Kovering the KKK in SW Pa.
Three decades ago the Ku Klux Klan tried to stir up hate in the mostly white rural counties south of Pittsburgh. It not only failed, it showed what a joke the KKK was -- and still is.
From 1989-1991 the Ku Klux Klan proved yet again that if the news media ignored it -- and didn't exaggerate the danger to the country posed by its infinitesimal membership of racist morons -- it would barely exist.
In 1989 the Klan burned one of its infamous crosses of hate on a hilltop in Washington County south of Pittsburgh. Part of its protest of a home for troubled youths that Steelers star Mel Blount was going to open on his farm, the cross burning was a form of Saturday night entertainment for the locals — and a job to do for lots of state troopers and media reporters like me.
When the Nuremburg Journalism Tribunals are held, I’ll have to plead guilty for giving the KKK the publicity it did not deserve. In my defense, I will say I was only following orders.
Klan plans rally to protest the Mel Blount Youth Home
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Sept. 29, 1989
By Bill Steigerwald
The Invisible Empire of the Ku Klux Klan will stage a rally at a farm site in Buffalo Township Nov. 11 to protest the Washington County township's recent approval of the Mel Blount Youth Home.
The daylong rally will be "a protest and a real good way to let the people there thumb their noses" at local officials, Rick Fogel, grand dragon of the KKK's statewide organization, said yesterday.
It will be the "our standard rally," he said. It will include refreshments, guest speakers and a concluding "cross-lighting ceremony." Fogel declined to identify the farm site.
On Sept. 20, the township supervisors gave former Steelers corner-back Mel Blount zoning approval for his plans to operate a youth home on his 245-acre farm near the village of Taylorstown. As many as 20 boys between the ages of 7 and 13 will be permitted to live there.
During the prolonged and often rancorous approval process, some township residents said they opposed the home because they feared that the troubled youths might pose a threat to the community.
Also, race became an issue in May when the KKK distributed racist literature in opposition to the home.
Blount, who is black, denounced township officials for having "racist attitudes" during his Football Hall of Fame induction speech in August.
Township Supervisor Thomas Wright said he wasn't surprised when he heard of the Klan's plans. He said he had been expecting a KKK rally in the township ever since the youth home won approval.
It serves the KKK's interests and helps it build membership to be able to come in and say that local politicians have failed the community, Wright said, adding that he thought the whole racial issue had been overplayed by news media.
Wright said a "handful" of the township's 2,200 citizens "may be interested in what the KKK has to say," but that he would "be surprised" if there are members of the Klan in the township now. He said the KKK members who distributed the hate literature in the spring were not from Buffalo Township.
Six weeks later, I attended the KKK’s rally and cross burning
The KKK warms a hilltop with its flaming cross of hate
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Nov. 13, 1989
By Bill Steigerwald
A 9-year-old boy, spotlighted on a small stage erected on a grassy hilltop in Washington County, spoke into the microphone.
"I think we should kick all the black peoples' ass and send the Jews back to their own country. They don't belong here."
The boy was addressing a crowd of about 250 at an evening rally held Saturday (Nov. 11) by the Invisible Empire of the Ku Klux Klan near Taylorstown.
The smiling and white-sheeted Imperial Wizard of America stood next to the boy. His parents looked on. The boy's speech distilled the harsh philosophy that had been delivered by a series of out-of-town speakers.
The KKK's Grand Dragon of Pennsylvania, Rick Fogel, said the rally was staged in response to requests from local people protesting the Mel Blount Youth Home for troubled children being built about four miles away.
Fogel and other Invisible Empire leaders insist the KKK has changed. He says it has become more professional, is not anti-black and does not countenance violence among its members.
Nevertheless, plainclothes state policemen with binoculars, cameras and note pads observed the rally. State police cars cruised the area and county sheriff's deputies were stationed on the driveway to Blount's ranch.
No incidents connected with the rally were reported, police said yesterday. By all accounts, the Saturday night rally was the standard KKK affair, complete with a cross-burning finale and spirited hosannahs to the white race.
On hilltop property on the border of Blaine and Buffalo townships, the KKK had set up its stage-trailer and portable toilet, parked about 20 vehicles and erected a 30-foot cross of freshly cut tree trunks wrapped in kerosene-soaked burlap.
The crowd was peaceful and friendly. Many were dressed in camouflage outerwear, hunting shirts and hats. Guest Grand Dragons from Maryland, Connecticut and elsewhere emitted a steady stream of anti-black, anti-Jewish and anti-foreigner diatribes, including many racial and ethnic slurs.
About 35 sheeted and hooded Klanspeople, a few shotgun-lugging security guards and people dressed in biker's clothing mingled with curious local folks, many of whom carried cameras. Teams of reporters and cameramen from Pittsburgh, Washington, Pa., and Wheeling, W.Va., milled about.
Displayed for sale on the tailgate of a pickup truck were audio tapes such as "Commmunism Is Jewish" and "The True History of America," for $2.50 each. Another pickup tailgate offered KKK T-shirts, hats, emblems and belt buckles.
Except for those standing up front, not too many seemed to be paying much attention to the railing speakers, who occasionally asked applause-getting rhetorical questions like, "How about white civil rights? Where's ours?"
"I think it's asinine," a McGuffey High School senior from West Alexander said of the rally. He was standing at the back of the crowd. "Most of it's funny."
The crowd had come to see the grand finale — the cross-burning ceremony. Imperial Wizard J.W. Farrands read a KKK prayer about how the cross signified Christ as the light of the world.
The burning cross warmed the hilltop and burned brightly in a strong wind for 10 minutes. The right arm of the cross never caught fire properly.
