Asa Earl Carter

Who was Asa Earl Carter?

Asa Earl Carter was a wild Ku Klux Klan leader, segregationist speech writer, and later famed western novelist. He was most notable for publishing novels and a best-selling, award-winning memoir under the name Forrest Carter, an identity as a Native American Cherokee. In 1976, following the publication success of his western The Rebel Outlaw: Josey Wales, The New York Times revealed Forrest Carter to be Southerner Asa Earl Carter. His background became national news again in 1991 after his purported 1976 memoir, The Education of Little Tree, was re-issued in paperback and topped the Times paperback best-seller lists. It also won the American Booksellers Book of the Year award.

Prior to his literary career as "Forrest", Carter was politically active for years in Alabama as an opponent of the civil rights movement: he worked as a speechwriter for segregationist Governor George Wallace of Alabama; founded the North Alabama Citizens Council, an independent offshoot of the White Citizens' Council movement, and an independent Ku Klux Klan group, and started a pro-segregation monthly entitled The Southerner.