USA: NEW YORK: KU KLUX KLAN MARCH (2)

(23 Oct 1999) English/Nat
Although the federal appeals court barred them from wearing masks over their faces and from using amplification, 18 members of the Ku Klux Klan (K-K-K) marched and protested in lower Manhattan on Saturday.
The Klansmen were surrounded by several thousand anti-Klan protestors and hundreds of policemen and camera crews.
The one-hour K-K-K demonstration went largely without incident, although one New York member of the group was hurt when three men, posing as Klansmen, attacked him as the K-K-K marched onto the square.
Most of the commotion happened among the anti-Klan protestors, some of whom threw golf balls and batteries at the group as they retreated off the square.
They were not very many and they certainly weren't very loud.
That's because New York succeeded in unmasking the Ku Klux Klan when a federal appeals court ruled last night that it could refuse to permit a KKK rally if participants insisted on wearing the fearsome hoods.
But the city had no problem with allowing a few thousand anti-KKK protestors from surrounding the Klansmen with banners, flyers and speeches.
Demonstrators outnumbered the Klansmen at least two hundred to one and some 800 New York City police officers were on hand to make sure the two antagonistic sides didn't get within one hundred feet of each other.
But still the event was not without some small skirmishes.
Three men, who were impersonating Klansmen, attacked the Klan members as they marched onto Foley Square, giving one New York member of the KKK a bloody nose.
The Reverend Jeffrey Berry, the leader of the KKK, believes the court's ruling was behind his group's low turnout, saying that many members have been fired from their jobs because of participation in Klan activities.
But the Klan's message of white pride was not be stifled.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"If we could have worn our hoods and robes, you would have seen a hundred Klansmen here."
SUPER CAPTION: Jeffrey Berry, Imperial Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan
Norman Siegel, head of the American Civil Liberties Union, who came forward to defend the first amendment free speech rights of the Klan, believes that the demonstration was not a complete success without the hoods and amplification.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"The vision of what the first amendment would have been all about was if the Klan would have been able to be here today with sound, with their masks, because there's a right to anonymity in America, and the counter-demonstrators would have a right to do what they're doing."
SUPER CAPTION: Norman Siegel, President, American Civil Liberties Union
Except for being a bit rowdy, the counter-protestors did not harm the Klansmen.
But they made it absolutely clear that the KKK was not welcome in New York.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"We're not going to have any physical confrontation with the KKK, it's just a show of force to let them know that we don't except their racial views and ideas in this city."
SUPER CAPTION: Mr. Grady, demonstrator
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"The racial tension in this city is calm right now, and they are trying to arouse it again and we don't need it in New York."
SUPER CAPTION: Michael Davis, demonstrator
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"I feel strongly about the first amendment, but now that they're here, I feel that I want to express my first amendment rights as well. Because I disbelieve in their beliefs."
SUPER CAPTION: Dan Cisek, demonstrator
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"We're bringing people together so they can get along, aren't we?"
SUPER CAPTION: Jeff Berry, Imperial Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan

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