Indiana Klan, Mayor and Lawyers Wrestle Over Rally

Resurrecting painful memories of 80 years ago when Indiana was known as the national bastion of the KKK, the mayor of Gary and the American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan are locked in a test of wills over whether the group should be allowed to hold a rally at City Hall.

Joining the dispute is the Indiana Civil Liberties Union, which is threatening to file a 1st Amendment lawsuit in support of the klansmen if Gary Mayor Scott L. King tries to block the rally by people he calls “spewers of filth.”

King on Wednesday said that for the Ku Klux Klan to come to Gary, where the population is 85% African American, “gets pretty close to shouting ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theater, which in my view is not constitutionally protected speech.”

King said he is not sure whether he can succeed in a “four-corners defense” of Gary against a Klan rally but that he will try to balance his obligation to follow the law with his commitment to keep race hatred out of the city.

The mayor took the first step Thursday, issuing an executive order requiring that applications for permits to parade or rally be made 45 days in advance. He said that until now demonstrations have been limited to groups whose conduct was “well known,” but that the emergence of new radical groups requires a longer waiting period.

After the city’s Board of Public Works and Safety on Wednesday ratified King’s decision to deny the Klan permission to hold a rally on the Lake County Courthouse steps Saturday, the American Knights backed off their threat to defy King’s protest ban. Instead, the group said Thursday night that it applied that morning for a permit to rally the next Saturday, but it was unclear whether King’s new order applied to that request.

American Knights spokesman Richard Smith said the ICLU, an affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union, had advised the klansmen to reapply and told them that if King remains adamant in his opposition to a rally on the basis of what might be said, the union will file for a court order restraining the city from interfering.

“We’ll do whatever the ICLU tells us to do,” Smith said.

King bristled at the ICLU’s role as an advisor to the Klan, saying that he respects civil liberties groups but as a lawyer sees a distinction between offering legal advice and “counseling someone how to do something that might be criminal in nature.”

Klan imperial wizard Jeff Berry, who founded the American Knights in 1995 and directed its growth to about 20 chapters nationally in three years, said that even though some members would wear white robes and masks at the rally, the event “has nothing to do with racism.”