Recruitment flyers touting the Ku Klux Klan were distributed in at least three states this weekend, including leaflets lauding the notorious hate group as the so-called “Kool Kids Klub.”
Residents in parts of New York, Texas and Alabama found flyers outside their homes over the weekend advertising multiple KKK factions as well as an upcoming Klan rally.
The Fulton County Sheriff’s Office told The Washington Times Tuesday that authorities are requesting the public’s assistance in identifying whomever distributed flyers advertising a group known as the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan over the weekend in Northville, a small village east of Syracuse, New York.
The leaflets were placed in weighted down bags discovered in Northville driveways early Saturday and contain information about the group as well as a rally it plans to hold next month over 500 miles away in Charlottesville, Virginia.
“The Kool Kids Klub wants you,” the flyers read in part, New York Upstate first reported.
Law enforcement officials in the region have received numerous complaints in the last eight months or so connected to the Klan, a representative of the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office told The Times. While distributing literature isn’t illegal in its own right, the official said authorities were considering the possibility of pursuing trespassing charges if and when they identify any suspects in connection with this weekend’s recruitment blast.
Similar flyers touting the same North Carolina-based Klan faction were discovered over the weekend by residents of a neighborhood in Harris County, Texas, Click 2 Houston reported. In Alabama, meanwhile, residents of Hoover found flyers Friday advertising another Klan group called the the United Dixie White Knights; over 200 miles away near Mobile, literature touting a different faction, the American Christian Knights, appeared the next day.
The number of active Klan chapter grew operating inside the United States nearly doubled from 72 in 2014 to 130 in 2016, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a watchdog organization that monitors hate groups.
The Loyal White Knights is among the nation’s best known Klan factions, and previously announced plans to host a rally next month in Charlottesville to protest the city’s removal of a monument to Confederate Army Gen. Robert E. Lee. A phone call placed Tuesday to the number listed on the Loyal White Knights flyers found in New York and Texas directed to a prerecorded messaging saying the rally will take place July 8 as planned.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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