History of the Ku Klux Klan in New Jersey

Arthur Hornbui Bell was the state's first Grand Dragon, and continued serving in that post until the Ku Klux Klan was disbanded in 1944.

The speakers held a meeting at the Pillar of Fire headquarters in nearby Zarephath where a crowd of angry locals surrounded the church to let them know that they were not welcome.

Arthur Hornbui Bell opened the meeting before introducing the principal speaker, dubbed Colonel Sherman of Atlanta, Georgia.

[10] In 1925, Alma White published The Ku Klux Klan in Prophecy in Zarephath at the Pillar of Fire Church printing press.

[12] In May 1926, birth control advocate and Planned Parenthood progenitor Margaret Sanger once spoke to a meeting of the women's chapter of the Klan in Silver Lake, New Jersey.

A 1967 study by Congress’ House Un-American Activities Committee included New Jersey among 18 states (seven of them in the Middle Atlantic or Great Lakes regions) where the United Klans of America maintained operations.

Police in Bridgeton arrested Rotella and five other men in 1966 as they burned a cross and sought to hold a Klan rally in defiance of a court injunction obtained by state authorities.

[24] In December 1966, white supremacists in adjacent Salem County began a campaign of 20 cross burnings, many of them targeting black churches and neighborhoods.

In notes left at the crosses, and in fliers posted in Salem, the group claimed the actions in the name of the “White Crusaders,” the label used at the time by a prominent Mississippi KKK unit.

In 1967, Rotella, having declared to news media his resignation from the KKK leadership, applied unsuccessfully to hold a rally and cross burning in Salem.