From 1956 to 1965, the residents of the boom state of Florida were held hostage to a McCarthy-esque investigation with the power to declare anyone who opposed segregation—including Black integrationists and closeted queer teachers—to be Communists, perverts, and “enemies of the people.” Officially called the Florida Legislative Investigation Committee, this group of white lawmakers was led by a strident legislator named Charley Johns, whose notorious campaign wrought such damage that it cast a chill over the entire state. Floridians colloquially referred to their work as the “Johns Committee.” Neighbor suspected neighbor as white nationalists terrified and planted bombs in the name of anti-Communism, though not a single Soviet agent was found. This little-known crusade planted the seeds of Tallahassee fear politics so deeply that it’s still impacting Florida—and America—today.
February 25, 1957
Terror preceded the opening gavel of the Florida Legislative Investigation Committee (FLIC) hearings in Miami, the so-called Magic City. “The top guns of the segregation forces are converging on Florida in a stepped-up drive,” touted the Miami Herald. Integration opponent John Kasper, considered a prophet of the white cause and a bomb inciter, sent his protégé Fred Hockett to Florida to recruit followers, foment disorder, and incite violence. Hockett was not a herald of the rural KKK but of a nouveau white urban movement—a “businessman’s Klan”—called the White Citizens’ Councils (WCC). “A little fire and some dynamite will show these n—–s we mean business,” Hockett preached at a backyard rally in Northwest Miami before marching the angry crowd to the home of an unsuspecting Black family, the LeGrees. Just before midnight that Saturday, Hockett crossed the boundary line onto the LeGree property and raised a kerosene-soaked cross.
According to Miami NAACP attorney Grattan Graves, who had a mole in Hockett’s crew, Hockett’s plan was to “shoot the place up” as the cross burned. Fortunately for the besieged LeGree family, police received the NAACP tip-off and arrested Hockett and associates. In retaliation for infiltrating and scuttling their house-burning mission, the WCC sent death threats to three NAACP leaders under subpoena to testify in a few short hours before the Florida Legislative Investigation Committee, a McCarthy-era inquest led by state legislators determined to find scapegoats. The three targeted witnesses included former Miami NAACP president Father Theodore Gibson, Miami NAACP attorney Grattan Graves, and Miami NAACP secretary Ruth Perry. Problematically for these frontline activists, their home and/or work addresses had already been announced to the would-be assassins via news outlets.