, while the shrimp crop generally stays the same. More people are cutting up the pie into smaller pieces.15 POLICE CHIEF: The American fisherman feels he can’t compete. The Vietnamese live off rice and fish. The American fisherman can, too, but he’s not going to.16 [DIRECTOR and POLICE CHIEF exit.] NARRATOR 1: As the number of Vietnamese fishermen grew, so did the resentment of established shrimpers. Violence erupted in August 1979 when an American fisherman was shot and killed by Sam Van Nguyen in Seadrift, Texas, not far from Seabrook.17 In the aftermath, Vietnamese boats were burned, a trailer home was firebombed, and almost all the refugee families fled, only to return when the fisherman’s own brother turned in a group of men in possession of explosives intended for use against the Vietnamese. Arguing self-defense, Sam was acquitted. At the end of November 1979, the Seadrift City Council unanimously passed a resolution rejecting intervention by the Ku Klux Klan.18 The Klan did not succeed in taking a prominent role in the Texas coast issues for more than another year.19 III. The Ku Klux Klan NARRATOR 2: The Ku Klux Klan was founded in 1865 by six veterans of the Confederate Army. It grew rapidly and evolved into a paramilitary vigilante force, drawing on the many bitter Confederate veterans in the population. Wearing white robes and hooded masks and riding at night, Klansmen engaged in acts of intimidation and violence as they sought to advance their agenda of white supremacy. At its height in the mid-1920s, the so-called “Invisible Empire” included from four to five million members.20 NARRATOR 1: Membership declined in the 1940s, only to revive in the 1950s and 60s, a 4 reaction, historians believe, to the beginning of the civil rights movement and the integration of blacks into white neighborhoods. Homes of African Americans were firebombed and civil rights workers were killed.21 In July 1978, more than 3,000 men and women attended a Klan rally,22 at which Imperial Wizard Bill Wilkinson called for the repeal of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the execution of federal judges for treason.23 The Klan first appeared in Texas in 1868. The Texas Knights of the Ku Klux Klan was started by Louis Beam in the mid-1970s.24 IV. The Filing of the Lawsuit NARRATOR 2: The Southern Poverty Law Center was founded in 1971 in Montgomery, Alabama. Its primary goal was to fight the effects of poverty with innovative litigation and education programs.25 In the wake of the resurgence of Klan activity in the late 1970s, the Center set up a system designed to track Klan activities and then bring suit against groups who violated the rights of others. They called it Klanwatch.26 NARRATOR 1: When Morris Dees called Colonel Nam in March 1981, Klanwatch was still in its infancy; to that point, it had filed only one case against the Klan. Nevertheless, it had begun to track Louis Beam. He was one of a new breed of Klansmen, a college-educated extremist with his own paramilitary organization, the Texas Emergency Reserve. Members of the group trained two Sundays a month. They were taught military tactics, including ambush and counter ambush27. When Gene Fisher decided to call in the Klan, he contacted Louis Beam. NARRATOR 2: When Dees first met with Colonel Nam and his lawyer, John Hayslip, he described his legal strategy: they would seek a preliminary injunction before the shrimping season began on May 15 to prevent Beam and the Klan from carrying out their threats of violence.
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