They said it was about history not hate. They said it was about heritage and pride. And they took to the steps of the Capitol building in Columbia, South Carolina, to make their point. If this wasn’t about something so serious, so divisive, it would be fair to suggest that there was something comedically absurd about the scene as it unfolded.
This was the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan holding a rally. Their waved Confederate flags, gave Nazi salutes, and yelled abuse at those who stood to protest. Not for them the white robes and masks of the past, but t-shirts, camouflage trousers and combat boots. There was almost something of the pantomime about it, with the group swapping insults with the crowd as they strutted about. This was not about the better argument or the well-reasoned debate. This was about who could shout the loudest. They came because of the removal of the Confederate battle flag from the state’s grounds – a flag seen by many as a divisive, racist symbol. And a flag waved by Dylann Roof in pictures he posted online before he allegedly went to a church in the state and gunned down nine people simply because they were black.
One man, who wouldn’t give his name, yelled that the removal of a flag was a mistake, saying sales have gone up since it started disappearing from stores and buildings. He threatened to smash black gravestones if Confederate graves were threatened: ‘We will wipe your history from America’. And when asked what the solution was to current racial tension: ‘a white revolution is the only solution’. Behind him on the steps was a man who an hour or so before, when on his own, was shaking hands with black people, telling them he understood that they were proud of their race because he was proud of his. He told me that he hated nobody. And now there he was, all tattoos and bile, yelling the n-word and telling people they looked like monkeys. Then there was a man called Brian. Standing shoulder to shoulder with the KKK, telling me he didn’t support their message but supported their right to say it.
There were fights. One older woman who told me earlier she was a supporter of flying the flag walked away with a bloody nose after some confrontation. A KKK supporter was hit with a brick as he walked to the protest. And there was a scuffle as someone grabbed a Confederate flag and ran off. Police stopped him setting it alight. So he contented himself with ripping it to shreds.
The KKK was once a powerful angry voice in the South. It was responsible for widespread abuse against the black population, but its numbers have dropped significantly in recent years. The Southern Poverty Law Center which tracks hate groups in the US estimates a national membership of no more than 4,000. And here on the steps, they numbered around 100. They were young and old. Educated and not. Employed and not. And white.
They were outnumbered by at least 10 to one by those who came to challenge their message. One man told me he took his position from Martin Luther King: ‘The only way to beat them is through love. They are miseducated, they are oppressed. And they are angry. We need to talk to them’. Another woman told me she’d come to see what she thought was a historic gathering. ‘I came not to support either side but to see for myself. This is pathetic. We need to work together’.
There were some who couldn’t believe the KKK and their supporters could hold a rally to say what they said. But the rules are clear. If the time is free and the space is available, the first amendment to the American constitution gives them a voice and a right to gather in the state grounds. They had the right to be there for two hours. But after 60 minutes, the police, who had marshalled the whole operation with calm and restraint, decided to end it. They escorted the KKK from the Capitol grounds. The angry voices were drowned out by those who believe that they should, like the Confederate flag they waved, be consigned to history.
Alan Fisher is a senior Al-Jazeera correspondent
By Alan Fisher | August 2015
