Ku Klux Klan on new recruitment drive with leaflet drop in towns across America

Residents wake up to find fliers declaring “The KKK wants you” as hatred of Obama and immigration fuels rise in white supremacy

The leaflets depict the outline of a hooded figure in white robes with Klan insignia pointing at the reader in the style of traditional military recruiting posters, complete with phone numbers and websites 

By Joanna Walters, New York

10:22PM BST 31 Mar 2014

The Ku Klux Klan is on a recruitment drive across America with a new leafleting campaign, as membership numbers grow due to opposition to Barack Obama and increased immigration.

Residents of towns in Texas, Louisiana, Illinois and Pennsylvania emerged from their houses over the weekend to find fliers attached to their doors, car windscreens or on the front lawn declaring “The KKK wants you.”

The leaflets depict the outline of a hooded figure in white robes with Klan insignia pointing at the reader in the style of traditional military recruiting posters, complete with phone numbers and websites.

The Klan and its latest campaign are legal under the US’s strong constitutional right to free speech. The white supremacy group, which aims to oust Mr Obama and stem immigration, is also against interracial marriage and homosexuality. In their contemporary guise, Klan leaders promote non-violent defence of whites “in the race war against us”, according to one website.

Leaflets distributed in the Louisiana town of Eunice over the weekend read: “Neighbourhood Watch!!! The law abiding citizens of your community can sleep in peace knowing the Klan is awake! The KKK wants you.” It was signed the “Loyal White Knights”.

Similar leaflets were distributed in the small town of Rhome, near Dallas, Texas, in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania and in a suburb of Chicago, Illinois.
Kevin Benton, a spokesman for the Rhome sheriff’s office, said the town had not seen anything like it since the 1990s and while the leaflets were not illegal, they caused concern.
“You wish it was something from the past, that you hoped everyone had gotten beyond that,” said Mr Benton.
On the contrary, the Ku Klux Klan is enjoying a resurgence.
In a report earlier last year the Southern Poverty Law Centre, a US civil rights research and campaign group, found that there were 1,360 right-wing, self-styled patriot groups in the US and, in addition, around 1,000 specific hate groups - a rise in total of more than 800 percent in the number of such groups since 2008, when Mr Obama was elected.
The US does not have British-style laws declaring that certain speech or activity constitutes illegal incitement to racial hatred. Without evidence of plots to do harm the Ku Klux Klan is permitted and not officially a terrorist organisation.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/10735377/Ku-Klux-Klan-on-new-recruitment-drive-with-leaflet-drop-in-towns-across-America.html