Discovering An-Ex KKK Member in My Childhood Hometown of Solon

There are, apparently, logistics to consider when burning crosses, especially when burning them on seven separate black and Jewish families' lawns in one night.

"You don't just have crosses lying around, see," says Tim, a 68-year-old man from Solon. "You got to build the crosses, put the wood together, keep off your fingerprints, get the chemicals ... . You get chlorine and brake fluid, put them in a sock, mix them just right. If one guy screws up and the cross doesn't burn, it makes everyone look stupid. So we had cross-burning classes for that."

Tim knows because he was there that night in Florida in 1984, four years after he first pulled on the white hood and became a high-ranking Ku Klux Klan member. A year later, he would be indicted for plotting to blow up property owned by blacks and Jews, terroristic intentions in violation of the Florida Anti-Paramilitary Act.

Tim lights a cigarette. It's 25 years later, in 2019. We're sitting in his modest, white-painted home off Aurora Road. The flame illuminates his piercing blue eyes. A tuft of white hair shoots from his nose like a dragon's breath.

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