Members of the Ku Klux Klan rallying in their hoods was like a scene from 1959, but it happened Saturday night outside the Hillsborough courthouse in North Carolina.
The group carried confederate and KKK flags, along with a banner echoing President Trump’s campaign slogan “Make America Great Again.”
The Ku Klux Klan was organized in 1867 as a response to Reconstruction, after the North won the Civil War.
It was composed of white men who wanted to re-establish white supremacy and to limit the rights of African Americans.
The Klan was widespread across the South, using violence and terror against free blacks and sympathetic whites.
The goal of the Klan was to intimidate blacks and prevent them from voting, holding political office, or establishing successful businesses.
The Klan used all types of violence, including murder, whipping, and the destruction of property.
The KKK members at today’s rally were part of the ‘Loyal White Knights’ out of Rockingham County.
Counter-protesters staged themselves in front of the KKK across the street.
“This is my community, I live just a few blocks away from here and I really don’t want them to claim their territory here. This is not a Hillsborough value, this is not what our community stands for,” Allison Mahaley said.
“Skin really is paper thin. In all the ways that matter, there really is only one human race,” Mark Daughtridge from Durham said at the protest.
Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), a Democratic presidential candidate, was speaking nearby at the Founder’s Banquet for the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People.
She spoke to the group about the continued fight for Civil Rights.
“Who are we?” Harris said. “We are better than this.”
She is also scheduled to speak at a church service in Durham on Sunday morning and make a stop in Greensboro Sunday afternoon.