Speaker 1: Hello, Hi, Hi, How are you? Well? Good? I don't
Speaker 1: know how to answer that anymore. To be honest, I
Speaker 1: asked me a different question. Okay, what's the name of
Speaker 1: the show that we're on? Cool People? Yeah? And then
Speaker 1: who are you? I'm sure? Thanks for asking who are you?
Speaker 1: I was going to ask you to ask who I
Speaker 1: tell me who I am? I'm I'm Margaret, I'm your Sophie.
Speaker 1: Who are you? I am? No crap, I gave you
Speaker 1: the answer in the question, well, well, I am the
Speaker 1: only Sophie matters, so good, good, comically accurate. God, yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you. Ah. Well, okay, I'm Margaret, I'm the host.
Speaker 1: Sharne is our guest, Sophie is our producer. Ian is
Speaker 1: the one who cuts out all the dead space when
Speaker 1: my brain turns off in the middle of conversations and on.
Speaker 1: Woman wrote the theme music for us. And in part
Speaker 1: one we talked about who the kk are, slash were
Speaker 1: or whatever. Today we're going to talk about some of
Speaker 1: the people who sucked them up, because that's the cool
Speaker 1: people who did cool stuff. Promise, whenever there are bad
Speaker 1: people doing bad things, there are cool people trying to
Speaker 1: funk those people up. Sometimes they succeed. Sometimes they fail,
Speaker 1: but you know, I may fail to win, but I
Speaker 1: will not fail to fight. Sometimes the cool people who
Speaker 1: are trying to sunk up the bad people are you
Speaker 1: and I here and now that's my inspirational speech. How
Speaker 1: do I do? It's really beautiful? Thanks? Oh poetry? Okay,
Speaker 1: and then I gotta remember I can't eat a little
Speaker 1: bar while I'm talking. That doesn't work. I know how
Speaker 1: to do my job podcast. I've been hired to accomplish
Speaker 1: a task. What's that? What's that? Ian? We should know? Ian, No,
Speaker 1: we can't do that to Margaret. It was just time
Speaker 1: with the ballar? What is Oh wait, that's the thing
Speaker 1: that happened. I'm just gonna get murdered later. People are
Speaker 1: going to deep deep fake me from do you know
Speaker 1: how many times poor editors have had to your chewing?
Speaker 1: That's my that's my one thing. Do you know times
Speaker 1: poor editors about here chewing? Like? I don't know how
Speaker 1: I'm in this medium because I have that thing where
Speaker 1: I like hate mouth noises like and it's called like
Speaker 1: something whatever it starts with the end. Yeah, I really
Speaker 1: have a thing about mouth noises. And I've listened to
Speaker 1: myself talking back. I don't like my mouth noises. I
Speaker 1: don't like anyone else's mouth noises. I cannot imagine being
Speaker 1: an editor cutting out mouth noises. No, that's that sounds
Speaker 1: like torture. So God bless mean and everyone else that
Speaker 1: does that, because that sounds like absolute torture. ID be
Speaker 1: like being the person with trip to phobia and you
Speaker 1: have to edit out all the eyes out of the
Speaker 1: Biblical angels. Uh huh okay, So I as a joke
Speaker 1: that didn't work. Someone in the audience got it. Maybe,
Speaker 1: So let's start today off with the cool people of
Speaker 1: more or less the entire town of Carnegie, Pennsylvania, which
Speaker 1: in three drove off a clan invasion with bricks and
Speaker 1: bats and guns. Tell me more. Sorry, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: Well I will vent, Sharine. I wasn't going to, but
Speaker 1: now I'm going to. We're gonna talk about the resistance
Speaker 1: of the second KKK mostly um and the third one
Speaker 1: because in my head I have this whole huge arc
Speaker 1: I want to do at some point about reconstruction and
Speaker 1: the wake of the Civil War, but I don't have
Speaker 1: figured how to handle it yet, so I don't want to. Like,
Speaker 1: and I was like, I'm like I'm gonna tell these
Speaker 1: stories because I haven't got it together yet to tell
Speaker 1: the story about the people who fought the first Clan.
Speaker 1: There's this town sort of called Carnegie, Pennsylvania. It's technically
Speaker 1: a borough, not a town. It's sort of part of Pittsburgh.
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's weird. The name of the person
Speaker 1: who runs it isn't a mayor. It's a Burgess. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm not sure. Three yes. In the
Speaker 1: nine twenties it was a steel town and it was
Speaker 1: full of black folks who had fled Jim Crow South
Speaker 1: Catholic immigrants from Ireland and Italy and Eastern Europe. But
Speaker 1: half the town was Catholic, which I then presume means
Speaker 1: like more than half the town is the sort of
Speaker 1: folks that the clan would be targeting for violence. The
Speaker 1: KKK didn't like them. They didn't like I have a question.
Speaker 1: If it's about Burgesses, I can't answer. I don't know.
Speaker 1: How does someone who hates Catholics and Walton to die.
Speaker 1: How can you tell someone's Catholic? Probably Irish accents or
Speaker 1: Italian accents back then. Okay, so that's like because that's
Speaker 1: like an interest, like unless you're having a conversation with
Speaker 1: someone like being I mean not saying it's easy, but
Speaker 1: it is easier to direct your hate at someone that
Speaker 1: looks different than you, because that look different than you
Speaker 1: and you can you can spot them and single them out.
Speaker 1: But it's just interesting that Catholicism was so hated because like,
Speaker 1: how can you tell I know, and I mean you know,
Speaker 1: you could be like, okay, well they're hanging out at
Speaker 1: a Catholic church or I mean it's funny cause too
Speaker 1: because you're like, oh, they're Irish and like, well, I
Speaker 1: mean you know, Ireland is not solely Catholic, right, but
Speaker 1: the people who were poor and had to flee um
Speaker 1: the ravages of colonialism were more likely to be Catholic,
Speaker 1: but again still not universally. But maybe they don't think
Speaker 1: that much and maybe yeah yeah, and so you know, Okay,
Speaker 1: the clan they don't like Catholics, they don't like immigrants,
Speaker 1: and they really really don't like black people not coming
Speaker 1: to i'd say, not coming to their neighborhood. But it's
Speaker 1: not the clans neighborhood. Yeah, yeah, it's like their country
Speaker 1: that in their mind, you know, that we stole this
Speaker 1: fair and square. And most of the people that we're
Speaker 1: talking about, most of the clans people were talking about,
Speaker 1: came as from as far away as Texas. Most came
Speaker 1: from Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, and Kentucky. At the at
Speaker 1: the clan's peak, there were thirty three branches of the
Speaker 1: KKK in Allegheny County, where all this takes place. Um,
Speaker 1: but they didn't call their branches branches. They called them claverns. No,
Speaker 1: they didn't. They did with a K oh wait wait really, yes,
Speaker 1: it's like the Kardashians just needing to put o K
Speaker 1: in front of every fucking thing. No, thank you, Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: they put it and they just made up nonsense words
Speaker 1: for everything everything. You would take a regular word and
Speaker 1: you would come up with a new word that has
Speaker 1: a U in it. I think, and I don't. I
Speaker 1: didn't put this in the script. I think that they
Speaker 1: called their like list of rules the chlorin huh, something
Speaker 1: like the k fascination originated because it's like, what is coup?
Speaker 1: Is that like like a Greek who close? Is the group? Okay?
Speaker 1: Or circle or something? Yeah, I don't know. There's just
Speaker 1: something to the Kardashian connection that I will think about it.
Speaker 1: But okay, yeah, okay, don't know about pop culture. Is
Speaker 1: the is the KKK Handbook? The is it? It's yeah,
Speaker 1: because they're fucking I want to say they're fucking clowns,
Speaker 1: but actually clowns way cooler than the clan um. Actually, yeah,
Speaker 1: Sophie with the jokes. Yea. Anyway, August, really close to
Speaker 1: a hundred years ago, the clan holds a rally out
Speaker 1: thousand strong on a farm outside overlooking Carnegie. It's basically
Speaker 1: like they're planning an invasion of Carnegie and they initiate
Speaker 1: a thousand new violent bigots. Uh. They big big. They
Speaker 1: burn a big old cross fifty fet tall. This is
Speaker 1: like the thing that they like all of their big rallies.
Speaker 1: They're like big. I mean they're big, like festivals of hatred,
Speaker 1: and they're like competing to see you can, like which
Speaker 1: one can have the biggest cross to set on fire.
