Having grown up in Denham Springs, Louisiana, he would eventually rise to lead a local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan, ultimately achieving national influence.

[2] He was said to have followed David Duke's lead in "recruiting youth to the Klan," nonetheless he would take this campaign even more seriously, exemplified with the case of his founding of a camp for children in which they would be trained with arms and learn about the qualities of white nationalism.

One of the incidents perpetrated by these indoctrinated children occurred in 1979, when a "dozen teenagers" wore Invisible Empire T-shirts, burning a school of advanced age to the ground, all supposedly while the adult Klansmen applauded.

[3] Later that year, Wilkinson, alongside his men, went to Decatur, Alabama, to confront a parade advocating for the acquittal of Tommy Lee Hines, a local black man who was charged with the rape of three white women.

[3] In February 1981, Wilkinson traveled to Windsor Locks, Connecticut, to attend a rally supporting Meriden police officer Gene Hale, who was involved in the fatal shooting of Keith Rakestrau, a 24-year-old black man.