Klan to rally in Caswell County tomorrow, according to news report

After generating international headlines with promises to hold a “Victory Klavalcade Klan Parade” to celebrate the election of Donald Trump, a small North Carolina Ku Klux Klan group has informed a local newspaper that it will hold a “car parade” in Caswell County near the Virginia state line.

The Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan confirmed plans to hold the parade near its headquarters of Pelham at 9 a.m. tomorrow to the Burlington Times-News, but the newspaper reported that the organization does not have a permit from the Caswell County Sheriff’s Office.

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Robert Jones, who identified himself as the grand dragon of the Loyal White Knights, told Triad City Beat in 2014 that he advocates a policy of summary execution against people attempting to cross the border from Mexico without authorization.

“I think we should have our troops there with a shoot-to-kill policy,” Jones said during an interview in advance of the organization’s 2014 rally in Montgomery County. “These people are obviously not getting the picture that we don’t want them here.”

Trump announced his candidacy at Trump Tower in New York City in June 2015, using language that demonizes people who emigrate from Mexico to the United States. “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best,” he said. “They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

Another Klan group, the Arkansas-based Knights Party, celebrated the electoral outcome in an official statement: “America’s white voting majority, men and women, have spoken by electing Donald J. Trump to the presidency. They have recognized that this was a last-chance election.”

The statement cites American military interventions coupled with feelings of insecurity at the US border, criticism of law enforcement, Muslim immigration, free trade and government regulation as issues galvanizing the white electorate.

Trump also drew the support of David Duke, a former Klan leader who launched an unsuccessful bid for US Senate from Louisiana this year.

Jones indicated in his interview with TCB that that Loyal White Knights have adopted immigration as a wedge issue to try to appeal to African Americans. The Klan was founded after the Civil War to terrorize black people into submission. Jones said he tells African Americans: “It’s hard for the black race and the white race to keep the lights on and food on the table with immigrants coming and taking our jobs.”

Notwithstanding Jones’ profession, the outgoing message on the group’s hotline celebrates Trump’s victory while defaming black people with bogus claims that trade on racist stereotypes: “According to recent surveys, blacks were either too high or didn’t want to spend the gas money to get to the polls to vote. Go figure, right?”

Prior to the disclosure that the Klan would be parading in Pelham, a group of Triad residents announced a rally to oppose the white supremacist group in Greensboro tomorrow — one of a number of such protests across the state. The event, billed as a “Triad March Against the KKK and Hate in Our Streets,” begins at noon at the Windsor Recreation Center and runs through 3 p.m.

The coalition, which includes the Beloved Community Center, Winston United Against Hate, Winston-Salem United for Racial Justice and the International Socialist Organization, said in a press release that it plans “to demonstrate against Trump’s agenda, the KKK, and the wave of hate and violence that has escalated across the US in the aftermath of the 2016 presidential election.”