Saturday, June 25, 2016

Blast From The Past: Former Manitoba KKK Leader Murdered

We were recently notified that a man by the name of James Edsel Tucker was found dead in an apartment near the University of Winnipeg:

Suspect charged in Furby stabbing death
Posted: 06/24/2016 12:05 PM| Last Modified: 06/24/2016 12:38 PM | Updates

A suspect has been charged in the stabbing death of 45-year-old James Edsel Tucker on Thursday.

Tucker was discovered in a suite in the 400 block of Furby Street. He was rushed to hospital in critical condition.

In addition to second-degree murder, Martin Archie Flett, 22, faces several other charges.

The nature and number of other charges were not made public.

Tucker was stabbed in the upper body and sent to hospital in critical condition where he later died....

While "James Edsel" might not be familiar to our readers as he changed his name some years ago, our readers will perhaps be more familiar with the name he was born with and which he made infamous:


William (Bill) Harcus was the Grand Dragon of the Manitoba KKK, operating in Winnipeg and Gimli. He ran a 25-hour phone hotline disseminating hate propaganda which was eventually shut down. He, along with Joseph Lockhart and Theron Skryba were later prosecuted with inciting racial hatred and genocide, though the charges were stayed upon the revelation that the police officer based her testimony not on her own memory but on police wiretaps. Still, the infiltration by the Winnipeg police into the group resulted in its collapse.

Though Harcus soon disappeared, he was still a figure of some degree of reverence in the Canadian racist movement even 20 years later:


UPDATE: Stewart Bell pens a great article about Bill Harcus in today's "National Post."

3 comments:

Unknown said...

I used to work at Happenings [A GLBT bar] in the late 90's until it closed, He was a regular there for awhile. We knew what he was, but he had claimed he had changed. Apparently he was "asked" to quit his position and feared for his himself for "coming out"...

Anonymous said...

He had left the life of the KKK/white nationalism and was just another guy getting by. In the book Web of Hate by William Kinsella there's a chapter on him and his activities involving the Klan. It's a tragic ending for a guy who left the "movement" and wanted to start a new life.

Anonymous said...

Demigorgona. There's a name I haven't seen in a long time. That woman had some serious issues.

Harcus became of what happens to many others who surround themselves with violence, they often become a victim of it.