KKK cell flyers appearing on lawns in U.S.
WASHINGTON • Jaimi Hajzus woke up Saturday to a string of worried texts.
Friends in her hometown of Coudersport, Penn., said someone had gone house to house the previous night and left plastic Baggies filled with lollipops, rocks and paper flyers on dozens of lawns in the town’s main thoroughfare.
Inside, they found a disturbing message.
“Are there troubles in your neighbourhood?” the flyers read. “Contact the Traditionalist American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan today!”
Printed on the crinkled slips of paper was an image of a hooded Klansman pointing a finger in the style of the iconic Uncle Sam recruitment poster, along with something of a slogan: “You can sleep tonight knowing the Klan is awake.”
Hajzus said she and others believe a new white supremacist cell in the area might be behind the campaign, but they’re struggling to decide what the strange parcels mean for the town of 2,500.
“I feel like they’re trying to pick a fight, and I don’t want to bring a gun to a knife fight,” Hajzus told The Washington Post. “It’s hard to know how strongly to approach this.”
Similar packages have turned up in communities around the U.S., many of them in the 15 months since Dylann Roof allegedly gunned down nine AfricanAmericans at a church in Charleston, S.C.
As in Coudersport, residents wake up to find plastic bags on their front lawns containing pro-KKK missives. The bags are often weighed down by rocks and sometimes come with a few candies stuffed inside.
In Whittier, Calif., the flyer contained a disparaging screed against AfricanAmericans and came with a rock and a lollipop. It also listed a phone number and a mailing address for the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, one resident said.
In July, hundreds of residents in three Indiana counties got flyers — also stuffed into bags with rocks — criticizing immigrants and homosexuals and calling on people to “wake up” and join the United Northern and Southern Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.
One KKK leader said last year the Klan has stepped up its recruitment efforts as calls have grown to remove the Confederate flag from public spaces.
“We’re doing this from the East Coast to the West Coast, just to let people know the Klan’s in their community,” Robert Jones, the grand dragon of the North Carolina-based Royal White Knights, said. “Especially with all the stuff that’s in the news — in South Carolina they’re wanting to take the Confederate flag down.”
Police response has been muted, because the flyers are protected by the First Amendment.
KKK cells proliferated in 2015, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks extremist activity. The number of Klan groups rose to 190 last year from 72 in 2014.
In Coudersport, Hajzus said community members are taking matters into their own hands.
Hajzus, 35, lives a couple of hours away from Coudersport, but travels there regularly to see family. She said the community was already on high alert about hate groups in the area.
Hajzus and about 40 residents got together in August to protest a rally by an apparently new white supremacist group in a neighbouring town. So when the pro-KKK flyers showed up Saturday, she moved quickly.
Hajzus and local resident Joe Leschner started a Facebook group to organize residents and spread the word. Police said 10 to 15 homes were hit, but Hajzus and Leschner said they believed it was several dozen.
Leschner called on people who had received the Baggies to send them to him so he could ship them back to the KKK chapter listed on the flyer.
“It’s really creepy,” Leschner said on Facebook. “I have no idea what this mess is, but it’s not wanted in our town.”
A 1-800 number advertised on the flyer as a “24-hour Klanline” went straight to a full voice mail box on Monday night.
Hajzus said she has been “taunted” on social media by members of a National Socialist group in the area.
“As much as some of us would love to ignore something like this and hope it goes away, the problem is that the same flyer has been distributed in other places,” she said. “If this is actually a resurgence of a hateful and violent group, then we need to take a stance.”