Over a week ago, South Carolina legislators decided to remove the Confederate battle flag from the statehouse grounds. Yet the removal of the Confederate flag has been met with opposition. That’s why the Ku Klux Klan will be protesting the flag’s removal on Saturday. But the KKK and an African-American Group have planned coinciding rallies in front of the South Carolina Statehouse.
The African-American Group is the New Black Panther Party, a US-based political organization founded in Dallas, identifying with the ideologies of the Black Panther Party.
For a long time, the Confederate battle flag has represented a powerful symbol of slavery. And the Loyal White Knights of the KKK have pledged to vehemently protest the removal of the flag (which occurred during a brief ceremony on July 10th).
This apparent dormant bomb was ignited with the killing of nine African-American worshipers last month at the Charleston Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. The killer, a 21 year old self-proclaimed white supremacist, posted photographs of himself online posing in front of the Confederate flags. Understandably, authorities saw it befitting to remove this symbol of slavery.
Yet with this unfortunate event, each of the two groups has decided to hold demonstrations and raise awareness as to each of their causes. On the one hand, African-American demonstrators will attempt to highlight racial inequality. On the other, KKK members are attempting to prove that the actions of one single man cannot define an entire organization.
Calling themselves the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, the demonstrators have repeatedly denounced the acts of Dylann Roof, the 21-year-old supremacist killer.
In the meantime, Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin is urging citizens to shun such rallies and ignore both demonstrator groups.
“Lets use the #IgnoreThem hashtag and share how you’re going to ignore these groups gathering at the State House on Saturday,” the mayor’s Tweet wrote.
Nowadays, the largest Klan faction in the US, the Loyal White Knights, has several thousand active members all across the US. Luckily, that is only a shadow of what the feared organization once numbered over 90 years ago: more than 5 million members.
Photo credits: The NY Post