The Cloistered Order of Conclaved Knights of Sophisticracy, [1] more commonly known as the Knights of the Clock, was an interracial homophile social club based in Los Angeles, California. The Knights were founded by Merton Bird, an African-American man, and W. Dorr Legg, his white lover. Sources differ as to the founding date of the organization, variously citing it as 1949, [2] 1950, [3] and 1951. [4] Regardless of the exact date, the Knights was one of the earliest gay organizations in the United States, with only the Society for Human Rights (established 1924), [5] the Veterans Benevolent Association (established 1945) [6] and possibly the Mattachine Society (established 1950) [7] pre-dating it.
The Knights were primarily a social club, including people of both sexes and family members of couples. [2] They also tried to address social problems that affected interracial couples, including employment counseling [8] and locating integrated housing for same-sex couples. [1] To that end, the Knights discussed the possibility of establishing communes throughout its existence, although no such communes were ever established. [2]
Although social functions routinely attracted as many as 200 participants, [2] at its core the Knights always remained a numerically small group and eventually disbanded in the mid-1950s. Several Knights, including Bird and Legg, went on to join ONE, Inc., another early homophile organization. [9] Sociologist Laud Humphreys cited the Knights as an example of the ability of people of different races to cross racial barriers through commonality of sexual identification. [10]