Speaker 1: Apparently a lot of times they would like fail at
Speaker 1: the engineering and the crosses would fall over. I'm not
Speaker 1: currently aware of any time that they fell over on
Speaker 1: fire on top of klansmen, but if anyone is aware,
Speaker 1: please let me know because it must have happened at
Speaker 1: some point. Yeah, that would rule which probability was. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: they spent days preparing the site. The Grand Wizard of
Speaker 1: the KKK, which is their main leader, was there. He'd
Speaker 1: replaced his predecessor, the one who dipped out when going
Speaker 1: got tough. They had fireworks that made a big red
Speaker 1: ks in the sky. No, like, it's like cartoon villain. Like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's just it's like a postcard villain,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, picnics and families and all that ship
Speaker 1: these huge social events, these hate rallies. People from the
Speaker 1: town aren't really excited about this for some odd reason.
Speaker 1: At one point, anti clan folks took six pot shots
Speaker 1: at their sentries and no one was hit but the sniper.
Speaker 1: The snipers were never found. One account claims that they
Speaker 1: were warning shots. Um, but I think no one actually
Speaker 1: knows whether they like tried to hit anyone had missed,
Speaker 1: or whether they were just like, we're going to go
Speaker 1: shoot some guns near the clan rally. Because those people
Speaker 1: right after the cross burning, the clans wanted to cap
Speaker 1: off the night by marching through the nearby town or
Speaker 1: borough of Carnegie, Pennsylvania. They preferred to march at night
Speaker 1: because of that whole night rates thing. I think also
Speaker 1: they thought it made them look scarier and that their
Speaker 1: weapons were easier to conceal because it's dark. And when
Speaker 1: I say marching through the nearby town, it was absolutely
Speaker 1: clear that they're out for blood. It's hard to know
Speaker 1: exactly whether they were like, let's go rough up a
Speaker 1: few people, or whether they were like trying to just
Speaker 1: really run riot on the whole place, because again trying
Speaker 1: not to focus on atrocities here, but they've been doing
Speaker 1: stuff like that, and anti black folks in particular have
Speaker 1: been doing stuff like that in the recent past. At
Speaker 1: this point they had a problem. The Burgess of Carnegie
Speaker 1: was an Irish Catholic guy, John F. Conley, and he
Speaker 1: didn't like the clan in part because the clan kept,
Speaker 1: you know, harassing and murdering people. And so when the
Speaker 1: clan had asked if they could march, she was like, no,
Speaker 1: you can't parade through town. You're the KKK and the
Speaker 1: grand Wizard he like, he plays this up very carefully, right,
Speaker 1: he goes back and I'm not this is not direct quotes.
Speaker 1: He's like, hey, buds, the town they say no, But
Speaker 1: what do you say, and the people are like, let's
Speaker 1: do it anyway. They didn't help that the chief of
Speaker 1: police of Carnegie was in the clan. Oh I mean surprised, no, disappointed? Yeah, yeah, totally.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that's complicated about actually is
Speaker 1: one of the reasons that this story is particularly interesting
Speaker 1: to me. Complicatedly looking for fights. As part of the
Speaker 1: clan's recruitment strategy, um, they would intentionally hold parades in
Speaker 1: Catholic areas, hoping to spur backlash so that they could
Speaker 1: kind of like riot and look cool and tough and
Speaker 1: like have beat up some people, you know, and kind
Speaker 1: of like vaguely make it look like self defense or whatever.
Speaker 1: Free speech. But it's this works when the KKK wins
Speaker 1: when they quote their recruitment works really well when they
Speaker 1: quote run kneed when streets run knee deep in Catholic blood. Oh.
Speaker 1: They prefer their fights when they have numbers like forty
Speaker 1: to one, basically, and I think this is remarkably consistent
Speaker 1: across fascist ideologies. I think fascism is an ideology of cowardice.
Speaker 1: I think it is about masking fear with a tough
Speaker 1: guy attitude over people that you can wildly overpower. Well,
Speaker 1: so they have a market. It's a good way to
Speaker 1: put that for like my my little brain if appreciates
Speaker 1: that breakdown, because it's very true. Thanks a lot of
Speaker 1: time thinking about it, and a a lot of conversations like
Speaker 1: back in the day with UM some European anti fascists
Speaker 1: like in UM, like like us talking to someone in
Speaker 1: Bulgaria once while I was there and and they were
Speaker 1: talking about how it's like, look, when when we win
Speaker 1: against the fascists, their numbers go down because they don't
Speaker 1: like being on the losing side as compared to the
Speaker 1: anti fascist side. When we our numbers go down only
Speaker 1: if they kill us. Unfortunately. There it's like this, it's
Speaker 1: ultimately all about insecurity, which is like kind of sad. Yeah,
Speaker 1: totally pathetic, sad, not sad like boo who you know
Speaker 1: what I mean? Totally Yeah. Sot Klansmen out of start
Speaker 1: marching towards the town. At the front of their parade
Speaker 1: is a car with a five foot tall lit up
Speaker 1: electric KKK light and wow, that must have taken a
Speaker 1: lot of work. Uh huh. Wow. They have a marching band,
Speaker 1: they have torches Allah Charlottesville, and they tried to march
Speaker 1: into town over a train bridge, but the people of
Speaker 1: Carnegie had blocked it with some trucks, so they marched
Speaker 1: to another bridge, and this one leads right into the
Speaker 1: Irish part of town. And when they get there, a
Speaker 1: car is sideways across the road and there's a huge
Speaker 1: crowd of Carnegieans who are there to politely say Nope,
Speaker 1: you can't come the fucking Klansmen. By politely, I mean
Speaker 1: they threw it at them. The klansmen successfully moved the car,
Speaker 1: but the crowd drives them back throwing at them. And
Speaker 1: one of the things that's frustrating for me, all the
Speaker 1: history that I would find focuses on the clan and
Speaker 1: like who was there for the clan and not the
Speaker 1: people who fought them off, partly because the people who
Speaker 1: fought them off didn't really write any histories about it
Speaker 1: as far as anyone can tell. There's some people who
Speaker 1: have done some researchers are really good. I'm gonna quote
Speaker 1: it a couple of times. There's a a graphic novel
Speaker 1: by Bill campbell Um, a black science fiction author, called
Speaker 1: The Day the Clan Came to Town, who did a
Speaker 1: lot of research and grew up in Carnegie. But as
Speaker 1: far as I can tell, this was a consciously diverse
Speaker 1: group that had come together against across racial and cultural
Speaker 1: divides to team up for community defense. I believe that
Speaker 1: there were black fighters, Italian fighters, Jewish fighters, Irish fighters,
Speaker 1: and Armenian fighters in the crowd. But I I don't
Speaker 1: know a ton about it, you know, Yeah, well, I
Speaker 1: mean bring you bring up a good point about who
Speaker 1: history is written by usually, you know, and like what
Speaker 1: gets focused on and how many other details about so
Speaker 1: many things that we don't know. Yeah, And it's and
Speaker 1: it's even like histories written by the victors or whatever
Speaker 1: and the clan like lose not only about the victors,
Speaker 1: it's about like the biases, I think more so, it's
Speaker 1: not about Yeah, it's just like what just it's like
Speaker 1: a just by chance, what one person thinks is important
Speaker 1: in that moment to document versus something else. And if
Speaker 1: they're white or straight or whatever it is, and they're
Speaker 1: writing about certain histories, they're going to focus on certain
Speaker 1: things that only they think is important. So it's like
Speaker 1: there's no such thing as unbiased anything when it comes
Speaker 1: to history. Totally. Yeah, No, that's such a because it's
Speaker 1: like I want to find moments of black resistance, and
Speaker 1: I want to find moments of multiracial resistance, and I
Speaker 1: want to find the people who are doing these things.
Speaker 1: But a lot of the people writing about it are
Speaker 1: focused on the clan as an evil entity or a
Speaker 1: good entity. But most people run about his evil entity
Speaker 1: at this point, I think, And so they want to
Speaker 1: focus on the individuals within the clan. Yeah, so they're
Speaker 1: at this bridge, A diverse crowd of people that organized
Speaker 1: for their own defense of their own borrow came together
Speaker 1: start driving them back. The clan's banned at this point,
Speaker 1: is like, you know what funk this? And they had
Speaker 1: the marching band. About the marching band, just the people
Speaker 1: there were like trumpets and the ship. Yeah, they run
Speaker 1: a trumpet to a gunfight. Um, well, at this point,
Speaker 1: it's a brick fight, I think. Oh, and cops show
Speaker 1: up and not all of them are klansmen. About half
Speaker 1: of them, I think are. I'm not entirely cos that's
Speaker 1: that's lower than you know, it's more than I thought. Half. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I don't remember where I got that. I remember
Speaker 1: that not all of them were klansmen, but that the
Speaker 1: chief of police is. But I don't remember what were yeah,
Speaker 1: and they're like, hey, buds, this isn't a good idea
Speaker 1: to the clan, and the clan ignores them. Eventually, three
Speaker 1: hundred clansmen out of the people who are on the march,
Speaker 1: three hundred burst through the crowd and charge into the town.
