LAURENS, S.C. — The Redneck Shop has been selling Confederate bikinis and white satin robes on the historic courthouse square in this former mill town for so long that most people have learned to ignore it.

“The only people who really get caught up and interested in the store are from out of town,” said Sharon Brownlee, the mayor, who is white. “The store causes no problems that I’m aware of.”

That is a matter of perspective. Since 1996, the Rev. David Kennedy, who is black, has been fighting the shop and the Ku Klux Klan leader who runs it.

Now, in a quirk of fate laced with lawsuits, religious conversions and a small-town Southern narrative Harper Lee might deliver, a black pastor will eventually control what just might be the most famous white supremacist shop in America.