James W. "Catfish" Cole

Cole attended Grainger High School in Kinston, North Carolina, and served in the military during World War II.

Albert E. Perry, a black doctor in Monroe, North Carolina, was presumed to be financing the local chapter of the NAACP, and consequently he received numerous death threats from the Klan.

The group was composed mostly of World War II veterans and quickly began organizing for self-defense, guarding Perry's house in shifts.

Cole considered the Lumbee to be a "mongrel" race, and in 1957 began a campaign of harassment against them, announcing "There's about 30,000 half-breeds in Robeson County and we are going to have a cross burning and scare them up."

Undeterred, he called a Klan rally to be held on January 18, 1958, near the small town of Maxton where Cole predicted 5,000 Klansmen would remind the Lumbee of "their place".

There, Cole briefly worked illegally as an unlicensed private detective[6][7][8] before returning to Kinston, North Carolina, in 1962, to operate a print shop.

Club in Greensboro[9] and was also involved in the Committee for Better Government, a political action group with Ku Klux Klan overtones.