The Southern Poverty Law Center released their 2022 research on tracking hate across America. For a second year, Klan groups are no longer tracked in Kentucky by the SPLC. The last active Klan tracked was the Imperial Klan of America Knights of the KKK in Hopkins County in 2020. It has been active since 1996.
This does not mean the KKK has fled Kentucky or are no longer organizing. On the contrary, counties across the state have reported “flyering” this year (leaving printed flyers at homes or in public places). Flyering is a decades-old recruitment tool used by hate groups to increase their political force in local communities.
The Old Glory Knights
Around Louisville, flyers from the Old Glory Knights of the Ku Klux Klan were seen in baggies with seeds. Social media users also reported flyers in Bullitt, Meade, and Nelson counties.
One flyer warned “race traitors, mixed breeds, communist, homosexuals, and all other walks of Godless degeneracy” that the “Klan is back.” Another flyer had many quotes from the Old Testament to support their political advocacy against the LGBTQ community. They also called multiracial humans “mongrels.”
The Old Glory Knights claim to “stand for truth and a white Christian America.” They have made headlines in the last couple of years as they flyered a church in Mississippi and the Eastern Illinois University campus.
The student press at EIU contacted the organization and was told they were active in 15 states: Tennessee, Ohio, Texas, Mississippi, Maryland, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Kentucky, Alabama, Louisiana, Illinois, Virginia and Georgia.
The Trinity White Knights
Outside of Lexington, flyers from the Trinity White Knights were in Montgomery, Bourbon, and Clark County neighborhoods. One flyer advertised themselves as a “neighborhood watch” to “report crime and drug dealers.” Reporting suspected crime to the KKK was the specific line in the flyer that worried Lexington NAACP President Whit Whitaker.
Citizens are encouraged to contact the police, not the Klan, to resolve crime. This flyer is promoting the vigilantism the Klan is known for. They wish to create the type of neighborhood watch that supports the vigilantism we saw in Alabama when white men in a confederate truck shot down a Black jogger.
A second flyer advocates for conservative parental rights. The Trinity White Knights wants to “bring God back in our schools.” The flyer has a Psalms quote near an image of a praying child. They are recruiting Kentucky parents to take a stand to “end all forms of critical race theory.” They want to remove “filth” from libraries, and have policies that only recognize two genders.
These flyers may be from only a few Kentuckians in the Klan, but there are other organizations, and individuals that advocate for this same agenda. Moms for Liberty, another conservative parental rights organization, also advocates against critical race theory, LGBTQ rights, and trans rights.
These separate flyering events also exposed different responses from the communities, law enforcement, and their local media. The Trinity White Knights near Lexington made national headlines within a couple of days of the incident, and the police had a suspect identified in less than a week. The Old Glory Knights and Proud Boys have been flyering near Louisville since March with little to no reaction in Louisville media until now.
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Written by Stephanie Compton.
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