Speaker 1: And they're like singing onward Christian Soldiers as they do it,
Speaker 1: because they're off on a fucking holy war, right a crusade?
Speaker 1: Yea for them? Yeah, totally. And so this is three
Speaker 1: hundred out of twenty thousand who are brave enough to
Speaker 1: actually go throw down. Um. When you put it that way,
Speaker 1: it's very I don't know a music I know, and
Speaker 1: I think that that's what we need to like remember, yeah,
Speaker 1: fighting breaks out for real. There's clubs and maces and
Speaker 1: knives and scattered gunfire because you don't march into a
Speaker 1: town that doesn't want you there, that has prepared for
Speaker 1: you and have it go easy. Women on rooftops are
Speaker 1: throwing bricks and coal at the klansmen like whatever they
Speaker 1: can find. This an asshole guy Thomas rankin Abbot, He's
Speaker 1: from a rural town about twenty miles further down the road.
Speaker 1: He gets himself shot in the head, and he does
Speaker 1: himself a dying and the clansmen break and run. He
Speaker 1: does himself way to see that one again. He does
Speaker 1: himself a dying. He becomes a dead person instead of
Speaker 1: like that, and all of his buddies, the Klansmen, they
Speaker 1: break and run as soon as he's and they're like,
Speaker 1: they're yeah, I know, they're like, they're shooting guns and
Speaker 1: ship at people. They shoot a bunch of people, but
Speaker 1: no one else dies in this particular encounter. But as
Speaker 1: soon as one of theirs gets shot in the head,
Speaker 1: they're all like, oh fuck, and they run the funk away.
Speaker 1: They break and run. They ditched their guns in the
Speaker 1: street for fear of being arrested with them. Hundreds hundreds
Speaker 1: of Revolvers are recovered from the streets um and there's
Speaker 1: no like specific evidence that the recovered revolvers were the
Speaker 1: Clans revolvers. But my theory that they were the Clans
Speaker 1: revolvers is based on the fact that if you're in
Speaker 1: your own town, you don't have to ditch your gun
Speaker 1: in the street. Yeah, you can take it home, or
Speaker 1: you can ditch it somewhere you can get it later,
Speaker 1: because you probably know, you g it's so funny that
Speaker 1: they were so crusade, like had their guns and everything,
Speaker 1: and like the police like they are telling what to do,
Speaker 1: and they dropped them because they don't want to get arrested.
Speaker 1: Let's just yeah, yeah, totally totally of your power. Totally
Speaker 1: and then also like run into as soon as the
Speaker 1: gunfight is two sided, they're like, oh ship, they have guns,
Speaker 1: like we can die. Yeah, hundreds of them had guns.
Speaker 1: A local undertaker who sounds like a gem of a
Speaker 1: person I'm not being sarcastic, was arrested for the quote
Speaker 1: unquote murder of the Klansman. I'm putting that in air
Speaker 1: quotes because I don't think it was murder. And this guy,
Speaker 1: the guy who was arrested was a sixty five year
Speaker 1: old undertaker named Patty McDermott. His name is Patty, so
Speaker 1: he's probably Irish Catholic Patty. But there was too much
Speaker 1: chaos that night and too many can flicting witness statements,
Speaker 1: so Patty was set free after a while because they
Speaker 1: couldn't really pin it on him. However, after this whole thing,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get to a little bit where this becomes
Speaker 1: this big like the dead dude becomes a murder and
Speaker 1: ship Patty gets arrested again on the same charge, and
Speaker 1: it goes to trial and he's found not guilty at
Speaker 1: a jury trial. No idea whether the sixty five year
Speaker 1: old undertaker shot the klansman, I would support him a
Speaker 1: percent either way. Yeah, yeah, justice for Patty, yeah. And
Speaker 1: so the KKK turns the death of their guy into propaganda,
Speaker 1: and a lot of the history is like, and this
Speaker 1: spiked their numbers, um, because they're like, oh, that damn
Speaker 1: irishman shot from the alley behind a Catholic church, which
Speaker 1: is true. The dude got shot right in front of
Speaker 1: a Catholic church, um, And they're like, if we'd wanted,
Speaker 1: we could have taken that town, but we're too law abiding.
Speaker 1: But like, no, they got fucking beat, they got their
Speaker 1: asses kicked, and they ran away. Yeah. It's like the
Speaker 1: point you made about it boils down to it's just
Speaker 1: like they don't wanna they they're in it as long
Speaker 1: as they're like the big guy that the winners, you know,
Speaker 1: and as soon as it starts to like turn on them,
Speaker 1: they're like, actually, I'm gonna flip. I'm just gonna run
Speaker 1: totally not necessarily flip more yeah more just runs yeah.
Speaker 1: And the clan used this opportunity to griff their members
Speaker 1: because of course they did. They nothing, ever, changes. They
Speaker 1: raised sixteen thousands and donations for the families of the
Speaker 1: family of their martyr, which is about two hundred thousand
Speaker 1: dollars today, of which five thousands, so less than a
Speaker 1: third actually made it to the family of course. Yeah. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: at a nearby Catholic town called Everson, the KKK drove
Speaker 1: through and some local kids jumped them, stole all their ship,
Speaker 1: and then they had like a mock ceremony to make
Speaker 1: fun of it all because they had all like the
Speaker 1: KKK stuff, and they're like, oh, where the KKK. Love
Speaker 1: that for them, but love that for us, love it,
Speaker 1: And so the k K they're like, all right, we're
Speaker 1: gonna We're taking western Pennsylvania. We're gonna take this place,
Speaker 1: you know, And so they call for an even bigger
Speaker 1: and more important rally. Shortly after all of this, they
Speaker 1: sent three thousand plain clothes armed clansmen to a town
Speaker 1: of the town of Scottsdale, Pennsylvania. They had fucking machine
Speaker 1: guns and trucks only ten thousand clansmen showed up to
Speaker 1: the rally forty tho non clan spectators, which is to say,
Speaker 1: probably forty anti clan people, but it might have been
Speaker 1: forty neutral people. But I don't know. I can't really
Speaker 1: imagine showing up neutral in this particular context. The history
Speaker 1: I read was like spectator and I'm like, what does
Speaker 1: that mean? And the local Exalted Cyclops, which was the
Speaker 1: local leader. That's can't I can't believe that's real. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I can't believe it's real Exalted Cyclops. Yeah, they Exalted Cyclops.
Speaker 1: Why is why is one eye good for you? I
Speaker 1: don't understand whatever, because they're sucking the worst kind of
Speaker 1: D and D nerds that have ever existed. But we
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Speaker 1: and uh I actually they sent me some free jaywalking
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Speaker 1: or be yeah, totally for any fines you might incur.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I don't know if it's still exists.
Speaker 1: But one time I was in Sweden and they had this, uh,
Speaker 1: this turnstyle hopper union because they believe that the turns
Speaker 1: the public transit should be free. So there's a union
Speaker 1: of people who hoped the turnstiles that pays your fines
Speaker 1: if you get caught hopping. To love that. Yeah, well
Speaker 1: looks like true community organizing, I know. And I don't
Speaker 1: know anything about how it went down or anything, because
Speaker 1: I was just a traveler who went through and learned
Speaker 1: about it and then didn't follow up. Again, here's some
Speaker 1: advertisers and we are back and we are talking about
Speaker 1: how the clan is trying to take Scott's Dale. The
Speaker 1: local cyclops with his one good eye, he chickens out
Speaker 1: at the last minutes, of course he does. And only
Speaker 1: about twere of the ten thousand clansmen go on the
Speaker 1: march into town, and they don't wear their hoods or
Speaker 1: robes or anything because they're too afraid. Uh. They were
Speaker 1: three hours late, they were wildly outnumbered, and they turned
Speaker 1: around and left dejected, whereupon a few random anti clans
Speaker 1: people took some shots at them. I don't think anyone
Speaker 1: was hit. I think it was just like you get
Speaker 1: the funk out of here. I mean, it's just a
Speaker 1: good reminder that like usually hate is fueled by like
Speaker 1: a really insecure desire to like power or to remain
Speaker 1: in power. And it's all about like it's not like
Speaker 1: a real drive, like a human drive like that, that
Speaker 1: makes sense. And and then it's like the other side,
Speaker 1: it's like you're fighting to survive and you're fighting to
Speaker 1: like to protect the people you love. And I think
Speaker 1: that drive maintains so much more than like a very
Speaker 1: flimsy power grab or like cowardly attempt at staying on top.
