article_snippet.sent: Crucially, both had information on Tommy Tarrants, a former high ranking Klan member from Mississippi.
article_snippet.sent: Tarrants was alive then - and Tarrants still is today.
article_snippet.sent: Tommy Tarrants was a figure in the KKK and seemed initially marginal to the investigation into the King murder but was suddenly made a significant figure.
article_snippet.sent: By that point Tommy Tarrants had already made a conversion away from radical racist Christianity - James Earl Ray is now a preacher. '
article_snippet.sent: Until then James Earl Ray had been in prison for a bombing and James Earl Ray'd made a full conversion.
article_snippet.sent: Wexler said that another reason why Tommy Tarrants was problematic is that Wexler led directly to the Klan in Mississippi, which was one of the most violent anti-black chapters of the group at the time.
highlights_snippet.sent: Tommy Tarrants, high-ranking KKK member went from being little-known racist to having high-ranking KKK member picture shown to witnesses .
  