There has been a great deal of controversy over the claims from The Real Silent Sam Coalition that William Saunders was the “Grand Dragon” of the Ku Klux Klan in North Carolina. Some critics have accused the group of perpetuating a distortion of the historical record.
The record on Saunders is fairly thin, but the group’s most salient claim seems to be true: Saunders was a central leader in a violent, extralegal white supremacist movement.
The primary historical account on Saunders was written by historian J.G. de Roulhac Hamilton, himself a white supremacist and the namesake of Hamilton Hall.
In his 1914 book, “Reconstruction in North Carolina,” Hamilton, discussing the organization of the Ku Klux Klan, wrote: “At the head of the Invisible Empire in North Carolina was Colonel William L. Saunders, of Chapel Hill, who, although he directed it, and, through it to an extent, the other two orders, for the membership was often, and the leaders nearly always, identical, never took the oath of membership and hence was, strictly speaking, not a member.”
Hamilton identified a letter he received from Joseph Webb as his source. Hamilton described Webb as the leader of the Orange County Ku Klux Klan. Saunders was also called before a U.S. Congressional hearing in 1871 on suspicion of being an organizer of the Klan, but Saunders refused to answer any questions related to the Ku Klux Klan.
At the time of Hamilton’s writing, identifying a person as involved in the Ku Klux Klan was not considered shameful in North Carolina — it was considered an honor. Hamilton’s work celebrated the Ku Klux Klan as a shield against the influences of carpetbaggers and black people.
This attitude can also be identified in a Board of Trustees document from 1920 showcasing Saunders’ qualifications to have a building named after him. That document also identifies Saunders’ Klan leadership as a merit.
Whether Saunders was technically a member of the Klan and whether he could accurately be described as a “Grand Dragon” is beside the point. (Notably, Hamilton’s account supports the latter designation.) Saunders was honored for being a white supremacist leading a terrorist organization.
