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Klan groups have always used attention-getting stunts to spread fear and attract publicity, as well as to help spread their racist, anti-Semitic, and anti-immigration message, including participating in “adopt a highway” programs, attempting to sponsor public radio stations, and participating in museum donations programs, among others. The resurgence in Klan activity in 2006 has been accompanied by even more such attention-grabbing tricks.
Thom Robb’s Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, for example, caused a stir in western North Carolina in the late summer of 2006 when members of the group began inserting their leaflets into a local conservative tabloid, the Rhinoceros Times, and leaving the paper on neighborhood lawns. The Knights apparently hoped that their ploy would get more people to pick up the leaflets. In the past, other racist groups have tried to insert hate materials into grocery circulars and other printed materials, for which some were successfully sued, but this tactic involved legally obtaining copies of the free newspaper and self-distributing them.
The Rhinoceros Times filed a lawsuit in early September 2006 against Robb’s Klan group, but its outcome is uncertain, as this tactic has not been used before. In response, Robb sued the Times for defamation. In September and November 2006, the National Knights used the same literature distribution tactic in the Raleigh area using old issues of the local newspaper, The News & Observer. The group’s fliers blamed plans for year-round schools on illegal immigration.
Further north, the United Northern and Southern Knights sent racist fliers to hundreds of schools in Michigan in February 2006 to coincide with Black History Month. The flyers targeted teachers, not students, and were very disturbing, as none of the schools had experienced anything like that before. Meanwhile, the Empire Knights created KKK Radio, an Internet-based broadcast system to air white power music, racist and anti-Semitic propaganda, and more. They also created an Empire Knights Youth Corps. The Brotherhood of Klans (BOK) has also used Internet-based radio to spread its message.
There are also some indications that the extremely fragmented Ku Klux Klan movement is making at least some initial attempts for greater unification. Joint events, at which Klansmen and women from multiple Klan groups appeared, were common in 2006. One explicit attempt at such an event was the “Klan Jam,” held in Fort Payne, Alabama, in June 2006. Organized by the North Georgia White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, it attempted to attract attendees from a wide variety of Klan groups. It also helped form the “Konfederation of Klans,” a loose umbrella group of around 11 different Klan groups, mostly from the South. The BOK held a “Fall Unity Gathering” in 2006 and announced another for May 2007 (which may not come to pass because of BOK leader Dale Fox’s death in November 2006).
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