John Kasper (1929–1998) was
an American
far-right activist who took a militant stand
against racial integration during
the civil rights
movement.
Educated at
Columbia University,
Kasper became a devotee of
Ezra Pound and
corresponded with his hero whilst a student.
After running a
bookshop in Greenwich
Village
he moved to Washington, D.C.
where he became a friend of Pound and set up a
company to publish the poets' works, as well as those of others
such as Charles Olson. Imbibing
Pound's rightist ideas he formed the Seaboard White Citizens
Council immediately after
Brown v. Board of Education in order to
prevent desegregation in Washington.
Kasper
came to prominence during the integration of
Clinton High School in Clinton, Tennessee
. He sought to mobilize the opponents of the
desegregation order, and was arrested during the resulting unrest.
Kasper was acquitted in the subsequent trial that included a number
of jurors who served on the arresting auxiliary police force. As a
result of this incident, Kasper became a focal point at a number of
such protests across the south, often an unwelcome one. While he
was campaigning, Kasper was jailed for crimes ranging from inciting
a riot to
loitering.
He was a suspect in a
school bombing in Nashville
as well as a number of synagogue bombings—he was a virulent antisemite—although no evidence was provided to
link him directly to any of the cases.
He served eight months for
conspiracy in 1957. Upon his release, he
called for a return to
Constitutionalism, and the creation of a
third party to oppose
the integration that was now supported by both
Democrat and
Republican alike. He later
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 two states Kentucky
and Arkansas
.
Kasper returned to his northern roots in 1967 and effectively left
politics, settling down to family life and a series of clerical
jobs.
References