From: WillNich@aol.com
Date: Sat, 13 Apr 1996 13:59:50 -0400
Subject: KKK in Louisville

GAY CIVIL RIGHTS COALESCES WITH BLACKS, LATINOS
TO PROTEST KKK APPEARANCE IN DOWNTOWN LOUISVILLE

Louisville, Kentucky - April 13, 1996

Despite a cold and persistent rain, over 2000 protesters--half
African-American and half white--flooded into Jefferson Square in downtown
Louisville today to protest the appearance of about twenty members of the Ku
Klux Klan across the street on the steps of the Jefferson County Courthouse.
 At about 12:45, as the Klan unfurled Confederate flags and other emblems
around a statue of Thomas Jefferson, protesters--held back by snow fences and
an extraordinary presence by Louisville police--chanted "Go home!  Go home!"
and "Not In Our Town!"  A smaller crowd of KKK supporters assembled a half a
block away out of sight.

A nine-block section of downtown was cordoned off.  An estimated 600
policemen were on duty in the area to guard against the kind of violence that
erupted at a 1993 clash between KKK supporters and foes in Indianapolis, 100
miles to the north.  No incidents have been reported.

The protest--boisterous but non-violent--was especially extraordinary because
of the way many speakers included the fight for gay and lesbian civil rights
in their comments.

"I don't want you to TOLERATE me because I'm black," said Rev. C.T. Vivian, a
civil rights veteran and founder of the Center for Democratic Renewal in
Atlanta.  "I don't want you to TOLERATE me because I'm Hispanic.  And I don't
want you to TOLERATE me because I'm gay or lesbian.  I want you to accept us
all as equals, to love and cherish us.  Because we're not just black or
white, we're not just Latino or Hispanic, we're not just gay or lesbian:  we
are humanity."

Others who spoke before the crowd included Unitarian minister Richard Beal, a
member of Religious Leaders for Fairness, a group of gay-supportive ministers
in the Louisville area; and Carla Wallace, co-coordinator of the Fairness
Campaign, a local gay civil rights activist group.  Representatives of nearly
every liberal, progressive, and gay/lesbian group in Louisville were in
attendance.

The KKK faction that appeared in Louisville is thought to be a splinter group
from the area which split off from the larger Klan last year.  It is believed
to have no more than fifty members.  On Friday its leaders won a temporary
injunction in court which allowed the group to appear today with hoods
despite a local ordinance prohibiting masks or other disguises in public.
 Ironically, the ACLU--whose statewide executive director was at the
anti-Klan protest--took the group's side in the dispute, alleging that the
ordinance was an unconstitutional infringement of free speech.

At a press conference about three weeks before today's event, the group's
leader argued that gays and lesbians should be subject to the death penalty.
 At the same time, he attempted to downplay the KKK's traditional anti-black,
anti-Jewish, anti-immigrant stances:  a feeble attempt at splitting the gay
civil rights movement off from the African-American civil rights struggle.

The anti-Klan protest ended about 1:00, barely twenty minutes after the Klan
ascended the courthouse steps.  As the crowd began to disperse, one man,
quoting the Bible, seemed to sum up the wet but peaceful protest best:  "The
rain falls on the just and the unjust."

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