Speaker 1: And I feel like that is where the difference happens.
Speaker 1: And I'm not sure if I'm articulating myself when I'm
Speaker 1: what I'm trying to say, but I feel like, no, no,
Speaker 1: that that makes sense. Yeah, because yeah, the people who
Speaker 1: are defending who are actually defending themselves in their ways
Speaker 1: of life, versus people who are defending their privileged position
Speaker 1: that they then think means that they're defending their way
Speaker 1: of life, the way of life of being the slave owner,
Speaker 1: often in a literal sense. You know, Yeah, there's no
Speaker 1: deeper connection to humanity. There there's just like it's literally
Speaker 1: just about your personal gain and power, and I don't know,
Speaker 1: there's there's no way you can be like it's it's
Speaker 1: my right to like as a human to own people.
Speaker 1: Like No, actually the only thing that's true is like
Speaker 1: you can have a right to live and like protect
Speaker 1: yourself and like those basic core things are what maintained
Speaker 1: versus like really shitty stupid human stuff. It's just like
Speaker 1: service level. Yeah, but I'll think about that more and
Speaker 1: make it more another another time. Now you're onto something.
Speaker 1: I want to end this part of the story, the
Speaker 1: Carnegie part of the story in western Pennsylvania part of
Speaker 1: the story, with some reflections from the author I was
Speaker 1: talking about earlier, Bill Campbell, the black science fiction author
Speaker 1: who grew up in Carnegie, who wrote a graphic novel
Speaker 1: I which I highly reck amend to people. The The
Speaker 1: graphic novel is called The Day the Clan Came to Town,
Speaker 1: and this is from his afterward. The immigrants in this
Speaker 1: story are indeed the victors. They beat the clan that
Speaker 1: day and one in their ultimate goal of kicking the
Speaker 1: Clan out of Pennsylvania century ago. But they want an
Speaker 1: even larger victory. They ultimately became quote white, and as
Speaker 1: a result, became the beneficiaries of all that whiteness has
Speaker 1: to offer in this country. Once you're admitted into any club,
Speaker 1: you want to act as though you've always been a member.
Speaker 1: There's no surprise that this story has gone largely untold.
Speaker 1: A good friend of Mine Comics creator Jiba Mulay Anderson
Speaker 1: often says that whiteness is a racer. Countless European folk,
Speaker 1: wast traditions and attitudes have actually eventually been washed away
Speaker 1: upon coming to these shores in order for folks to
Speaker 1: be considered quote white. This exchange has been rewarded with
Speaker 1: material gain. Obviously, this affords many a convenient amnesia and
Speaker 1: a convenient narrative of how America has always greeted immigrants
Speaker 1: with open arms and this latest wave is somehow different,
Speaker 1: how they worked hard to get what they have, and
Speaker 1: that all other people have to do is work hard
Speaker 1: and so on, when really all that happened is they
Speaker 1: were granted whiteness and different forms of discrimination were removed
Speaker 1: from their paths. That's very well put and something I
Speaker 1: will think about longer. I have to chew on that yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'd be curious your take on it if
Speaker 1: you come up with thoughts on it later. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just a really good point about I just never
Speaker 1: I mean also, I just never thought of it that way.
Speaker 1: I think it's like, uh, the idea that like, once
Speaker 1: you're given that, once you're granted access into the club
Speaker 1: and you realize how much easier your life can be,
Speaker 1: you don't want to leave it. And at the same time,
Speaker 1: you don't want to deny yourself or like any like,
Speaker 1: you don't want to make it seem like you always
Speaker 1: were there because you know that what the other side
Speaker 1: is like and the I don't know's there's there's a
Speaker 1: lot of layers there, and I feel like the the
Speaker 1: removal of one discrimination from your life that bit like
Speaker 1: I don't know if my brain is starting to break, Margaret,
Speaker 1: and I wish I could pose correctly. But I really
Speaker 1: liked that take on the idea of immigrants that maybe
Speaker 1: we'ld never considered themselves this like overarching label of white
Speaker 1: suddenly come here and realize the privilege that comes with
Speaker 1: being white and how easy, how much easy? I mean like, also,
Speaker 1: if you have a family and your life could be
Speaker 1: easier X Y Z way like why why would you
Speaker 1: choose to suffer? You know, and so there's there's a
Speaker 1: lot of arguments there, and uh, you know I have
Speaker 1: to do is give up your language and your and
Speaker 1: besides like St. Patrick's Day or God for Big Columbus
Speaker 1: Day or these liked little tiny things you know. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah I will. I will try to be smarter next
Speaker 1: time T talk about no no, no, you're you're you're
Speaker 1: doing great, thanks Margaret, all right, cost and validation than you. Well,
Speaker 1: it's easy to offer you constant validation keep all of
Speaker 1: this sweet stuff is Yeah. So another group that fought
Speaker 1: the second incarnation of the Clan, the people of Carnegie,
Speaker 1: are mysterious in that it's it seems like their history
Speaker 1: was barely written. This next group, they're mysterious in that
Speaker 1: they're they're fucking mysterious, like to the degree where I
Speaker 1: found a bunch of references to them existing, but I
Speaker 1: like only kind of believe that they existed. This happens
Speaker 1: to me a lot on the show. There's like all
Speaker 1: of these stories and history that are like so like amazing,
Speaker 1: and I'm like but really, well, because you can't trust history,
Speaker 1: we just we talked about that, like real, you can't
Speaker 1: just read something and be like fat because that's usually
Speaker 1: not unless you're like reading a math equation or something
Speaker 1: right totally, And so the next part feels a little
Speaker 1: bit like a comic book, but frankly so does the clan.
Speaker 1: And this group set themselves up to be the mirror
Speaker 1: image of the clan. They are the Knights of the
Speaker 1: Flaming Circle. No, have you ever heard of the Knights
Speaker 1: of the Flaming Circle? Okay, so in the early nineties,
Speaker 1: this group rises up to counter the KKK, the Knights
Speaker 1: of the Flaming Circle or the Red Knights or the
Speaker 1: Knights of the Burning Ring. They have a lot of names.
Speaker 1: And since the KKK would take any white Protestant man,
Speaker 1: the Knights of the Flaming Circle will take anyone who
Speaker 1: isn't a white Protestant man. Wait, that is the best
Speaker 1: criteria of club admittes. So like that's like the criteria
Speaker 1: to be on my podcast, Like the only criteria to
Speaker 1: be a white podcast that you can't be a white guy. Yeah, like,
Speaker 1: as long as are specifically not what the Protestant with
Speaker 1: the with the KKK let's in and you know, and
Speaker 1: I like, I know that there were plenty of Protestant
Speaker 1: manuated the Klan, but whatever, this isn't their group. We
Speaker 1: don't know a ton about them. But they were active
Speaker 1: throughout the mid Atlantic, in the Midwest and beyond, I
Speaker 1: believe less so in the South. They this is sketchy.
Speaker 1: They dressed in white robes and they burned giant circles
Speaker 1: instead of crosses. They would show up wherever the KKK
Speaker 1: was burning crosses and then burned circles, which is goofy
Speaker 1: as fuck, like this weird game of tic tac toe. Yeah,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I just thought of it that way. Wait,
Speaker 1: what why would why did you decide to dress like them?
Speaker 1: I think, Oh, I think they're being like yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was so funny though, to just show up like
Speaker 1: you got cross, I got a circle? What now I
Speaker 1: can't win this tic tac toe game? We're going to it?
Speaker 1: I mean like it also covered yourself in a white sheet,
Speaker 1: like no one knows who you are underneath that. Well,
Speaker 1: they actually they wore white robes, but they did not
Speaker 1: wear hoods, and they did not wear point hats or
Speaker 1: anything like that. No masks and no hats, And I
Speaker 1: think that was to make it clear that they weren't.
