The Multiracial Activist - www.multiracial.com

 

                    DARK NIGHTS OF THE KU KLUX KLAN
                              by tallpaul

Every year or so I like to get a barrel of coffee, a hundredweight of
cigarettes, and live in front of the television for several days
watching some incredibly long show.

It's sort of a Wagnerian opera blowout from a different part of the
political spectrum.

I did it last week when Morris Dees of the Southern Poverty Law Center
was featured on Court TV in two solid days of the lawsuit against the
Klan for bombing the Macedonia Baptist Church. (See the TINAF ftp
supplement, described below, for the full story(s).)

Between the summer of 1995 and 1996 close to 70 Black churches in the
southern U.S. were burned. Members of the Christian Knights of the Ku
Klux Klan were convicted for destroying the Macedonia church.

Dees developed the tactic of filing civil suits in hate-crime cases
against the organizations whose members were involved. These suits
provide some monetary damages to compensate the victims/survivors and
can bankrupt the hate-based organizations involved.[1]

Dees's work also pulls the hood of the Klansmen, making the infamous
"Invisible Empire" visible. Last week, with Klan leaders on the witness
stand the entire world could see what really resides beneath the KKK
propaganda about religion, patriotism, non-violence, and free speech.

The trial on Court TV, along with "KKK: The Secret History" broadcast
on the Arts & Entertainment channel revealed a different, infinitely
more truthful, side of the Klan. It is an organization of documented
murder, rape of Black and white women, mayhem against women as well as
men, financial manuevers by Klan leaders for personal enrichment, of
bribes, and of government corruption by elected officials who are also
Klan members.

It is a group that espouses Christianity but a Christianity that bombs
churches; "defends Christian family values" and murders children.

Seeing the Klan on the stand revealed them to be small men with much to
be small about. It was amusing to see pettiness of the men who present
themselves as the pinnacle of white racial accomplishment. Once there
were Beethoven's and Bach's; today there is the idiocy of the band
RaHoWa (an acronym for RAcial HOly WAr). Once there was Goethe's Faust;
today we see the "Turner Diaries." Once there was Frederick the Great;
today there is ... well, Horace King, the Klans's Grand Dragon, who
Dees had on the witness stand.

              THE STATE OVERLOOKS ADDITIONAL KLAN CRIMES

Perhaps the most visible example of Klan crimes were King's perjuries
on the witness stand. Dees revealed the  Christian Klan lies, presented
under the Christian bible's oath to tell the truth.

A subdued King testified he had not used the term "nigger" for some
years. Then Dees provided a videotape of King using the word at a
recent rally.

King denied that he ever counseled people to resist local law
enforcement officials and we then saw King bragging how he would "kick
the tail lights out" of a police car if stopped by a Black cop. 

King swore he had not urged violence against Blacks. Court TV viewers
then saw another tape of King announcing that "This is a white man's
country and if the niggers don't like it, put them on a rowboat and
send them back to Africa." Another video showed King stating at a
Washington rally that "if we had this garbage in South Carolina, we
would burn the bastards out or run them out of town."

Some argue that all of King's statements at Klan rallies were protected
"free speech." But this notion does not extend to statements made under
oath on the witness stand. Free speech might protect King from criminal
law when he urged violence against Black people; it might protect him
if he denies doing so when interviewed by a journalist. But when he
denies it when questioned by Dees, under oath,he commits a crime:
perjury.

Don't hold your breath waiting for the state to prosecute the Grand
Dragon. Traditionally, perjury by right-wing forces is overlooked while
perjury by alleged left-wingers is jumped on.

The classic example is the case of Alger Hiss who was convicted of
perjury when he denied knowing Whittaker Chambers. This was used by the
right-wing to claim that Hiss, never convicted of espionage, was a
leading "Communist spy." And the Hiss Case was used as one proof of a
far larger conspiracy.

The fascists in the Klan get a far easier ride.

Telling however is the doubt that this creates about investigations of
church bombings and other criminal acts inferentially linked to the
Klan and other similar groups: if clear perjury, broadcast on national
television, is not prosecuted, how little is being done in other far
less clear investigations concerning fascist acts?

