The gathering of a chapter of the Ku Klux Klan at Gettysburg National Military Park will take place on October 5, barring the closure of the National Park System, under a permit approved by the park.
The permit allows the Confederate White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, under the coordination of Richard Preston, Baltimore, Maryland, to "exercise their First Amendment rights" at the military park from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. on October 5. Activities will take place on the lawn area north of Meade’s Headquarters along Taneytown Road, according to park officials.
"As custodians of land owned by the American people, the National Park Service has a responsibility to make that land available for exercising those (First Amendment) rights," the park said in a release announcing the gathering.
The Park Service "mission in preserving and protecting the historic resources at Gettysburg," the release continued, "includes making them available to all Americans, even those whose views are contrary to the majority of the American public."
Bill Mcallister, whose great-great-great-grandfather was at the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863, told Channel 21 television out of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, that "(T)o have the KKK come here is obnoxious. To speak with as much emotion as I can get without swearing... to me it's abhorrent they would come to this battlefield to do anything."
Gettysburg officials could not immediately say this morning how many KKK members were expected for the event, though they thought it was fewer than a dozen.
Park staff will be working to ensure that park resources and visitors will not be adversely affected by this event. Additional law enforcement agencies will assist the park to make certain that demonstrators, visitors, and staff experience a safe atmosphere on the day of the event.
If the park system is closed because Congress cannot resolve the budget impasse the gathering would not be allowed.
Comments
How The South Will Rise To Power Again
It's been a non-secret since well back in the 20th C., that those who enjoy feeling superior toward the South, had better indulge now, before it becomes too obvious that the object of their derision has gotten the last laugh. It is plain, that the part of the country that many see as the dunce, actually holds a long-term winning hand.
The regions & subcultures that have predominantly informed National Parks attitudes & norms heretofore, OTOH, have the weakest long term trends of the major sections of the United States. In coming times, the growing imbalance is likely to bring changes, at NPS.
Show what this country stands for.
The values of the KKK are repugnant. The values of our nation include equality before the law and freedoms of speech and assembly.
Those are the values we need to support. Assuming the park is open, the most eloquent expression of this could be a peaceful, dignified, orderly assembly of people opposed to the KKK's views.
I despise the Klan to my depths. But I totally support their right to peaceably assemble and express their views.
Same KKK group held a rally on September 7 at Antietam National Battlefield. Apparently, the US Park Police outnumbered the participants.
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2013-09-07/news/bs-md-klan-at-antietam-20130906_1_civil-war-battlefield-world-knights-ku-klux-klan
Just read the articles. Statements by these guys sound a lot like some of what I hear and read here in my back yard from people who don't wear hoods.
The best action is probably to simply ignore them. Nut cases thrive on attention. Deprive them of attention and they'll slither off in frustration.
I'm all for the KKK making public appearances because it reveals them to the public as the ignorant, stupid bigots they are.
Odd, isn't it, that these people chose Gettysburg? The only thing that would make it stranger to me is if they had their meeting on the Bryan farm. Most folks don't realize that the Pickett/Longstreet assault on the 3rd day took place across not one but two pieces of land that were farmed by free black people...in essence, that the South's hopes died on land farmed by the very people the Confederacy wanted to keep enslaved.