Speaker 1: They could probably take that joke only so far. You know,
Speaker 1: what I have not been able to find is whether
Speaker 1: or not Johnny Cash was referencing potential affiliation with the
Speaker 1: Knights the Burning Ring when he said I fell into
Speaker 1: a burning ring of fire unsure to be determined. And
Speaker 1: their anonymous communicate from they said that they were a
Speaker 1: quote movement that will wring the earth with blazing justice
Speaker 1: to all weird, enemy of all clans with a C
Speaker 1: and clans with a K. We believe in liberty for
Speaker 1: every human being, black, white, or yellow, regardless of race, religion,
Speaker 1: or creed. I love that they brought up the k
Speaker 1: C thing totally. I'm so over that, Like I like,
Speaker 1: thank you for distinguishing that, and also just like that's
Speaker 1: just metal as fuck, Like I don't know, it's so cool.
Speaker 1: They probably got their start about a month after some
Speaker 1: people in um the town of Stupentsville, Ohio, like fucked
Speaker 1: up a clan march. They overturned clans cars, they tore
Speaker 1: up clan flags, they beat klansmen with bricks and clubs
Speaker 1: and ship like. This thing that happened in Carnegie is
Speaker 1: an example not a like, not like the thing that
Speaker 1: turned the tide. It kind of turned the tiding western Pennsylvania,
Speaker 1: but like this ship was happening, you know, like klansmen
Speaker 1: would sometimes fun people up, but sometimes klansmen would get
Speaker 1: sucked up. So a month after this clan rally gets
Speaker 1: sucked up, the these Nights of the Flaming Circle announced themselves. Later,
Speaker 1: a dentist claimed to be the founder of the organization,
Speaker 1: which is noteworthy in that the head of the clan
Speaker 1: was a dentist. To whoa, wait, that deserves examining, right,
Speaker 1: because teeth are white. Maybe there's something there. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Sorry that was a stretcher, but that is a very
Speaker 1: interesting coincidence. My current theory is either raw coincidence or
Speaker 1: they probably didn't really have a founder or a leader,
Speaker 1: like in a really strict sense everything about them. I
Speaker 1: don't think they were like anarchists, but they were very
Speaker 1: anarchistic in a lot of ways. I suspect that the
Speaker 1: dentist was like, oh, I'll be the I'll be in
Speaker 1: charge because we're the mirror of the clan and I'm
Speaker 1: a like I would believe that. I would believe that
Speaker 1: take because like they're they're already trolling so hard, like
Speaker 1: why not just have the cherry on top and be like,
Speaker 1: who's the dentist here? Yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, you're in charge.
Speaker 1: And so they wore no masks or hoods. Their logo
Speaker 1: as a red circle with a statue of liberty in
Speaker 1: the middle. They had no central organization. They had chapters
Speaker 1: because they're not a grift. They had chapters in Vermont, Pennsylvania,
Speaker 1: West Virginia, Ohio, Illinois, Iowa, and New Mexico. They had
Speaker 1: organizers in every city in Ohio because that seemed to
Speaker 1: be where they were based out of. And the KKK
Speaker 1: accused them of being anarchists, but that's I found no
Speaker 1: evidence besides the fact that the clan accused them of it.
Speaker 1: And also there's someone it's I believe it is an
Speaker 1: actually ideologically diverse movement. They were a lot like today's
Speaker 1: anti fascists, to quote a right up on the site
Speaker 1: the New Eclipse. They used tactics like putting pressure on
Speaker 1: meeting halls to refuse to allow the clan to meet there,
Speaker 1: publishing lists of clan members, destroying the anonymity of the organization,
Speaker 1: organizing counter demonstrations to show mass opposition to the clan
Speaker 1: and what it stood for, physically interrupting their parades and rallies,
Speaker 1: assaulting clan members and damaging their property. Beautiful. Yeah, just
Speaker 1: all the tried and true ship. Yeah, I wonder do
Speaker 1: we know not that it matters, but like do we
Speaker 1: know that the leaders are like the not the leaders,
Speaker 1: but like the people that initiated it, Like are they white?
Speaker 1: Are they? Like? Yeah, I either way, it's sick, but
Speaker 1: like it would be interesting to know how they came
Speaker 1: together that way, I know, And like in all of
Speaker 1: these random times when they're like, oh, an anti clan
Speaker 1: people sucked up a clan rally, I'm like I kind
Speaker 1: of want to know because it's written out of history
Speaker 1: whether it was like a primarily black thing, whether it
Speaker 1: was a like primarily Irish thing, or whether it was
Speaker 1: a combo yeah, and like yeah, and and people don't
Speaker 1: talk about it because people don't like talking about race
Speaker 1: in this stupid country, and so I I frankly don't know.
Speaker 1: But also just like you bring up a good point
Speaker 1: about how we always hear about the clan fucking people up,
Speaker 1: and that's like the thing we learned about in history
Speaker 1: that they did these like atrocities or like they were
Speaker 1: at this group that was hateful, But wouldn't it have
Speaker 1: been nice to learn about the other way, like how
Speaker 1: people like fucked them up and fought back, because we
Speaker 1: never learned about at least I didn't. So it's like
Speaker 1: I think maybe that also just like a deeper thing
Speaker 1: about how humans focus on bad ship and like how
Speaker 1: that's the only thing that gets remembered in history or whatever.
Speaker 1: But that part of history is a really good reminder
Speaker 1: of like the other side of humanity because like just
Speaker 1: thinking about the clan the same way I thought like
Speaker 1: everyone was racist or whatever, like what it's just like
Speaker 1: the same kind of thing where you forget that you
Speaker 1: can't have one without the other, and that the other
Speaker 1: is like fighting twice as hard at the same time.
Speaker 1: It was a good reminder of that. Yeah, and it
Speaker 1: it it's just this ebb and flow, you know, and
Speaker 1: like and even though we have not defeated the concepts
Speaker 1: that the clan brings to bear right, we probably never
Speaker 1: truly will, but we should always be trying to. We
Speaker 1: have as a society defeated the clan multiple times and
Speaker 1: destroyed multiple clan organizations, you know, within five years from
Speaker 1: five million members to thirty thousand members, by shaming them,
Speaker 1: by exposing them, by beating the ship out of them,
Speaker 1: by legislating against them, by by doing everything that we
Speaker 1: can right and like and that is not you know,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't want to be like ha ha. And then
Speaker 1: there was this little blip called the Ku Klux Klan,
Speaker 1: and we kicked the ship out of them because like, no,
Speaker 1: they fucked things up, right, And then oh yeah, there's
Speaker 1: definitely like the reality of how shitty they are is there.
Speaker 1: But learning about the the people that thought back is
Speaker 1: also I think, just like because I can get really
Speaker 1: cynical and just be like, humanity sucks, We're fucking this
Speaker 1: place up. We don't deserve to be here. But then
Speaker 1: like seeing people that like in face of whatever kind
Speaker 1: of danger or evil, like they're still there like in
Speaker 1: the front being like fuck you, I'm going to dress
Speaker 1: like you have burn a circle right next to your act.
Speaker 1: That was So that's like just so cool. And I
Speaker 1: feel like if kids learned about that, I think that
Speaker 1: would like empower them to like think like that in
Speaker 1: a way, like like empower them to like want to
Speaker 1: fight back against that stuff. I know, it's like a
Speaker 1: different conversation about education and history and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: But I do think it's it's it's it's just sad
Speaker 1: that we don't learn about those people because maybe they
Speaker 1: still a tribute them to like riots and violence and
Speaker 1: fucking things up. But I don't know, it's it's not
Speaker 1: I don't know. I just it's just I think it's
Speaker 1: it would be nice to learn about that as children. Yeah. No,
Speaker 1: absolutely knowing that you can do something as a big
Speaker 1: part of it. Yeah, That's what I'm trying to say,
Speaker 1: even if, like, even if it's dangerous, even if like
Speaker 1: like knowing that you can pick the not safe path
Speaker 1: and that that's okay. Yeah. No, I think about this
Speaker 1: stuff way too much. Um okay. But what I also
Speaker 1: think about is the following um looney tunes thing that
Speaker 1: they did, which was one time the clan was going
Speaker 1: to have a parade with like cars, so they just
Speaker 1: lined the road with roofing tax tires. That is just genius,
Speaker 1: chef's kiss. Whoever thought of that, whoever comment did that? Amazing?
Speaker 1: Yeah in Williamson County, Illinois. Uh, And I've heard this
Speaker 1: story told from a different perspective, but not about I'll
Speaker 1: get to that. The Flaming Circle and Williamson County, Illinois
Speaker 1: was made up of miners immigrants I believe since it's
Speaker 1: separating miners and immigrants, I actually wonder whether that means
Speaker 1: black miners. I don't know, miners, immigrants, bootleggers, right, because
Speaker 1: the bootleggers hate the clan because the Clan is the
Speaker 1: army of prohibition, And even a bunch of cops are
Speaker 1: part of the Flaming Circle because they don't want to
Speaker 1: enforce prohibition because they like drinking. Well, other cops in
Speaker 1: the area were klansmen. Some pro Clan cops shot up
Speaker 1: an ad like that. Wait, wait, I like that you differentiated.
