James Esdale

James W. Esdale (born January 15, 1888; died November 1, 1976) was an attorney and Grand Dragon of the Realm of Alabama in the Ku Klux Klan.

Esdale studied engineering at Alabama Polytechnic Institute before completing his law degree at Columbia University in New York. He practice in Birmingham and was an active member and recruiter for the Elks Lodge before he became associated with the KKK in 1920. By 1921 he held the title of Exalted Cyclops of the Robert E. Lee Klavern. Esdale was listed as an agent in the Alabama incorporation of the Georgia-based Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Inc. in September 1924.

In the 1926 Democratic primary, the de facto election for statewide office, Esdale opposed Woodlawn Klavern leader M. E. Reaves over how actively to support fellow member Bibb Graves for Governor of Alabama. Esdale vetoed Reaves' call to mobilize the group's electoral power and instead limited the publicity to acknowledging Graves' status as a member.

Later that year 1926 Attorney General of Alabama Charlie McCall proposed making Esdale his assistant, but Graves, amidst growing outcry in the press, did not support the idea. As Grand Dragon, Esdale suspended Reaves for misuse of funds and revoked the Woodlawn chapter's charter. Horace Wilkinson was installed in Reaves' place and oversaw the payment of the chapter's debts with a personal loan.

In early 1927 Esdale sued the Birmingham Age-Herald and publisher Frederick Thompson for libel after the paper, which had infiltrated Klan gatherings, reported that Esdale had personally called for violence against enemies of the organization. The paper's attorneys planned to call every member of the Robert E. Lee Klavern to testify at trial, leading Esdale to agree to an out-of-court settlement. Esdale and Wilkinson followed up by backing a bill that would have established a fine for newspapers that criticized public officials or injured the reputation of the state, to be applied retroactively for a year. Klan pressure moved the bills through the Alabama legislature, forcing the "Big Mules" to hastily adjourn to prevent its passage in the Senate.

Esdale was disbarred before September 1937 when he detailed the involvement of Hugo Black in the Ku Klux Klan for Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reporter Ray Sprigle. It is from Esdale's account that the extent of Klan involvement in "rigging" the trial of Edwin Stephenson for the murder of Father James Coyle is known.

By the 1960s Esdale was working as a bail bondsman. He died in 1976 and is buried at Elmwood Cemetery.

References

• "Klan Appointment Arouses Alabama; Reputed Leader of the Ku Klux in the State to Be Assistant Attorney General." (November 26, 1926) The New York Times
• Snell, William Robert (1967) "The Ku Klux Klan in Jefferson County, Alabama, 1916-1930." Unpublished master's thesis. Samford University
• Feldman, Glenn (1999) Politics, Society, and the Klan in Alabama, 1915-1949. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press ISBN 0817309845