Indiana’s
Grand Wizard creating a kinder, gentler KKK
By Ryan Polk,
THG Features
In the early 1920s, Indiana
was a hotbed of Ku Klux Klan activity. The KKK had hundreds of thousands of
members that helped get Ed Jackson elected as governor in 1925. It was not
uncommon for the Klan to gather over 100,000 supporters at a rally in places
like Kokomo or Evansville.
In the past two decades,
the KKK has been a complete joke.
Instead of government
officials and leading businessmen running the Klan and controlling politics in
Indiana, in recent years the KKK has been a collection of a few hundred hayseeds
that look as if they were plucked straight from a cornfield. You have probably
seen them, dressed in their trademark white robes and hoods, on talk shows like
RickiLake or Jerry Springer, spewing
their message of hate in an ignorant way that makes the group even more
laughable.
Sure, now and then they
would have a rally in a small Hoosier town, where protestors outnumbered
supporters 1000 to one. These rallies were weak attempts made by a washed up
group to get a little media attention—attention that no one took seriously.
New president of the
Indiana Ku Klux Klan Buford Kellens is hoping to change all of this by promoting
the KKK as a “social club” to draw more members to the group. Kellens, a native
of Martinsville, says there needs to be serious changes made if the Klan is
going to survive in the 21st century. “What we need is a kindler,
gentler Klan,” said Kellens, a 53 year-old construction worker, “Folks have a
negative view of us because of the actions of a few bad apples when in reality
we do a lot of good in our communities. Of course the media doesn’t want to
mention that—that doesn’t sell newspapers.”
To regain the support of
communities around Indiana, the KKK has postponed all marches planned for 2004.
This will give the Klan time to rebuild and promote what Kellens calls “The New
Klan.” In Klaverns around the state, members have been working in soup
kitchens, visiting universities, volunteering as crossing guards, and doing
other forms of community service. “This shows the public we are good people who
are just misunderstood,” said Kellens.
The Klan is also making
other ideological changes in 2004. The Indiana chapter is opening membership to
groups formerly excluded in hopes of increasing enrollment. Now
Mexican-Americans and Catholics can join the Klan, as long as they take an oath
of loyalty to the KKK.
The club is also changing
the names of officials in the Klan’s hierarchy to make them sound more
business-like and less mystical. “The public is not going to accept titles
popular in the past like ‘Imperial Wizard, Grand Dragon, and Exalted Cyclops’,”
said Juan Montoya, general manager of Klavern #1 in a Sunday afternoon
interview, “So now we have titles like CEO, vice president, and general manager
to reflect our more business-like approach.”
Not everyone is convinced
the Klan has changed its ways. “You can take a racist a-hole, clean him up and
put him in a suit, and he is still going to be a racist a-hole. They ain’t
fooling anyone,” said Gary resident Tyrone Wilke.