Speaker 1: But some police were against the clan because of alcohol,
Speaker 1: not because of racism. Yeah, I mean, like specifically, the
Speaker 1: thing I read was cops who didn't want to enforce prohibition,
Speaker 1: not cops who are and tracism. No, no, no, that's
Speaker 1: that's a very good point. And so some pro Clan
Speaker 1: cops shot up an anti clan meeting, a Flaming Circle meeting,
Speaker 1: and they injured someone. And so the guy goes to
Speaker 1: the hospital, and while he's in the hospital, an anti
Speaker 1: Clan person went and shot and killed one of the
Speaker 1: klansman cops, a guy named Caesar Cagel. So the clan
Speaker 1: surrounds the hospital and shoots it up. The National Guard
Speaker 1: gets called in, and for the next year and a
Speaker 1: half the whole county is caught up in this like
Speaker 1: crazy violent struggle of clan versus anti clan. And a
Speaker 1: particular note, a Jewish gangster named Charlie Burger was involved.
Speaker 1: He was a bootlegging guy, and him and another bootlegger gang,
Speaker 1: his gang and another bootlegger gang put aside their differences
Speaker 1: to like funk up the clan and then after they
Speaker 1: drove the clan out of town, they went to war
Speaker 1: against each other and it was terrible. But which is
Speaker 1: another I don't know enough about this guy to make
Speaker 1: a moral judgment on him. He is Jewish immigrant who
Speaker 1: was like whatever, I'm going to be a bootlegger and
Speaker 1: did this thing. I don't know. But when you're talking
Speaker 1: about like people can get together and fight the bad things,
Speaker 1: bad people can do it, like like complicated people can
Speaker 1: still fight against bad things. You know, you don't have
Speaker 1: to be a paragon of virtue to be like, you
Speaker 1: know what, I'm going to fight the clan. You know,
Speaker 1: that's like the lowest bar, like like I'm a violent,
Speaker 1: outspoken bigot, is the worst possible thing, and so everyone
Speaker 1: is better than them, you know, I mean even a
Speaker 1: cough that just like he wants to drink, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, that's just like that counts cots. You know,
Speaker 1: it probably sucks like but so in the end, the
Speaker 1: anti clan, the weird affiliation of cops and bootleggers and
Speaker 1: Catholics and trade union miners whatever, they went out and
Speaker 1: they stopped clan organizing in the county by And that's
Speaker 1: all I've been able to find. I haven't been able
Speaker 1: to find any like actual books about the Red Circle.
Speaker 1: Secret societies, especially informal ones are weird like that. But
Speaker 1: good on you Tick tac toe, Antifa and anti and
Speaker 1: there's more, though, there's more that I can tell you about.
Speaker 1: But there's more, there is more, but first can't wait. First,
Speaker 1: you do have to wait, that's the thing, um, because
Speaker 1: there's other things that you could learn about, like jay
Speaker 1: walking as a you know, if someone gets hit by
Speaker 1: a car because I told him to jaywalk, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: feel so guilty. But you'll never know that's true. That's
Speaker 1: I don't know, ignorance is blissed. Yeah, I think for
Speaker 1: yourself and or purchase these goods and services. One of
Speaker 1: those two you pick. We are back. We have a
Speaker 1: couple more stories. Yeah, another group that fought the KKK,
Speaker 1: and this one I want to include for a couple
Speaker 1: of reasons. One is a serious diversity of tactics and
Speaker 1: how people have fought the KKK. Sometimes it's these armed
Speaker 1: and organized groups. Sometimes it's spontaneous community defense and street brawls.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's newspaper expose as Sometimes it's the federal troops
Speaker 1: like in the reconstruction South. Sometimes it's lawsuits. And I'm
Speaker 1: gonna talking about a lawsuit that stopped at dred Strong
Speaker 1: militia of klansmen in the eighties. A bunch a law
Speaker 1: girls got together. That's true. You know what critical support
Speaker 1: for law girls. Yeah, they come through sometimes, you know,
Speaker 1: they really do. You know, I'm just saying I'm not one.
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean that I'm inherently against them. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I'm not saying they can't do some good
Speaker 1: out there, like good. I'm glad. Yeah. So the US
Speaker 1: War in Vietnam, when the US invaded Vietnam and it
Speaker 1: was bad. It brought about a hundred and thirty thousand
Speaker 1: Vietnamese refugees to the US, where they were of course
Speaker 1: met with open arms and respect and care just getting racism.
Speaker 1: They were met with racism a bunch off. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm sure it was different for different people's experiences. I
Speaker 1: can't speak to her well, any of their experiences, because
Speaker 1: that's not my experience. A bunch of refugees settled in
Speaker 1: Sea Drift, Texas on the Gulf in the late seventies
Speaker 1: because there were fishers and it seemed like a good
Speaker 1: place to fish. It was a good place to fish.
Speaker 1: Racist locals got really mad about the competition. They got
Speaker 1: mad that the Vietnamese were getting help from the government
Speaker 1: and to bring back that old weird thing because they
Speaker 1: were getting help from the Catholic Church. This is a
Speaker 1: strange thread. I did not plan for this thread. I
Speaker 1: what is up with in this case? No, you know,
Speaker 1: because by this point I think most of the anti
Speaker 1: Catholics I think is largely subsided. I don't know, um,
Speaker 1: but it all boiled down to like just hating the pope,
Speaker 1: like is that I don't know, Is it that simple.
Speaker 1: I don't. I I don't know. I frankly don't understand.
Speaker 1: I can I can almost understand the ninety I can't really,
Speaker 1: but like I could, I could understand how to express
Speaker 1: the opinions of the nineteen twenties anti Catholic, the nineteen eighties,
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies anti Catholic Protestant. No, I don't understand um,
Speaker 1: and I presume most of it was racism. But I
Speaker 1: did find a couple of references to the fact that
Speaker 1: the fact that they were sponsored by the government and
Speaker 1: the Catholic Church was part of what fueled the racist
Speaker 1: anger and a majority I believe of the Vietnamese refugees
Speaker 1: are a greater percentage of the Vietnamese refugees were Catholic
Speaker 1: than Vietnamese people who stayed in Vietnam, as I understand
Speaker 1: from I was bugging one of my friends about this today,
Speaker 1: and the language barrier, of course didn't help the local
Speaker 1: fishers and the refugee fishers get along. U fishing practices
Speaker 1: were different about like how far apart to space crab
Speaker 1: traps um, but no one But the reason I'm like
Speaker 1: knowledge sucking racism is because no one bothered or was
Speaker 1: able to like talk to the refugees about that and
Speaker 1: in the lateeen seventies. I'm going to quote np ares
Speaker 1: passive voice, horrible way of phrasing this, because I want
Speaker 1: to drag NPR for this fucking statement. Quote. A local
Speaker 1: white crabber was shot and killed in a dispute with
Speaker 1: Vietnamese fisherman over fishing territory. Two Vietnamese men were charged
Speaker 1: with murder and acquitted on the grounds of self defense.
Speaker 1: That's when the Ku Klux Klan showed up and things
Speaker 1: got ugly. I hate this paragraph. I hate it because
Speaker 1: first and foremost the immigrant fishers, they were proven in
Speaker 1: court to have been acting in self defense. So leading
Speaker 1: with a white guy got killed, not a white guy
Speaker 1: fucked around and subsequently found out. It's like you're already
Speaker 1: framing of a story, a narrative that you're pushing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Like even the US legals, the famously
Speaker 1: biased was like, no, that was self defense. And the
Speaker 1: next thing up, like things got ugly when the KKK
Speaker 1: showed up, Like it sounds like things were pretty Yeah,
Speaker 1: it would a cute way to summarize atrocities of the
Speaker 1: I know. And also things were already bad they were.
Speaker 1: These two people had to defend themselves from Bigot. After
Speaker 1: the acquittal of the Vietnamese fishers, a bunch of clansmen
Speaker 1: set fired to Vietnamese houses and boats. Some of the
Speaker 1: Vietnamese refugees fled to Louisiana for safety. I can't even
Speaker 1: fucking imagine fleeing one more and then showing up and
Speaker 1: having to deal with them. The clan wasn't happy. They
Speaker 1: wanted to drive the rest of them off too, so
Speaker 1: they spent two years fucking with people. They would like
Speaker 1: burn crosses and people's yards. They would they were like
Speaker 1: training people for guerrilla warfare and the hills for the
Speaker 1: coming race war. They were driving around a boat with
Speaker 1: like an effigy of a hanged Vietnamese fisher on it.
