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Featured Article The Chattanooga CWRT is not responsible for the quoted material of this article. |
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Featured Article The Chattanooga CWRT is not responsible for the quoted material of this article. |
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A KKK and other white supremists groups rally took place in the Antietam Battlefield at Sharpsburg, Maryland on June 10, 2006. Although only 30 or so participated, there were about 30 anti-KKK protesters at the rally as well. To keep the peace, approximately 200 law enforcement officers were also present.
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The following article is typical of the news media coverage of the event: "About 30 people, some in white robes and others in the military-style clothing and swastika armbands of the National Socialist Movement of America, stood next to a farmhouse on the battlefield. Some delivered speeches attacking immigrants, blacks and other minority groups. About 200 federal, state and local officers watched to ensure peace and to act as a buffer between the Klan and about 30 counter-demonstrators. "Antietam carries powerful symbolism," said Gordon Young of the Ku Klux Klan. "As the Klan, we are the ghosts of our Confederate brothers and sisters who died here," Young said. The protest was the third by extremist groups at national parks in the past three years. Two years ago, the National Socialist Movement demonstrated at Valley Forge, Pa., and the same group rallied last year at Colonial Park in Williamsburg, Va. "The Supreme Court has ruled consistently that national parks in particular are places of freedom of expression," said park superintendent John Howard." (from abcnews.go.com)
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In response to the KKK claim to Confederate heritage, the Sons of Confederate Veterans
had this to say:
Sons of Confederate Veterans SONS OF CONFEDERATE VETERANS CONDEMNS ANTIETAM KLAN RALLY Columbia, TN - The Sons of Confederate Veterans today, again, strongly condemned the "rally" held on the sacred ground of Antietam (Sharpsburg) by the Ku Klux Klan, and the offensive comments by the KKK claiming a connection with Confederate soldiers. "The modern hate group taking the name of Ku Klux Klan has no claim to Confederate heritage," said Denne Sweeney, Commander-in-Chief of the more than 30,000 member SCV, "and as the actual descendants of Confederate soldiers, and an organization which has been working to bring honor to Confederate veterans for 110 years, the Sons of Confederate Veterans is outraged." The SCV issued condemnations of the rally weeks ago, and though largely ignored by the mainstream media, the members continue to express extreme dismay and sorrow over having sacred grounds violated by this intolerant "rally". In addition, for several years now the National Parks Service has undergone a deliberate program of erasing from battlefields information that gives the Southern perspective of the war, or even simply relates the battlefield actions of Southern forces, and the Sons of Confederate Veterans has protested vigorously this unreasonable censure. "Now you have the National Parks Service on the one hand engaging in viewpoint discrimination against Southerners," said Sweeney, "but on the other hand they are promoting the extremism of the Ku Klux Klan and Nationalist Socialist Movement." Instead of promoting extremism and censuring mainstream Southern historical information, the Sons of Confederate Veterans calls on the NPS to renounce its hypocrisy by informing the Ku Klux Klan that sacred battlefields are not "free speech zones", and to return to its mission of telling the full and balanced story of American sacrifice on our battlefields. The Sons of Confederate Veterans was founded in 1896 to perpetuate and preserve the honor of the Confederate soldier, sailor and marine. Contact:
Ron Casteel
OFFICIAL SCVNEWS POST |