Posted on 09/03/2006 1:27:53 AM PDT by stainlessbanner
Sep 3, 2006 — A member of the World Knights of the Ku Klux Klan held an umbrella over Wrightsville resident James Lewis on Saturday, keeping the steady drizzle from his tall pointed hood and long white robe with black accents.
The robe's an old one. His other one has green stripes added to show his new status as Grand Dragon of the Pennsylvania chapter of the Klan, a position he took two weeks ago.
Lewis, a Klansman since he was 15, was one of three in white robes who led a group of about 26 Klan members and supporters onto the lawn of the Cyclorama Center at Gettysburg National Military Park for a demonstration Saturday.
"I'm not a secret member. ... I'm extremely passionate about my beliefs," said Lewis, 32, who declined to say where he worked, but said he was a skilled laborer. He waited in a parking area to march across Taneytown Road and tell anyone within
hearing range his views. When he spoke, Klansmen around him responded with shouts of "white power."
That refrain was repeated throughout the rally, during which members of the group spoke for two hours, promoting white unity and calling for an end to the Iraq war so that troops can guard the United States' borders from immigrants.
More than 150 law enforcement officials patrolled the event, which drew a crowd of about 200 spectators, some of whom echoed the Klan's calls while others jeered their rhetoric.
Barricades surrounded the cyclorama lawn, where the Klan and a group of Confederate re-enactors holding a counter demonstration were barricaded, about 200 yards apart. They entered the lawn through separate entrances equipped with metal detectors.
Sheaffer, who lives in Gettysburg now, was a witness to the 1969 murder of Lillie Belle Allen on Newberry Street in downtown York. He was 13 at the time.
Interviewed in 2001, he claimed to have seen gunshots fired from Allen's car, an allegation refuted by police and other witnesses. Saturday, he said he was shot twice later on the night Allen was. Sheaffer was once president of the Newberry Street Boys, a neighborhood gang active during the riots.
"Maybe I never let it go. ... It really was a turning point of my life," he said. Sheaffer came to the Klan demonstration because he wanted to hear what the group had to say, he said. He doesn't agree with the Klan "100 percent," he said, adding that, as a Civil War buff, he feels they shouldn't have protested on the battlefield.
"They could've held this somewhere else," he said.
A short distance away, New Jersey resident Daryle Lamont Jenkins and his friends ripped up a Nazi flag and stomped it into the mud.
"Now, that's how you display a Nazi flag," said Jenkins, a spokesman for the anti-racist One People's Project. He and several others came to show the Klan that they disagree with their views, and "we're not going to tolerate it," he said.
Several spectators, many wearing black and some with bandanas covering their faces, shouted at the Klan through a bullhorn, chanting "Give up, go home!" among other phrases. Some spectators engaged in shouting matches with Klan supporters in the crowd, though no physical fights erupted.
The rowdy crowd caused the 37th Texas Cavalry, which organized the counter-demonstration, to end the day early.
The seven re-enactors - who walked quietly onto the lawn in Confederate uniforms, turned their backs on the Klan, bowed their heads and sang hymns - left about 2:30 p.m., about 30 minutes before the Klan. The Klan left at 3 p.m. though its permit allowed another hour.
First Sgt. Bob Harrison, with the 37th Texas, said his group didn't want to be associated with the raucous members of the crowd. The counter-demonstration was planned to distance the Klan from the Confederacy.
"We came here for a purpose," he said. "We made our statement."
One spectator carrying a rainbow flag was arrested after he ran from the lobby of the Cyclorama Center across the lawn toward the Klan. U.S. Park Police cited him for entering a closed area and released him.
There were no other arrests or incidents, said Lt. Scott R. Fear, spokesman for the park police. Law enforcement on the scene included about 100 from both the U.S. Park Police and Gettysburg National Military Park, 50 Pennsylvania State Police troopers and several from the Gettysburg and Cumberland Township police departments.
Fear said this was the fifth time park police have handled a Klan or National Socialist Movement demonstration at one of the parks. The most recent was a Klan demonstration at the Antietam battlefield in June. Everything at Gettysburg went smoothly, he said.
"There's some deep hatred" between the groups, he said. "Our job is to make sure people can come out and (exercise) their First Amendment rights."
FR's resident South-haters will be along shortly to tell us the 37th Texas Cavalry really wasn't there.
(No more Olmert! No more Kadima! No more Oslo! )
Not long ago I made the mistake of posting a a news story with a decidedly anti-marijuana tilt, and I was astonished to discover that there is a sizable number of proud, unashamed and quite belligerent potheads and drug users here at FR. It made me very sad and was a real disappointment.
Now I learn that there is a contingent of South-haters here as well?? This is most distressing. Please know that this born-and raised Yankee Northerner is a LOVER of the South, Southern culture, Southern food, Southern history and Southern people. May God Bless you all :-)
Re the posted article, I'm delighted to see that a rainbow flag waver was arrested for being an idiot....it's usually the Left that becomes hysterical in such circumstances because they know that the hard-left Socialists have far more to do with the Nazis than the Right ever did.
I can't believe that is the headline. Pretty juvenile if you ask me. But, in addressing scumbags I guess it will do. I used to be a reenactor.
Good point, usually blurred by the MSM and the Left. The rivalry between Communism and National Socialism was more in the nature of a brother-fight, or a falling out among true believers (in socialism, in this case), who turn on one another for the crime of heresy.
In this case, only the left had the numbers to become hysterical. The Klan idiots only mustered 26 people. There were a hundred cops and boatloads of counter-protesters. The Klan could do naught but sit tight and wait for their opponents to do something.
Jerry: She's a Nazi, George. A Nazi!
George: I know, I know. Kind of a cute Nazi though.
Funny how these racists make the MSM....
But the America Hating, caucasian hating members of such groups as Screwey Louie Farrakans Nation of Islamofascists are not perceived as racist..because as we all know only white people can be racist.(sarc)
You should try being a Catholic on FR. The hate is pretty intense.
When ever confronted with the pot issue, what I do is to print out the lyrics to the following song....it makes my statement for me.....
Uncle Bob's Midnight Blues Lyrics
Artist: Randy Newman
Album: 12 Songs
Goin' down to the corner
Gonna have myself a drink
Goin' down to the corner
Gonna have myself a drink
'Cause that sh*t that we been usin'
Sure confuse my thinking
Gonna send out to the drugstore
Buy myself a goat
Tie him up in my front yard
For all my so-called friends to see
Ain't nobody gonna look in my window and laugh at me
I been up so long
That it looks like down to me
Please don't talk about to me when I'm gone
Baby, are you against me too?
Had a great idea the other night
Come-A-Ti-Yi-Yippie, baby
Look out
When the blue of the night meets the gold of the day
We love you
We love you
We love you
I'll spell it for you
F B I
Nor are regular Muslims who want to kill all Jews and actually any non-Muslims. Their women dress like KKK, without the pointy head.
Democrats and leftwingers worry themselves to death about a few impotent Nazis and Klansmen but have no problem with Islamofacist murderers who randomly murder innocent women and children of all faiths, including most notably women and children of their own Islamic faith. After all, if these heartless ghouls are against GWB and Republicans n general, they can't be all bad.
"Our job is to make sure people can come out and (exercise) their First Amendment rights."
First ammendment rights, my foot. Most of this country has totally lost its mind regarding the ammendment. Our founders, NEVER, in their wildest dreams would they have made provision for accomodating ANY kind of HATE demonstration. This only came about because of the idiot people who were put in high places and reinterpreted our constitution. Probable in compliance with Cuba or some other communist regime...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.