Speaker 1: They would put armed militiamen on all the white owned boats.
Speaker 1: They were they were just doing some awful ship hellish
Speaker 1: And of course the KKK would in the propaganda would
Speaker 1: be like, and they're all secret communists too, um, which
Speaker 1: is particularly funny since the refugee Vietnamese community was mostly
Speaker 1: anti Communists. That's what the war was about, Like, it
Speaker 1: was the people who flood allied with the US and
Speaker 1: the Vietnamese War. Um, but never underestimate the political naivete
Speaker 1: of racists. Yeah, like they can't think that deeply, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. It's just like, yeah, so the
Speaker 1: Fishers used some of the tools that were availabed with them.
Speaker 1: They got together some law girls, I guess, and the
Speaker 1: law girls at the Southern Poverty Law Center and the
Speaker 1: Vietnamese Fishers Fishermen's Association filed a federal class action lawsuit
Speaker 1: against KKK organizing. They sued the KKK more broadly, but
Speaker 1: they also named the Grand Dragon of Texas, which is
Speaker 1: the leader of the local KKK, is the dragon. And yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it goes like other people know the ship
Speaker 1: better than I do. But I think it's like wizard
Speaker 1: dragons cyclops is the kind of like hierarchy of leaders.
Speaker 1: You know, there's just like no through line there. What
Speaker 1: is the ilogies different magics? Like I don't get it. God, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: they didn't even know fucking mythology. No, not at all.
Speaker 1: They're all from very different like so bizarre and stupid
Speaker 1: and makes it even dumber, it really does. I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's like kids that not kids like people that are
Speaker 1: like obsessed with dragons are much different than people like
Speaker 1: obsessed with Merlin or something, and people in totally different
Speaker 1: people obsessed with like I don't know Hercules mythology. Yeah no, yeah,
Speaker 1: Hercules and Merlin are not the same kid exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Um speaking as a Merlin slash dragon kid, I like
Speaker 1: it was aware of Hercules, but it didn't spark joy.
Speaker 1: Yeah whatever. Yeah, I was more the mythology kid into mythology.
Speaker 1: That's I'm kind of coming around. Yeah, I mean, we're
Speaker 1: all we should all just now us, we should all
Speaker 1: come together. But the Ku Klux Clan didn't do it right,
Speaker 1: so they can so in the lawsuit, the they claimed
Speaker 1: that the KKK had violated their rights and we're basically
Speaker 1: committing racketeering by you know, they were essentially organized crime,
Speaker 1: and that they were trying to get a monopoly on
Speaker 1: the fishing in the area, which is true even if
Speaker 1: they're purpose behind it was racism or whatever, you know.
Speaker 1: And the plaintiff class was all Vietnamese fishermen in the area,
Speaker 1: and the cases called Vietnamese Fishermen's Association versus Knights of
Speaker 1: the Ku Klux Klan one and in this they proved
Speaker 1: one is not that long. I know, they proved in
Speaker 1: court that a local militia group, the Texas Emergency Reserve,
Speaker 1: was a was the military wing of the KKK, and
Speaker 1: they provided security at clan rallies and there was of
Speaker 1: these militiamen uh and it was shut down, yeah, by
Speaker 1: by this lawsuit, by the work of the Vietnamese Fishermen's Association,
Speaker 1: who won an injunction against the group activities that prevented
Speaker 1: the militia or the KKK from military training or parading
Speaker 1: with firearms, which ended the militia for good, which is
Speaker 1: really funny to me. Sorry, wow, it's funny to me
Speaker 1: that the guys who are that going and be like, sorry, guys,
Speaker 1: burning crosses and threatening people with guns is illegal. Now,
Speaker 1: time to go home. Like that worked on them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, like maybe I feel like it's I don't
Speaker 1: want to like have beat this cynical, but like it
Speaker 1: probably had a lot to do with like just the
Speaker 1: the type of judge they had and the people that
Speaker 1: were decided stuff. You know, like it could have gone
Speaker 1: a much different way. So I think there's a bit
Speaker 1: of luck they're yeah, which is like I mean again
Speaker 1: and whatever, I guess it's been made clear my opinion
Speaker 1: about law, but like you know, different tactics like right,
Speaker 1: like because like going and fighting them too. Right, It's
Speaker 1: like sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn't because it's
Speaker 1: not like justice prevailed because it always does. Right. Instead,
Speaker 1: it's like we tried to fight them through this avenue
Speaker 1: and it worked, Yeah, which is great, Like sometimes the
Speaker 1: law does its actual job. And forty years later, the
Speaker 1: Vietnamese community is still there and the KKK is a
Speaker 1: shadow of its former fucking self. Hell yeah, a few
Speaker 1: more and just there's so many of them. I didn't
Speaker 1: get to know. I didn't know, Like this is the thing,
Speaker 1: Like I had no idea what these things happened, and
Speaker 1: that the KKK was sucked over so much. I want
Speaker 1: to hear about the times the KKK was sucked up.
Speaker 1: In ninety six, the Lumbi people and Indigenous people and
Speaker 1: what's currently called North Carolina sucked up a clan gathering
Speaker 1: and sent sent them packing and stopped them from organizing
Speaker 1: in Robisson County, North Carolina. And I cover that story
Speaker 1: a different episode if people want to hear it. It's
Speaker 1: in the second half of the Civil War. Within the
Speaker 1: Civil War episode with prop and it's worth checking out.
Speaker 1: It's a fucking awesome story the event itself, if you
Speaker 1: want to look into it on your own. It's called
Speaker 1: the Battle of Hayes pond Um and just rules and
Speaker 1: I'm not going to go into it the second time,
Speaker 1: but you'll should look into it then. To talk about
Speaker 1: modern resistance to the KKK, which I think I'm defining
Speaker 1: as I was alive during um, that's fair not modern
Speaker 1: three modern because the scene uh well not on this
Speaker 1: particular scene that would have been impressive with me. But
Speaker 1: you're like somewhere out there. Yeah, the clan marched on Austin, Texas,
Speaker 1: about seventy of them humbers. Yeah, yeah, their numbers are
Speaker 1: not what they used to be. I mean good, I'm glad.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah. They faced two thousand counterprotesters, which were organized.
Speaker 1: I feel if you show up and only seven new
Speaker 1: people aren't they're just like not canceled. What do you think?
Speaker 1: How do you think this is gonna go? Guys? What
Speaker 1: do you think it's gonna happen? Two thousand counter protesters
Speaker 1: organized by the local chapter of the Brown Berets, which
Speaker 1: is a militant pro Chicano organization in conjunction with the
Speaker 1: John Brown Anti Clan Committee, which is a group of
Speaker 1: mostly white anti imperialist activists, And this kind of in
Speaker 1: some way sets to the stage for how a lot
Speaker 1: of the modern clan confrontations go, which is small numbers
Speaker 1: of clans people are willing to show their face in public,
Speaker 1: and then they hide behind cops by getting permits out
Speaker 1: and stuff. So the police protected the clan from protesters.
Speaker 1: A handful of cops and anti clan protesters were injured
Speaker 1: in the fighting as people are trying to get through
Speaker 1: the cops to get to the clan, and people went
Speaker 1: and fucked up clan vehicles. They marched again in Austin,
Speaker 1: Texas because I guess the tenure anniversary. They were like, Oh,
Speaker 1: we're gonna totally get at this time. Guys, We got
Speaker 1: it right. It went't even worse for them. About fifty
Speaker 1: of them showed up. Wow, you just gotta cancel, Like
Speaker 1: what you show up and there's fifty of you, That's
Speaker 1: that's like a crowded public school classroom. Like yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know, five thousand people pelted them with eggs and
Speaker 1: shouted them down and mooned them. And you know, I
Speaker 1: mentioned that in the twenties, some gangs made a truce
Speaker 1: to fight the clan. Yeah, I get to tell you
Speaker 1: another story about that. Almost a hundred years later. Who
Speaker 1: is moderate. After the white supremacist terror attack on a
Speaker 1: black church in Charleston, South Carolina, the state was like,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe it's trying to take the Confederate flagdown
Speaker 1: from our state House grounds. Um. And in case there
Speaker 1: was any doubt in anyone's mind that the Confederate flag
Speaker 1: is like some kind of neutral symbol these days, the
Speaker 1: group that got together to rally and defense of their
Speaker 1: Southern heritage and specifically the Confederate flag was the fucking
Speaker 1: KKK was it along with their allies the National Socialists?
