KKK Plans To Rally On Gettysburg Battlefield
Cats: Battlefield Sites, Gettysburg, History|Since Gettysburg Battlefield is a part of the National Park Service and owned by the Federal government, neither the borough nor the state of Pennsylvania can deny the Klan a permit to hold a peaceful assembly. The First Amendment guarantees their right to meet on Federal property for such demonstrations. The KKK will be meeting on the lawn of the old Cyclorama complex in Ziegler’s Grove on Saturday, November 15 from 2 p.m.-4 p.m.
The Ku Klux Klan got its start after the Civil War in Pulaski Tennessee when Confederate Army General Nathan Bedford Forrest wanted to protest Union Reconstruction efforts. It didn’t take long for the KKK to start terrorizing black people and mouthing its white superiority messages to arouse fear in their victims. In 1971, due to the passage of a bill that gave the president authority to use Federal troops against the Klan, the KKK disbanded until the early 1900s.
In 1915, a former Methodist preacher by the name of William J. Simmons restarted the Ku Klux Klan in Stone Mountain, Georgia to oppose anyone he deemed un-American, including Jews, Catholics, and immigrants. The new Klan grew into a powerful political force, mostly through peaceful demonstrations with some periodic violence. By 1944 the KKK had faded away once again.
Later in the 1940s, a physician in Atlanta, Georgia, Samuel Green, got the Klan going again and in the 1960s, with the rise of the Civil Rights movement, more violence from Klan members rose. LBJ sent some high profile Klan members to prison using the FBI to probe the organization. In the 1970s, Klan membership fell again.
Those of us who still believe in equality and liberty for all are hoping we never see another resurgence in KKK membership. Hate kills. Combat it with peace.
