Monday, November 11, 2002

Justice begins at home

William Sjostrom recalls the Emmett Till murder and says "The South needs the Klan purged" (despite the fact that there was no evidence of Klan involvement).

That's all right as far as it goes, but I have to ask: Mr. Sjostrom, have you ever lived in the South?

I lived there for quite a while - most of the 70's and early 80's. In all that time I met one person who supported the Klan (and he was a teenage wannabe). Whether the Klan has been "purged" there or not, I never saw any evidence of their influence. And I lived in a number of places in the South, including Scottsboro, AL, a fine town which was the site of a gross miscarriage of justice 70-odd years ago. And Lake County, FL, home of Willis McCall.

The Klan was found throughout the US. In the 1920's the membership got up to 4,000,000. There were even auxiliary organizations for the women and girls - see this describing New York.

Of course the Klan isn't the only hate group. Tolerance.org has maps of hate group distribution, such as this one for Massachusetts.

And where is Mr. Sjostrom writing from? Ireland. Gosh, do you suppose they have any hate groups over there?

We all need all of the hate groups purged. And we'll do a better job of it if we attend to our local problems first.

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