July 5, 2020
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“Crazy” Comes in Black & White
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The week I graduated from high school back in 1965 … I attended a Ku Klux Klan rally on the outskirts of my semi-rural Southern hometown.
Hows THAT for an opening line? Does it rank with “My name is Ishmael” … or “It was the best of times. It was the worst of times … ” ?
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My pal and I were drawn to that event in 1965 out of the youthful curiosity for any object or event that is unfamiliar or strange. … Like spending $.50 to enter a carnival sideshow to see JoJo The Dog-faced Boy.
There was no ideological attraction. I have not been tempted to attend another such event.
It was in a vacant field on the outskirts of town where Hwy 70 Bus and Hwy 70 ByPass split. I drive by there every time I return to my hometown or go to “da Beach”.
There were several 100 attendees in full KKK regalia and about an equal number of the curious, like me. I don’t recall if the klansmen’s faces were covered. I think they were. They were wearing the peaked hats and robes. I did not see anyone I knew.
There was a guy named Robert Shelton there. He was The Grand Dragon or Exalted Cyclops or Imperial Wizard or some such of the United Knights of The Ku Klux Klan.
In “real life” he was a tire salesman from Alabama. Duh! He had run for Sheriff of Tuscaloosa County and finished 5th. He delivered a rip-roaring Doozie of a speech.
He ranted about “Negroes” and “Mud People” and “The Coloreds” … using a lot of collective nouns. He did not have a high opinion of them by any name. His “passion” got his members all stirred up They cheered where they were suppose to cheer.
There was a big 20′ high wooden cross wrapped in gasoline-soaked rags … They lit it at a point in the proceedings.
Mr Shelton “knew what he was doing” … how to rile up his attendees. If you’ve seen “Klan rallies” in the movies … that is what I saw that summer night in 1965.
Kinda Scary does not do it justice.
My undying memory of that night in 1965 was summed up in my comment to my pal as we drove back to town…
Those Sumbitches are Nutz!
I was not the colorful wordsmith I would become 40 years later.
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About 8-9 years ago – around 2010 or thereabouts … I attended another “rally”. This one was in downtown Raleigh on Fayetteville Street. It was also “about Race”. This was different from that earlier one … but not really.
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Prior to that event in Downtown Raleigh, I had participated in an Ebony & Ivory Dialogue arranged by The News & Observer. Involving me in a series of one-on-one lunch chats with a locally prominent black gentleman. We were both Baby Boomers who had “come of age” in The 60s. Was there a common perspective?
Over 5-6 lunches, we shared experiences. I noted “that Klan rally” as well as other experiences as a boy … a young man moving thru corporate America … and as an aging Boomer looking back.
He had been Jesse Jackson’s NC campaign mgr when Jackson ran for President. His father had been active in local politics.
He had all the pre-conceived stereotypes of me that us “White Not Liberal Democrats” are assumed to have. All of us are “in da Klan” of course and he kept calling me a NeoCon. I asked “What da heck IS a NeoCon?”. He never would tell me. To this day, I don’t know.
At our last lunch I asked him …
What coulda shoulda been done differently since 1964 for America to be at a better place race-wise today?
He said he had never thought about that. I believe him … He had never thought about it ?!?
Did we ever find a commonality? Yes, we did. …
We both have a decided preference for Blond White Women.
Every time I tell that story, folks think I’m kidding. I’m not.
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That rally in Downtown Raleigh… He would be a featured speaker. I drove down early enough to get a standing spot right by the stage.
This was NOT the infamous rally where Reverend William “Bully” Barber would (supposedly) draw “at least 80,000… maybe more” as reported by The N&O and WRAL. “The 80,000” was actually about 8,500.
The one I attended drew about 2,500 or so … but they were enthusiastic.
There were 3-4 “opening acts” including my guy and a very angry Duke professor who was “an authority on slavery”. The mini-multitude was there to see/hear Rev. “Bully” Barber.
As the “warm-up acts” were finishing, a customized van – with heavy-duty shocks – pulled up behind the stage. … A phalanx of “burly NFL Linebacker-types” dressed in black surrounded the van. … … The side panel opened and “Bully” emerged in full papal regalia. Rev Barber was well in excess of a quarter of a ton – 500+ lbs.
With the help of 3-4 of his “burly linebacker-types'” … Rev Barber navigated the 2-3 steps up to the stage emerging to the HUZZAHS of his adoring disciples. His elaborate papal regalia was much fancier than Robert Shelton’s had been back in 1965. 
Barber’s fiery rhetoric did NOT mention “Mud People” or “Children of Ham” or even “Coloreds … but he was highly and passionately uncomplimentary to any/all Republicans… and/or NeoCons. No, he never said what NeoCons were.
I lost track of all the ills of society that he said Republicans / NeoCons were solely responsible for … it took “Bully” a good 20 minutes to list’em all. He shook his fist and pounded the podium a lot. His peeps seemed to like that.
When he wore out … his “burly linebacker-types” helped him off-stage and back in his van … and everyone left Downtown Raleigh.
My undying memory of This Event was summed up by…
What a Flaming S*** Show !!!