As flames turned to sparks, the Imperial Wizard held his microphone to the speaker of a small tape recorder that was playing a tape of "Saving Grace" by Anita Bryant and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
Then the Imperial Wizard dismissed the klanspeople. The media were asked to leave. And about 10 local people were sworn in as new members of the KKK, including the 9-year-old boy's proud parents.
Two years later the KKK rounded up a score or two of its members and got a permit to put on a protest parade in the Greene County town of Carmichaels. Preempting the KKK protest, a local church put on its own protest, which I attended.
The unburned cross
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Sept. 9, 1991
By Bill Steigerwald
CARMICHAELS - "Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight."
Written boldly and brightly and attached to an overturned table on the front lawn of Green Valley Presbyterian Church, the words are the chorus of a venerable children's hymn, "Jesus Loves the Children of the World."
The refrain neatly summed up the message of Christian love and racial tolerance affirmed by 230 citizens of Carmichaels who attended a special service in the church yesterday afternoon.
They came to make a hand-holding, hymn-filled religious protest to a march planned by the Ku Klux Klan next Saturday in their quiet Greene County community.
Barry Black, grand titan of the Invisible Empire of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, said the march was being held to protest government policies that he said were giving away "our rights ... to the black and Asian populations."
Carmichaels is a sleepy borough of about 600 people "50 miles south and 50 years from Pittsburgh," quipped one resident. It has two policemen and one black resident.
Two years ago, the KKK received a permit to march in the town, but never carried through on its plans. Black, the grand titan, is a former Carmichaels resident who now lives in Johnstown.
The Rev. Nick Protos, pastor of Green Valley Presbyterian Church and a borough councilman, was asked if he thought the service might draw more attention to the Klan's activities.
"Ignoring the Klan seems to be the stance of a lot of elected officials and even the police — that if you just don't say anything or do anything, they'll go away," he said.
Protos said he, other church leaders and borough officials had considered remaining silent, but were concerned that the Klan "could interpret our silence as a welcome.”
"More important, people in our community and outside our community could interpret our silence as sympathy. Because of those two possibilities, we thought we had to do something positive."
While undercover state troopers sat in an unmarked car in the church parking lots, a resolution of the Carmichaels Ministerial Association was read:
"Racism is sin. It is a moral evil that divides the human family by denying the divine image in mankind and the God-given rights of every person . . . that preaches an ugly doctrine of tear, hatred ... Racism corrupts our entire society by violating one of society's greatest assets the integrity and equality of every person."
The resolution called for the people of Carmichaels "to affirm with us the biblical call for righteousness and justice for all people" and to join together to challenge "the sources and practices of racism in every form."
Protos said his church, which is along the KKK's march route, would leave its banner with the words of the hymn on the lawn.
"I'm sure some of these guys who'll be marching in that street sang that song in Sunday school as children, and maybe that might jog their memories."
Angelo Donato, 65, an elder of the church, was waiting for a ride home after nearly everyone else had left.
"It was a dignified, understated service," said the ex-New York City native. "I just hope the message gets across to the rest of the people out there that this is really Carmichaels — not that bunch of thugs."
A week later the KKK’s Saturday night cross-lighting ceremony felt like a parody.
Slim crowd, quiet march, followed by an electric KKK cross burning
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Sept. 16, 1991
By Bill Steigerwald
“Behold the lighted cross," said the solemn voice in the dark as about 15 white-robed members of the Invisible Empire of the Ku Klux Klan stood in a ceremonial arc.
But because of anti-burning laws in drought-stricken Greene County, the cross whose burning marks the traditional end of a Klan rally was not as bright as usual.
Instead of a towering blaze, 70 or 80 men, women and children attending the Klan's rally in Carmichaels Saturday night bore witness to their creed before a 15-foot-high cross that was illuminated by 13 light bulbs.
The ceremony represented a not-so-grand finale to a daylong Klan event that attracted more state police and reporters than Klansmen.
Grand Titan Barry Black of Johnstown, a former Carmichaels resident, said he organized the event to protest poor economic conditions in the area, which he contended were the result of federal policies that showed preference to blacks and Asians.
Klan speakers peppered their talks with racial and ethnic slurs, railing against Jewish bankers, blacks and what they called the failure of the white race to defend and preserve itself.
The evening rally was held not far from a spot on Route 88 where robed klansmen handed out copies of the January/February issue of the Klansman newspaper. The newspaper included application forms for Klan membership.
Earlier in the day, the Klan conducted a quick march through downtown Carmichaels, 12 miles east of Waynesburg. The 50 marchers, 20 of them in white robes and hoods, were flanked by about 40 helmeted and baton-carrying state troopers as newspaper photographers and television cameramen watched.
When Klan leaders in a truck asked, "What do we want?" the marchers yelled, "White power."
About 300 people watched the march, said Capt. Lyle Szupinka of the Pennsylvania State Police, who commanded 55 troopers from Troop B, based in Washington, Pa. Szupinka said no arrests were made.
"I thought it went very well," Black said after the march. "You saw no hate here today. You saw no violence here today. Klansmen don't have two heads and six arms. They are hard-working persons, same as your neighbor."
Mary Lewis, borough secretary, said she recognized fewer than a dozen of the town's 632 residents watching the march. She said all but three of Carmichaels' 50 businesses closed for the afternoon to protest the KKK's presence.
Kurt Hainzer, 30, of nearby Greensboro, said he came to the march to show his support for the KKK. He said he was not a Klan member but that he believed "in what they stand for — the interests of white, taxpaying Americans."