Kirsten Clark

@kirstenlmclark

MADISON, Ind. — As several Ku Klux Klan leaders gathered Saturday to urge supporters to “take back the country you are losing,” they were met by hundreds of counter-protesters who hoped to send the message that the scenic town overlooking the Ohio River would not welcome hate.

A barricade of law enforcement officers divided Richard Preston, imperial wizard of the Confederate White Knights, from a crowd of college students, local residents and members of various organizations.

“We will not stop,” Preston said over a speaker system. “The Klan is on a rise like never before.”

But at one point, counter-protesters blasting “When the Saints Go Marching In” over a loud speaker competed for people’s attention and prompted Preston to take notice: It shouldn’t take a Klan rally to spark a party in the streets, he said.

After news surfaced that the Confederate White Knights – a subgroup of the KKK – would gather in Madison during a popular art festival to recruit new members and highlight growing drug addiction in the area, local and regional groups began organizing a counter-protest that was expected to outnumber actual Klansmen.

“That’s kind of the classic Klan rally these days, where the Klansmen are way outnumbered by their opponents,” said Mark Potok, senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors the activity of the KKK.

He added: “The Klan today is very small and very weak and poorly led without really any political power at all."

The group’s numbers have sharply declined since its peak of 4 million members in the mid-1920s, he said. Today, the center estimates the KKK has about 5,000 members and rallies like the one in Madison happen somewhere in the U.S. about once every couple weeks, Potok said.

The Klan's advertised purpose of drawing attention to drug abuse is what brought Florence, Ky., resident Gabrielle Jerauld to her first Klan event with husband, Brad. Though they are not KKK members, they agreed with the group's call to organize against drug abuse and trafficking.

“That’s what it was mostly about. That and that we need to stand up and vote,” she said. “They didn’t make it a race issue like everybody thinks they would.”

Despite this and Klan leaders' claims, many did see the message from the Klan – a group known for its white supremacy – as one about race.

Donavon, a 17-year-old Madison resident whose mother asked her son’s last name not be used, said he originally attended the rally to “troll” on KKK members. But he was surprised how much the group invoked patriotism as a way to defend their views.

His mother, who declined to provide her name, added: “Patriotism isn’t about hate. It’s about peace and love.”

Part of the Klan’s roughly 45-minute rally also focused on denouncing the Black Lives Matter movement, following a week that saw the fatal police shooting of Keith Lamont Scott in Charlotte, N.C.

"If you’re going to stand up for Americans, stand up for all Americans," Preston said. "Not just the black race, not just the white race, not just the brown race. All American lives matter.”

The notion garnered an “amen” from a supporter.

Natasya Allen, a lifelong Madison resident, spoke with Klan leader Larry Philmore toward the end of the rally. Philmore told her the KKK is trying to clean up its image and believes in helping all walks of life, Allen said. Then, a man nearby asked Philmore: if Allen, who is black, wanted to join the KKK, would she be accepted?

No, Philmore replied. “We’re a white nationalist organization,” he told Allen. “Ask yourself. Would you want to join?”

“You can say that you’re not racist all you want and you can say that you’re not trying to separate, but to come here to this town at this time, with everything that’s going on everywhere else and give me that answer – it’s apparent that you’re just trying to sugarcoat it,” Allen said in an interview.

Philmore recently told the Madison Courier that the Maryland-based group chose Madison as the site for the rally because the KKK "has had a chapter there for years. It’s been passed down from generation to generation.”

But John Wallace, the Jefferson County, Ind., sheriff, told the Courier-Journal on Friday that local law enforcement "fortunately (doesn't) have any experience with this sort of thing." He could not be reached by phone Saturday after the event, which was peaceful, for comment.

What's more, residents described Madison as a "decent town" that rejects racism.

"Here in Jefferson County, we’re not going to accept it," Allen said. "We’re not going to welcome it. We’re diverse, and we’re always going to be.”

Kirsten Clark can be reached at (502) 582-4144.