In the 45 years since The Klan Rally I have honed my descriptive wordsmithing …
OK… I know what you are wondering… Does “Bully” Barber share my preference for Blond White Women? I have no idea and don’t care to know. I suspect his “burly NFL linebacker-types” might though.
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Because I’ve seen it with my own eyes – I know that:
“Crazy” Comes in Black & White
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More of SaidWhat … Click HERE!
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It’s been said there is only one good, knowledge, and only one bad, ignorance. Guys like William Barber are just the other side of the KKK coin. He is just as racist, bigoted, hateful and mean. . Unfortunately we have a lot of people profiting off racial strife, it’s a well paid industry both in terms of money and status. For them there’s not a lot to be gained in a harmonious, prosperous society. Until we can somehow negate and/or discredit their message of division and hate, which has great appeal to the young and underclass, the problem will only… Read more »
In the infamous Charlottesville Confrontation very early in Trump Presidency there were supposedly 135 “White Supremeists” carrying tiki torches and opposing the Lib/Dem activists. “The media” made out that those 135 represented “Trump’s base” conveniently leaving out the other 63,000,000 of us who voted for him. I have no clue how many “white supremists” / Aryan Brotherhood / KKK / et al there are out there … or if I have ever been around any since June 1965. . I realize it is easy for TrumpHaters including of course The Media to play to that stereotype. It has a wild… Read more »
Thank you for providing a place where people can speak honestly about race relations without being attacked. Frankly there are not many of these left in America. . I can offer a personal opinion of what could have been done differently since 64, the Civil Rights Act did some wonderful things but it also enabled a lot of the problems we see today. And know you have people like Barber pursing for reparation payments, the old adage “you can give a man a fish or teach him to fish” applies here. Creating a National program for underprivileged kids that operates… Read more »
I will never forget a popular statement regarding school integration as the CRA was being put in place across America in the late 1960s …
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“It will be necessary to sacrifice a generation to bring the black children up-to-speed in public education…”
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Depending upon how long one considers “a generation” … we are now in the 7th-8th “sacrificed generation” and public education is a Total Trainwreck.
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Thank you for your kind words about this website.
Dr. Thomas Sowell has written extensively about the success of Washington DC’s Dunbar high school prior to desegregation, and its decline since. Very interesting stuff, you’d love his book “Black Rednecks and White Liberals”. His most recent book is about the attack on Charter Schools by the Dems and Teachers Unions.
Dr Sowell and Walter Williams have long been strong voices for the betterment of the Black Community and for improving “race relations” in America.
I’ve no idea what could have been different in CRA, but I know the entirety of the War on Poverty could have been avoided, and the outcome would have been significantly better. Much has been studied academically on how the welfare state helped to destroy the nuclear family in AfAm life. . As for today, removing government guaranteed student loans is a good first step. Bring back market forces into higher education, making them within reach of all classes of student, not just the Upper Class. Loaning someone a lifetime of debt to earn a degree of dubious market value,… Read more »
IMO… there have been powerful forces at work from Day One that the CRA NOT be successful. Keeping the Black Community stuck in the entitlement Trap was always the plan …
An important lesson that was imparted to me by my father, a saying that I tried to instill in my children, is “respect is never demanded, however respect is always EARNED.” This was taught to me from a man whose generation reflected both the good and not-so-good in relations with fellow human beings. I try to remember that lesson when I interact with a small handful of Black gentlemen here in eastern NC who, in their small unassuming way, work to build those connections between the races and try to make this a better society for all of us. .… Read more »
Alas … it is always the bellowers that get the media-attention.
Bob Lee, again spot on. There are wanna-be leaders and natural born followers of every ilk and at no time does much at all of what they say or do make a lick of sense.
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No way to ever know what we should have done if we all count on stereotypes of each other and listen to all these wanna-be leaders. Everyone has an agenda and those with the biggest mouths certainly don’t want this crap to ever go away.
Abortion – Race – Climate Change … all have too many people making A LOT of $$$$ to ever resolve any of’em.
I am laughing about your KKK rally experience. I was likely about 15 when I got pulled into one by some similarly aged friends who like you wanted to know what it was all about. The day before the rally someone dropped literature in local driveways inviting attendance. My father who was not amused by the literature since he was already vocally pushing for including a black person in the local town council told me to stay away. Of course being 15 that made the rally even more appealing. . So off we went and within less than 10 minutes… Read more »
Now now JoCoBOB … those of us who remember “before the Smithfield by-pass was built” and the western city limits by that stone building … THE WELCOME SIGN !!! “That KKK sign” might be more (in)famous than Ava Gardner.
The sign is gone, but Ava is still with us a quarter mile west of where the sign was.
The former Grand Wizard of BLS, TBK, has no idea what he’s missing. I’ve asked several historians the same question you asked to your lunch companion about colonial Vs. post-colonial Africa (roughly the same time-line of the CRA) and never received a intelligible reply. Got to figure there ain’t one, so far anyway.
I will never forget the look on his face at that very reasonable question. I coulda been asking “Why did God include a pair of mosquitos on The Ark?”