   KLANSMEN AGAINST THE KLAN: SAME RATS, SAME SHIP, DIFFERENT EXITS

There are still a large number of convictions, despite considerable
government softpedaling of fascist-related violence. Many occur 
because one group of Klansmen rat out their fellow criminals. As King
can take his Christian oath and lie, so the lesser Klanskreatures can
betray their oath of secrecy for lighter sentences, testifying instead
so that others have heavier ones.

Again and again we see Klansmen turning their sheets in to insure that
other Klansmen are forced to trade sheets for prison garb.

The same happens in civil trials, like the recent one where
already-convicted bombers testified against King and the White Knights
of the KKK.

Don't think that the confessions *automatically* indicate remorse; in
the Macedonia case King was reported to have promised the bombers they
would receive a light sentence. They turned against him when they
discovered they would be doing heavy jail time.

King appeared in the video of Klan rallies as a strutting cock of the
walk, a veritable Old Testament Prophet of doom and gloom for those
attacking the values he espoused. He appeared on the witness stand as a
tired old liar, denying his principles to preserve his bank account.
This man with his six-grade education and inability to understand
complex English sentences was, for a few days at least, the world's
leading example of the Jim Crow south. It was, for some exceedingly
brief moment, possible to feel sorry for the man. Then one almost
immediately recalled that he wanted Jim Crow revisited on the south.
Similarly, he appeared willing to mislead his followers about jail
time, sticking them with decades in the slammer in order to preserve
his political position, his organization, and his money.

Aryan warriors describe themselves as made of sterner stuff. The
reality behind the facade of "racial unity" is a set of
rationalizations for small, insecure, whiny losers whose idea of
strength is to throw bombs in the dead of night, arm themselves and
gang-attack unarmed individuals, and then rat each other out.

Between Klan rats and civil damages one wonders where the Klan
recruits. 

But as P.T. Barnum said, there's a sucker born every minute.

- - - - -

[1] see Morris Dees and Ellen Bowden (TRIAL: American Trial Lawyers
Association), "Taking Hate Groups To Court," Feb 95 in The Internet
Anti-Fascist: Friday, 24 April 1998 -- FTP Supplement #29 (#102):
Fighting Fascism Documents From the Southern Poverty Law Center

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---------------------------------------------------------------------

The Internet Anti-Fascist: Sunday, 16 August 98
FTP Supplement #55 (#153): Klan Church Bombing Trial

1)  Bruce Smith (Associated Press), "Klan Head Testifies in Church
    Trial," 21 Jul 98
2)  Bruce Smith (Associated Press), "SC Convict Says He Wanted Race
    War," 22 Jul 98
3)  Bruce Smith (Associated Press), "Church Seeks Damages From KKK," 23
    Jul 98
4)  Bruce Smith (Associated Press), "Klan Defense Ready in Arson
    Lawsuit," 23 Jul 98
5)  Bruce Smith (Associated Press), "Klan Targeted in Church Burning,"
    24 Jul 98
6)  Bruce Smith (Associated Press), "Klan Leader Takes Stand in
    Lawsuit," 24 Jul 98
7)  Bruce Smith (Associated Press), "Church's Lawyer Says Klan Must
    Pay," 24 Jul 98
8)  Reuters (no author), "Klan ordered to pay millions to church," 24
    Jul 98
9)  Herb Frazier  (Reuters), "Klan ordered to pay torched black
    church," 25 Jul 98
10) Bruce Smith (Associated Press), "Klan Must Pay $37.8M in Arson
    Suit," 25 Jul 98
11) Tom Gibb ([PA] Post-Gazette), "Klan official's ouster sought: State
    constable may lose his job because of criminal record," 9 Aug 98
12) Southern Poverty Law Center (no author), "Appeals court upholds
    judgment against neo-Nazi leader," n.d. (downloaded 13 Aug 98)
13) Southern Poverty Law Center (no author), "Black South Carolina
    church wins $37.8 million from Klan," n.d. (downloaded 13 Aug 98)
<ftp://ftp.nyct.net/pub/users/tallpaul/publish/tinaf/tinaf153.txt>
_____________________________________________________________________

                               FASCISM:
   We have no ethical right to forgive, no historical right to forget. 
       (No permission required for noncommercial reproduction)

                               - - - - -

                       back issues archived via:        
        <ftp://ftp.nyct.net/pub/users/tallpaul/publish/tinaf/>

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