By Guy P. Harrison
It was another steamy summer day in Florida, and no place was hotter than the courthouse steps of Brooksville. Proud Knights of the Ku Klux Klan had gathered to tell how it was, how it is, and how it must be.
The Klan�s public �rally� offered a glimpse at the jagged edge of hate. Klan pride was powerful that day. The Klansmen were in form, their confidence unwavering. They stood tall in their robes as if kings, and, in their minds, they were. Of those who were not fully hooded, my eyes travelled every inch of their faces, searching for a clue, some hint as to why they might have chosen this path.
Swarming around the Klan speakers were pockets of screaming supporters and protesters. Their noisy chaos blended to create a symphony of the absurd. The gush of raw emotion was shocking, disgusting, and far too fascinating to ignore. I became electrified by the passion as I waded through the sea of anger. Scared but eager to take in every bit of the spectacle, I worked my way to the front of the crowd. Once there, I looked up and stared into the eyes of hate.
�We want niggers to go back to Africa! It�s best for them and it�s best for America! Niggers belong in jungles, not in the USA! This country was built by white people, for white people!�
The Klan speaker was a slender man with orange hair. His eyes glowed with excitement as streams of sweat streaked his face. Soldiers of the Klan stood behind him, echoing every one of his platitudes. The little man was large that day, a champion in the color contest.
�Look at our schools! Look at the crime in our streets! We have to reclaim America and make it a country for decent white people again!
�It�s obvious that the jungle bunnies can�t compete with white people. If they could, why would they need affirmative action and welfare?�
Half the crowd exploded with cheers and jeers to punctuate each statement. Young Nazi/skinhead types laughed and clapped, as if they were at a high school football game. Black spectators threatened to �kick ass� and yelled �black power!� repeatedly to counter the Klan�s �white power� chants. For me, lost in the fog, it was stupidity in stereo.
This display of mutants and misfits would have been just a silly sideshow if not for the depth of hate it reflected. This was no joke. A Klan rally is the slimy surface of a country and a world rotted by the concept of race.
Back in 1866, the Ku Klux Klan came to life in Pulaski, Tennessee, supposedly as a social club for Confederate veterans of the Civil War. Its real purpose, however, was to assist in maintaining control of the newly freed slaves. The Clansman, a 1905 novel by Thomas Dixon, brought some recognition to the movement. Most significantly, however, the book inspired D.W. Griffith�s monumental 1915 film, The Birth of a Nation, which sparked the Klan�s rise to national prominence.
In the early 1920s, the Klan virtually controlled the state governments of Oregon and Indiana, according to some US historians. The hate group�s reach even extended to the peak of power, as America�s 29th president, Warren Harding, took the Klan oath of membership in a private ceremony at the White House.
In 1925, the KKK had some three million active members. By the 1930s, however, the organisation was nearly dead as a result of internal scandals. As America�s Civil Rights Movement peaked in the 1950s, the Klan surged back to life in reaction, although never unified or as powerful as it once was. Today, the KKK remains splintered and has become overshadowed by Neo-Nazi and radical militia groups. But the Klan lives on, dwelling somewhere on the fringe, as a sort of symbol of hate.
But they are not alone.
I drove slowly through the ragged section of St. Petersburg, Florida. Some buildings were burned and gutted, like the scars of some war nobody ever bothered to name. A man in tattered clothes walked, but seemed not to move. A child stared through me as if I was from another world. Perhaps I was.
I sought more than a peek at poverty that day, however. I was to meet with members of the African People�s Socialist Party, a small group committed to black separation from the US Government, by violent means if necessary.
A phone call set up the meeting. For background, I read a few issues of their publication, The Burning Spear. It was clear that these were angry people.
I walked into the small building, plainly marked with a sign, and was greeted by two men. One smiled. The other did not. I told them I was looking for Chimurenga Waller. He was a party leader and brother of the group�s founder, Omali Yeshitela. They led me deep into the building. I noticed several posters of protest and rage screaming out from the walls. I suddenly felt uncomfortable and even a bit afraid. I have never been uncomfortable around people with skin darker than mine. But I am always uneasy in the presence of hate. And, in this place, hate was in the air.
In a barren back-room, I met Chimurenga. He was pleasant. The two who brought me in left and closed the door. A muscular man in a tight white t-shirt sat silently in the background. I was not introduced to him.
The African People�s Socialist Party, Chimurenga explained, rose up in 1966 out of JOMO (Junta of Militant Organizations), the Black Studies Group (Gainesville) and the Black Rights Fighters (Fort Myers). The Party also was influenced by the California-based Black Panthers of the 1960s.
I asked why the group seemed to be so committed to violence.
�We have to consider violence as the way to improving the situation of black people in America,� Chimurenga said. �They [white people] have all the power, money and resources. We cannot imagine them giving it up peacefully.�
That is a disturbing thought: injustice will reign until violence stops it.
From across the small table, I sensed a cold arrogance about Chimurenga. He reminded me of someone. He was so sure of his position, so confident that �his� people must rise up against �them�. He was not so far away from that Klansman back in Brooksville.
He explained that the Party believes black Americans are a colonized people, still being exploited by America, the �mother country�. We want our own government. Our own businesses, our own lands,� he added.
�You seem to refer to white people as one unified group,� I said. �Do you feel all white people are responsible for the injustices blacks have suffered? Do you hate all white people?�
�No,� he replied. �We don�t hate all white people. But most are accomplices in some way to what is going on. They at least condone it.�
�What about white people that want justice for blacks and everybody else?� I asked.
�We don�t want or need their help. This is a black crisis and we must find a black solution.�
�And what is the �black solution�?�
�Self-determination,� Chimurenga answered. �We want nothing to do with white America.�
They mean it, judging by their wish list. The African People�s Socialist Party demands $400 billion in reparations from the Federal Government and wants all blacks to be released from jails and prisons. The group also demands ownership of five southern states. Party literature describes America as a nation �founded on the genocide of native people, the theft of their land, and the forcible dispersal, enslavement, and colonization of millions of African people�.
No one can dispute those facts, but is violence and separation the best answer to that terrible past? These people are no visionaries. They do not want justice. They want only to vent a considerable amount of anger and frustration. Their philosophy mirrors the system that bred the crimes they detest. The African People�s Socialist Party seems determined to become what it hates.
But, of course, I kept those thoughts to myself as I smiled and said goodbye to the black rebels of St. Petersburg. Overall, they were pleasant people so far as they way they treated me. Only their message was repulsive.
Anthropologists concluded decades ago that race is a myth of culture rather than a reality of biology. No real wall between blacks and whites exists. It simply is not there in any meaningful sense. What is there is a canyon we have created in our minds. The Ku Klux Klan is repulsive, but is it really so far from the thinking of most people? I wonder if those who condemn the abrasive words of the KKK ever glance within themselves? Is it any less wrong or destructive to believe in race, regardless of polite packaging? Is racial pride, for example, not just a respectable name for racial prejudice?
If, as the scientists say, race really is a cultural lie masquerading as biological truth, then the masses must accept this. The idea of racial categories has provided humankind with both the structure and the fuel to prey upon itself. To support such a system in any way seems to me immoral.
It took time, but even in the foul speech of the Klansman and the angry words of a black separatist, I saw beyond hate. I found unity and hope. For the guardians of hate may come in different colors, but they are more alike than different.
Just as we are all.
