Bill Beeny

Note to contributors: Is this the same Bill Beeny who currently operates the “Elvis is Still Alive Museum” in Wright City, Missouri?

Born on September 1, 1926 in Madisonville, Kentucky, Bill Beeny was a Baptist minister and self-declared segregationist who led right-wing organizations in St. Louis, Missouri during the 1960s.

Beeny, whose father died when he was nine years old, was one of five children. During his late teens and early twenties, he worked as a tavern porter and manager in Eldorado, Illinois, the hometown of the woman he married at age eighteen. Beeny battled recurrent tuberculosis as a young man; during one painful recuperation, as he later explained, he "got disgusted with my life and was converted to the Christian faith." He was ordained by the Southern Baptist Convention in 1947, and during the 1950s he attended Shurtleff College in Alton, Illinois and the American Divinity School in Chicago, Illinois.

Over the course of the following decade, Beeny was active in domestic anti-communist campaigns and led local and national efforts directed against civil-rights and student-movement leaders. In 1961, Beeny picketed Washington University, urging the House Committee on Un-American Activities to investigate his allegations of communist “infiltration” among university faculty -- especially those who had signed a nuclear-test-ban petition organized by California chemist and Nobel laureate Linus Pauling. He also participated in national petition drives urging the Committee to investigate the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Black Panthers.

Beeny's political and religious radio broadcasts, which began with one station in Alton, Illinois, were eventually heard on dozens of stations across the country. At the same time, the minister operated an "anti-communist" youth ranch in Wright City, Missouri; the ranch, according to Beeny's claim, drew upwards of 1,500 campers per summer during the early 1960s. Beeny faced constant legal problems over questionable financial and licensing practices in running his Missouri Youth Ranch and his Denver-area radio station "The Voice of Reason." In 1960, accusations and lawsuits over an allegedly fraudulent bond issue to finance his ranch and broadcasting operations forced Beeny from his position as pastor of the New Testament Baptist Church , which he had founded in a St. Louis storefront five years earlier. After his resignation, Beeny took up the pastorship of the St. Louis Baptist Temple , a position he would hold until 1969.

In the 1966, Beeny formed the Counter-Revolutionary Organization on Salvation and Service (CROSS), with chapters in Miami, Florida and St. Louis. Working out of Beeny's Baptist church at 4249 Gibson Avenue, CROSS's St. Louis chapter organized several controversial "home-defense" seminars. The meetings were intended to instruct members in fire-arms and survivalist tactics in order to fend off what Beeny called "those so-called civil-rights groups now reported to be stocking weapons" in preparation for a revolutionary uprising.

Running for Missouri Lieutenant-Governor as a Democrat in 1968 -- one of his many unsuccessful bids for state and local office -- Beeny endorsed the presidential campaign of segregationist Alabama Governor George C. Wallace. Beeny's own campaign platform, as outlined in his newsletter "The Herald of Missouri," urged "states' rights," opposed open-housing legislation and bussing for school integration, and advocated a "tough-on-crime" policy that would include ordering police to "shoot to kill" in response to civil disorders.

The minister relocated to Wright City, Missouri in 1969 after a fire at his St. Louis church.

Sources

• "Evangelist Says He Resigned as Pastor over 'Differences,'" St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 9 April 1961.
• "Evangelist Sees U.S. Officials on Red Inquiry," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 12 April 1961.
• "Evangelist Beeny Tells of Penchant for Sticking Head in Lion’s Mouth," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 23 April 1961.
• "Beeny March Supports War," Springfield Press Leader (MO), 1 Nov. 1965.
• "Beeny Displays Weapons for 'Home Defense,'" St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 27 June 1966.
• "The Rev. Bill Beeny Endorses Wallace," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 24 July 1968.
• "Voice of Reason, Inc.," Federal Register, vol. 35, no. 85 (1 May 1970), 6988-9.
• "Bill Beeny is Refused Broadcasting License," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 5-6 Mar. 1971.
• "What Ever Happened to Bill Beeny," St. Louis Globe-Democrat , 14-15 Aug. 1976.