According to Think Progress, about 100 members of the Ku Klux Klan held a rally in Troy, North Carolina to try and increase their membership while drumming up support against immigration. The problem? The Klansmen were apparently heavily drowned out by pro-immigration reform counter-protesters, 400-500 of whom showed up to sing the gospel song “Hallelujah” at the Klansmen from across the street.
While immigration has always been a bane to the Klan, which believes that the United States should be a “white homeland,” the KKK have specifically mobilized in recent months in response to the influx of Central American children crossing the border. A recent Al Jazeera America interview with Klansmen in North Carolina featured one member calling for a “shoot to kill” law targeting the incoming children. As he said: “If we pop a couple of ’em off and leave the corpses laying on the border, maybe they’ll see we’re serious about stopping immigrants.”
Astonishingly, despite the KKK’s obvious racial history and the fact that their website still features cross-burning and hood-wearing, the Klan has begun reaching out to African-Americans, who they believe share their anti-immigrants sentiments. As Imperial Wizard Chris Barker of the North Carolina-based Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan told Fox last month, “If they (blacks) would actually listen to what we’re talking about, it ain’t about them anymore with the Klan. It’s usually about the immigrants who are flooding (the United States).”
Apparently, the Klan are heavily focusing on recruitment, dropping off bags of candy in people’s driveways with encouragements to call an automated message that says “Be a man, join the Klan!” and “If it ain’t white, it ain’t right. White power.” Somehow, these tactics still aren’t working for the Klan, whose chapter numbers have dropped from 221 in 2010 to 163 in 2013.
The general attitude against the Klan was prevalent on Saturday, when local residents told news coverage that they were “embarrassed” that the Klan had come to town.
