Church Ordains Former Klan Member

Bishop George McKinney (left) and Johnny Lee Clary.

As Shug Avery said in The Color Purple to her minister father, “See daddy, sinners have souls too!” And so it was as Bishop George McKinney, pastor of St. Stephen’s Cathedral Church of God in Christ of San Diego (and one of the church’s twelve elders), ordained a former Klan member into the C.O.G.I.C. ministry.

The Church of God in Christ is one of the nation’s largest African American church organizations. St. Stephen’s boasts a membership of approximately six million.

Johnny Lee Clary, 50, and Bishop McKinney met more than fifteen years ago at a religious event held in Montgomery, Alabama. “Bishop McKinney and I became friends,” said Clary. “One day he told me he would ordain me as a minister because the time was needed for racial reconciliation. Finally, after years of being sidetracked, I agreed the time was right.

My mission is to bring people of all races together,” said Clary.

Clary rose through the ranks of the White Knights of the KKK,
eventually attaining the status of an imperial wizard. He later quit
the hate group after a falling out with another Klan leader.
Coincidently, his ordainment ceremony mimicked some of the ritualistic
acts of the Klan ceremony, yet the two events hail some of the darkest
and brightest moments of his life.

“The worst thing I ever did was swear allegiance to the KKK,
vowing to hate all Jews, blacks, and people of other races,” Clary
stated. “I knelt before the Klan leaders as they sprinkled me with
water. I then swore an oath to the KKK and the god of the KKK. It
doesn’t matter, because their god is not the God of the Bible. When the
day comes for me to make my journey home, I hope to be remembered not
as the former National Leader of the Klan, but as a man who saw wrong
and tried to right it, to build a better world to leave for our
children, both black and white,” concluded Clary.