Former KKK leader
 becomes preacher for
 African-American church

BY Ruth Schenk | rschenk@secc.org 

Twenty years ago, if you told Johnny Lee Clary that one day he’d be a preacher, he would have laughed in your face—or worse.

But just last December, the former Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan was ordained in the Church of God in Christ, a predominately African-American congregation. When he preaches with his longtime friend, Bishop George D. McKinney, it is an object lesson in forgiveness and reconciliation.

Clary learned to hate from his father and his grandfather. His uncle bragged about being a member of the Ku Klux Klan, a hate-filled, white supremacist organization with a long record of terrorism, violence and murder.

Hatred escalated as Clary, then 11, watched his father commit suicide. It festered after the funeral when he was sent to California to live with his sister. He failed in school, had few friends and was afraid of the gangs that ruled the streets at night.

One morning, when he skipped school, Clary heard David Duke promote the Klan on television. Clary wrote him a letter. In response, Duke sent him Klan literature. A few days later, a friend of David Duke visited Clary at home.

"Son, you’ve had a horrible life," he said. "What you need is a family. If you join the Klan, we’ll be your family."

Clary was hooked on that promise.

"I would have joined anything that promised me protection and a family," Clary said. "I was getting beat up by my sister’s boyfriend, threatened by gangs, failing in school, drinking and smoking marijuana. I knew I needed help, so I joined the KKK Youth Corp."

Even then, Clary knew some of the Klan propaganda was false. They deny the Holocaust, but Clary had seen documentaries on concentration camps like Auschwitz. The Klan said blacks wouldn’t go to heaven. Clary knew that wasn’t true. He’d seen black families worship and read the Bible. But Clary pushed those doubts to a far corner of his mind. By the time he was 20, he’d been promoted to Grand Dragon of the state of Oklahoma.

He began wrestling as "Johnny Angel" in the mid-1980s, patterning himself after John the Golden Greek Tolas, Ripper Collins and Nature Boy Rick Flair. He even learned the figure-four leg lock to be like Flair.

The media tuned in to the brash professional wrestler who represented the Klan. In 1988, he appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show and the Morton Downey, Jr. Show for the KKK. He shared the stage with Wade Watts, head of the NAACP. The Klan had threatened Watt’s life and torched his church, yet Watts reached out to Clary with love and forgiveness.

"I don’t hate you. Jesus loves you. In fact, you can’t do enough to make me hate you. I’m going to love you and pray for you," he told Clary.

Pushing the KKK cost Clary success in wrestling. No one wanted to promote him. Blacks wouldn’t wrestle him, and fans wouldn’t go to the matches.

Clary’s world began to collapse even further after he was elected Imperial Wizard of the KKK in 1989, a position he held for only one year. In a twist of irony, Clary discovered that his girlfriend was an FBI informant, who gathered information then went into the witness protection program. That diminished his standing in the Klan and eroded trust in his leadership.

As violence within the Klan escalated, Clary realized that he could go to prison for the rest of his life if he continued with the Klan, so he quit in December, 1989.

"I was broken," Clary said. "I was nothing more than a homeless beggar. I loaded a gun and wrote a suicide note. Then I saw the Bible sitting on the table. It was the same Bible my grandmother had given me when I was a kid."

As Clary looked for verses about suicide, he read through the story of the prodigal son, then on to John 3:16. Before long, he was on his knees.

"If You’re for real, God, I need your help," Clary prayed. "If you forgive me, I’ll straighten up and serve You."

That next Sunday, Clary went to the Victory Christian Center in Tulsa, Okla. The large church of 7,000 members is diverse, and black, white and Asian members worship God together. When the pastor gave the invitation, Clary said he "ran to the altar."

"I know I’m hateful, mean, arrogant and prejudiced," he prayed. "If You’ll work with me, we’ll get through this. I give my life to You from this moment on."

For the last 20 years, Clary has traveled through Europe, Australia and the U.S. as an evangelist. He and McKinney met at a Promise Keepers event in the 90s and became close friends.

Last December, McKinney sponsored Clary’s ordination in the Church of God in Christ, the largest black denomination in America. When McKinney faced opposition for his friend’s ordination, he pointed to the transformation of Saul of Tarsus in the Bible. The two often preach together.

"I’m going to spend the rest of my life building bridges to bring people together," Clary said. "If God can change the heart of a hater like me, He can transform anyone."