TN- KKK Recruiting with Sex Offender Flyers

7-10-2009 Tennessee:

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - Some Olive Branch residents are outraged about flyers, littering their yards.

The flyers warned of a convicted sex offender, living in the neighborhood, but they were distributed by a group with a racist, violent history toward Jews and blacks.

The flier was found scattered about the Allendale Cove neighborhood last week.

It was in a plastic bag with a rock inside.

The flyer notifies homeowners that a convicted sex offender lives on the next street, but take a closer look and you see the flyer was distributed by the Ku Klux Klan.

The KKK says it's a public service but an organization that tracks hate groups says that's simply ridiculous.

Buddy Robinson President of the Allendale Cover Homeowners Association says, "I was really shocked because you haven't heard anything from this group in years, at least I haven't and now all of a sudden they're in my community. we don't need any organization coming in and causing trouble with any of the homeowners in this area."

Robinson says the flyer's prompted dozens of complaints from residents.
He says, "It brought up an area of concern not just because we have a sex offender living in our area but it being from the KKK, like it is. We don't want anybody to think we're apart of that kind of group."

Not only do the Allendale Cove residents we spoke with, not want to be associated with the KKK, but they think the flyers serve a purpose other than to notify them of a sex offender.

At the bottom is a solicitation for donations.

Robinson says, "I believe they're heavy into recruiting because things might be getting slim for them these days with people changing their opinion on things."

So the flyer a public service announcement or a recruitment tool? We met with the White Knights in Tupelo, in a small shed that couldn't fit more than 10 grown men. Still, they insist their numbers are up.

28-year old Steven Howard, a member of the KKK claims, "We have members knocking down our door everyday we have to tell the people we're not accepting memberships anymore."

Howard says it was a member of his Tupelo based KKK organization who dropped the flyers in the Allendale Cove subdivision, during what they call a night ride.
He says the KKK despises sex offenders, among others and insist the flyers are a public service but nothing more.

Howard says, "Everybody needs to be aware on a sex offender if someone is offended about somebody passing out something on sex offenders in your community because it was KKK on there then in my book you ain't much of a person."

But Fox 13 was alerted to a second KKK flyer, about 2 and half miles away from the Allendale Cove neighborhood, that clearly asks people to join the White Knights.
Mark Potok with the Southern Poverty Law Center or SPLC says, "This is a group with very few members they're certainly laying when they say people are breaking down the door to join the group."

The SPLC is an organization that tracks hate groups.

Potok says the flyers are a desperate attempt for the flailing group to gain members.
At its peak in the 1920's the KKK was at 4,000,000 now there are about 5,000 nationwide, the White Knights make up a small portion of that.

Potok says, "these are rag tag little outfits at the fringes of society that have very little say so and are desperate to recruit members because at the end of the day members from them mean dues and dues means money goes to the leader so the leader does not have to work a regular job like the rest of us."

The Klansmen we spoke with wouldn't say how many are in their group but insist they have plenty, they also claim they're not a hate group and are no longer violent.
Howard says, "but if somebody woke up at 12 o'clock at night and you were a sex offender or wife beater and you wake up in the middle of the night and 20 robed Klansman were standing in your yard I believe I'd be scared." Reporter says, "Have you done that before?" Howard laughs says, "I never have, no."

But the SPLC says the only thing the KKK has changed is that its members are now just cloaking their racism and hatred as mere "civil rights for whites".
Potok says, "i think their claims are utterly ridiculous. These are people who for years have been asking for money for Edgar Ray Killen the murderer of Mississippi civil rights workers in 1964 so they can go on as long as they want to renounce violence and so on but it's simply not true."

As for the flyers, Olive Branch police say there's nothing they can do. Since the flyers are in bags, held down by a rock, it's not considered littering and the message itself is not illegal.

Potok says, "What they say in these pamphlets is perfectly protected by 1st amendment and they have the right to say it that said, I think it's good for a community to be aware this is going on rather than to act like it's not."

Now the president of the Allendale Cove Homeowners Association plans to send out his own flyers, notifying residents of nearby sex offenders in an effort to keep the neighborhood on the inside and the KKK out.
Robinson says, "Those type organizations we don't want around here because they're bad for the neighborhood, bad for the community. We're tight knit and we'd like it to stay that way."

When asked why they drop the flyers in people's yards, the KKK says they don't want to go door to door and it's a federal offense for them to put them in mailboxes.
The Olive Branch police say they've reported the flyer incident to the fusion center in Nashville that tracks possible terrorist-related activity.
The center is operated by homeland security. ..Source.. by Jill Monier