It was dark and a cell-phone dead zone. James Edward Bates and a friend trudged through a few hundred yards of swampy woods in Vidor, Texas, to reach their car. Not far behind were three Klansmen, one quite agitated, who’d broken off from a group of about 80 in white robes, some wielding torches, or brandishing Bibles, at a Klan cross-lighting ceremony in 1998. For more than 12 years, Bates, 41, spent weekends driving into the night, sleeping upright in his Honda Accord, to document the truth of contemporary KKK activities in the American South.