Speaker 1: Oh my god? And of course they didn't frame it
Speaker 1: as this is a clan and Nazi rally, even though
Speaker 1: they were the groups that were like, no, no, no no,
Speaker 1: we're the clan and where the Nazis. They were like,
Speaker 1: we're defending our southern heritage or whatever. They called for
Speaker 1: a rally to stop the flag from being taken down
Speaker 1: or whatever. And who stopped them but an informal coalition
Speaker 1: of local black groups, including what appeared to be a
Speaker 1: gang truce between the Bloods, the Crips and the Gangster
Speaker 1: Disciples supported in Charleston, South Carolina. Interesting, okay, supported by
Speaker 1: another smaller informal coalition of anti fascist and anarchists. This
Speaker 1: is as observed by one participant. If you want to
Speaker 1: hear a full breakdown of that day, you can listen
Speaker 1: to the podcast The Final Straw Radio. Look for the
Speaker 1: title Anti KKK Rally Interview from and basically as a
Speaker 1: participant who is there as a as a an anarchist
Speaker 1: from from the South was there and and was observing
Speaker 1: on what they saw. Um, obviously that's the history I
Speaker 1: want to know about. Yeah, no, totally. And like when
Speaker 1: you talk about things that are like real modern and
Speaker 1: our crimes, you have to like kind of be a
Speaker 1: little bit not super specific about things. So I guess,
Speaker 1: I mean we're finally I mean, I'm very young. Since
Speaker 1: is the first date you've mentioned that I've been alive for? Um, no,
Speaker 1: I'm kidding, but but no it is. I guess that
Speaker 1: was really recent, yea, being on podcast like this, I think,
Speaker 1: I like, time becomes like a made up thing, like
Speaker 1: everything is like a temporal or something. It was not
Speaker 1: that long ago, yea. It was like I don't know.
Speaker 1: Especially COVID I think has made everything seemed really far away.
Speaker 1: But that was not long ago totally. It was, but
Speaker 1: in the before times, it's like if you're hanging out
Speaker 1: in like three A D like five b C is
Speaker 1: like fucking yeah, way back. I have literally no idea
Speaker 1: when people came up with a d NBC but whatever,
Speaker 1: something about christ and so more like formal anti racist
Speaker 1: groups held a rally, which is fine and good, but
Speaker 1: the Klansmen were chased around town and beaten the ship
Speaker 1: by this other group that was unified more or less
Speaker 1: by one thing. It's good to drive the clan out
Speaker 1: of your town with violence. People partied in the streets
Speaker 1: with their stolen Confederate flags. At one point a racist
Speaker 1: was like driving away and like away from a crowd
Speaker 1: and was trying to be like whatever, fuck you and
Speaker 1: then like you know, hit the gas to like speed
Speaker 1: off and then just drove right into a lamppost. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's cosmic justice right there. And with that image, I
Speaker 1: think that's where we're gonna leave it today. There's so
Speaker 1: many more stories about it's a beautiful image to sign off.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate that. Yeah, sometimes I mean it's it's
Speaker 1: it's okay not to be a cynic. You know. The
Speaker 1: world is like I want to fight back and give
Speaker 1: this little nut good of joy to you. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: sometimes they do that work for you by driving into
Speaker 1: a lamppost because they're so mad about your existence. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's that's crazy to be so mad about just
Speaker 1: being so hateful that you just you you funk yourself up.
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's just very something funny about that. Um,
Speaker 1: but wow, thank you. Speaking of wow, Sharne, is there
Speaker 1: anything you'd like to plug? Is that we're saying goodbye
Speaker 1: now we're saying I mean, unless you have closing thoughts. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm just really uh every I mean, I
Speaker 1: just learned so much on the show because I just
Speaker 1: I'm bad at learning things on my own these days.
Speaker 1: So I really appreciate all the knowledge because there is
Speaker 1: just so much history and stuff that doesn't get it's
Speaker 1: deserved attention. So I appreciate the show for being like,
Speaker 1: you know what, it's not all bad because people have
Speaker 1: been fine since the dawn of time and that's the
Speaker 1: only reason that we're still around. I don't know, it's
Speaker 1: it's good to remember that because again, I can be
Speaker 1: really cynical, So feeling even like a figment of hope
Speaker 1: is it's pretty impressive for me. I mean, is that
Speaker 1: kind of one of the reasons that you're a fun
Speaker 1: guest is that you come in like very misanthropic and
Speaker 1: it's kind of fun. Yeah. Well, because like just look
Speaker 1: at the current. It's hard to trust, you know, it's
Speaker 1: so so Yeah, I'm glad I learned all this stuff.
Speaker 1: And I'm glad that there are as many good dorks
Speaker 1: as there are dumb doors. You know. I'm glad, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm glad. I'm glad because yeah, it just gives me
Speaker 1: some hope for the dorks out there. Um, but yeah,
Speaker 1: thanks for having me with the image never mind sright,
Speaker 1: go ahead with the mirror image of patriot front. Be patriot,
Speaker 1: but yeah, be the patriot behind the front. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: patriot but yeah for sure. Yeah yeah. Anyway, Yeah that
Speaker 1: was poetic. And you know what else is poetic? The
Speaker 1: book of poetry Sharon wrote that you can purchase you
Speaker 1: don't have to. I have to have a lot of
Speaker 1: embarrassment about everything I've ever done, and that one in particular,
Speaker 1: I don't know it doesn't matter. You can. You can
Speaker 1: just follow me around on the internet if you desire
Speaker 1: bad No, I don't want to. My instagram is Shiro
Speaker 1: Hero and my six because you know six six through
Speaker 1: the horns, but it doesn't translate on an audio the
Speaker 1: price of your book like sixteen and sixty six. But no,
Speaker 1: I mean like poetry is a stretch. I just kind
Speaker 1: of like published my diary, which is really exposing sometimes,
Speaker 1: so I think that's what makes me nervous. But it's fun.
Speaker 1: Honesty is good, you guys. Honesty is good. I agree.
Speaker 1: That's why I was like, I know that when I
Speaker 1: was telling you about the ghosts thing, and you were like, no,
Speaker 1: you're fucking with me, I'm like, no, I don't. I
Speaker 1: mean I only funk with people for very short grades
Speaker 1: of time immediately that would but that it could have
Speaker 1: gone either way, and a ghost thing, like are you
Speaker 1: kidding me? Like, I there's this thing I do, okay
Speaker 1: if I'm not If I'm talking to someone and for
Speaker 1: whatever reason, they don't hear me, they don't answer me.
Speaker 1: It happens a lot with my family. I'll just stand
Speaker 1: there and be like, am I a ghost? And usually
Speaker 1: they don't respond. And I'm like, okay, I'm a ghost now,
Speaker 1: and so I just like continue my life as a ghost.
Speaker 1: So the ghost thing really threw me off. There's like
Speaker 1: a fascination where I have with Little Ghost Ease because
Speaker 1: in a different world that club is still around and
Speaker 1: it's like cute and beautiful and it's a pac Man
Speaker 1: Confederate Officers start with better. Yes, exactly. It's it's really
Speaker 1: interesting to see how things evolves. So but yeah, this
Speaker 1: was fun to learn about for Mary. Do you have
Speaker 1: any plugs for us at the end? You mean, like
Speaker 1: December eight, which is the live show where I'm a
Speaker 1: guest on Alive behind the Bastards and you get to
Speaker 1: watch my face slowly turned to horror as I learned
Speaker 1: about something terrible. And then are people able to ask questions?
Speaker 1: They are able to ask questions? Yeah, when you buy tickets,
Speaker 1: will be prompted to submit your question ahead of time,
Speaker 1: and you can buy tickets at moment House stock co
Speaker 1: slash bTB. Yeah, it's gonna be more fun than the
Speaker 1: tone of my voice is making it. I mean, this
Speaker 1: show is kind of like antithesis of BTV, just like
Speaker 1: in some ways, like the So it was basically designed
Speaker 1: to make it so that my life wasn't so sad.
Speaker 1: How's it, how's it working out? How's it working out
Speaker 1: the best? Yeah? Anyways, we'll be back next week with
Speaker 1: another cool person or did something cool or a group
Speaker 1: of people or something something. Margaret the cool cool, Cool
Speaker 1: is cool because Margaret is cool and that's cool and
Speaker 1: bye bye cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is a
Speaker 1: production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts and cool
Speaker 1: Zone Media, visit our website cool zone media dot com,
Speaker 1: or check us out on the I Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.