The Mississippi Department of Public Safety has some explaining to do. 

State workers cleaning out a storage closet at Mississippi’s Department of Public Safety stumbled onto a relic of the state’s violent past: a small blue suitcase stuffed with Ku Klux Klan materials from the 1960s. 

The Mississippi Today reports that inside were a Klan robe, a handbook for the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, recruitment flyers, propaganda, meeting notes, ledgers, and even lists tracking which members paid their dues. One pamphlet, titled “The Ugly Truth about Martin Luther King,” attacked the civil rights leader with racist misinformation that was once circulated across the South.

Officials say the suitcase surfaced only because the agency is preparing to move into a new headquarters, forcing staff to empty long-ignored corners of its current building. Public Safety Commissioner Sean Tindell said that preserving the artifacts is part of ensuring that future generations are not drawn to similar hate.

“Mississippi Highway Patrol Troopers and Agents with the Mississippi Department of Public Safety have worked for decades with our federal law enforcement partners to shed light on the darkness in which groups like the Ku Klux Klan chose to operate,” Tindell said in a release. “By preserving these artifacts and shedding light on such organizations, we help ensure that future generations are never led astray by such hate.”

Rather than keeping the items, the department transferred the entire cache to the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, where archivists plan to process and eventually digitize the records for researchers and the public. Incoming archives director Barry White called the collection unusually valuable because it combines internal paperwork, financial records, and propaganda from a local chapter of a group that tried hard to remain secret.

​For younger Mississippians and people far beyond the state, the suitcase is a reminder that the Klan wasn’t just hooded figures in grainy photos; it was an organized network that left a paper trail inside government spaces.

How the materials are used, taught, and discussed will determine whether they remain artifacts of hate or serve as tools for accountability.