WEBVTT - Freedom to Burn: Barry Black, Pt. 2 0:00:01.760 --> 0:00:10.040 Col Zone Media, Welcome back to the second half of 0:00:10.080 --> 0:00:15.200 the story of Barry Black, the Pennsylvania Clansman. Barry Black's 0:00:15.200 --> 0:00:19.040 main claim to fame as being the black in Commonwealth 0:00:19.079 --> 0:00:21.919 of Virginia v. Black, the two thousand and three Supreme 0:00:21.960 --> 0:00:27.840 Court case that found Virginia's crossburning statute unconstitutionally overbroad. I 0:00:27.880 --> 0:00:30.040 set out to learn a little more about that landmark 0:00:30.120 --> 0:00:31.960 decision and the life of the man who won it, 0:00:32.440 --> 0:00:35.239 because it comes up often in some cases going on 0:00:35.320 --> 0:00:38.760 now the prosecutions of the torch bearing white supremacist who 0:00:38.800 --> 0:00:42.239 came to Charlottesville in twenty seventeen, and I found a 0:00:42.240 --> 0:00:45.760 lot more than I bargained for. I don't know what 0:00:45.840 --> 0:00:49.080 I expected, but last week's story of a small town 0:00:49.159 --> 0:00:52.240 war and a rural gay bar complete with side characters 0:00:52.280 --> 0:00:55.080 like a notorious federal informant who worked for Lynton LaRouche 0:00:55.520 --> 0:00:57.600 and a street preacher who was a central figure in 0:00:57.640 --> 0:01:03.280 the Obama Birtherism conspiracy, definitely surprised me. This week, though, 0:01:03.400 --> 0:01:06.880 we'll actually get to Barry's infamous cross burning and the Black, 0:01:06.920 --> 0:01:10.080 a CLU lawyer who fought for the clansman's rights. 0:01:11.720 --> 0:01:15.559 That victory. What worldwide I said case presence, I said 0:01:15.680 --> 0:01:19.679 case law, and we proved that the law does work. 0:01:19.760 --> 0:01:23.800 Yet I can light across anywhere in the United States 0:01:23.800 --> 0:01:25.240 of America that I want to light it. 0:01:28.680 --> 0:01:33.880 Berry Black fought the law, and he won. But a 0:01:33.959 --> 0:01:36.559 new law was born from the ashes of the one 0:01:36.640 --> 0:01:43.240 Barry burned. I'm Molly Conger. This is one of the 0:01:43.240 --> 0:02:02.240 little guys. When we left off last week, Barry Black 0:02:02.280 --> 0:02:04.560 and his Keystone Knights had gotten into a little hot 0:02:04.600 --> 0:02:08.600 water at their white bride picnic. In July of nineteen 0:02:08.639 --> 0:02:10.880 ninety eight, Barry held a clan picnic on a farm 0:02:10.919 --> 0:02:14.160 owned by Don and Lisa Penrod in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, 0:02:15.480 --> 0:02:17.760 when Berry held a clan rally at Kasanova Lounge, the 0:02:17.760 --> 0:02:21.280 county's only gay bar the year prior. The Penrod's farm 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:23.760 was the pre rally staging area and the site of 0:02:23.800 --> 0:02:27.560 the post rally cross burning later that evening. They weren't 0:02:27.600 --> 0:02:30.079 just concerned neighbors whose opposition to the gay bar made 0:02:30.120 --> 0:02:35.160 them unlikely allies with the clan. They were members. Lisa 0:02:35.200 --> 0:02:38.240 Penrod in fact commanded the Women's Auxiliary Unit and served 0:02:38.240 --> 0:02:41.840 as the Imperial Secretary of the Invisible Empire International Keystone 0:02:41.880 --> 0:02:46.240 Knights of the Ku Klux Klan under Berry's leadership, and 0:02:46.280 --> 0:02:49.040 on July twenty fifth, nineteen ninety eight, Don and Lisa 0:02:49.040 --> 0:02:51.400 Penrod were two of the ten clan members standing at 0:02:51.400 --> 0:02:54.360 the fence line on the Penrod farm demanding answers from 0:02:54.400 --> 0:02:58.000 a man in their neighbour's tree. That man turned out 0:02:58.000 --> 0:03:00.480 to be a state trooper, and Don Penne was one 0:03:00.520 --> 0:03:02.880 of four attendees at the clan picnic who was arrested 0:03:02.880 --> 0:03:07.399 for threatening the trooper at gunpoint. Barry himself posted Don 0:03:07.440 --> 0:03:12.280 Penrod's ten thousand dollars bond. The week after the picnic, 0:03:12.360 --> 0:03:16.080 Cambria County District Attorney David Tulowitski filed a petition with 0:03:16.080 --> 0:03:18.160 the court to have Berry Black removed from the office 0:03:18.200 --> 0:03:21.400 of Constable, an elected law enforcement position he'd won by 0:03:21.440 --> 0:03:25.120 a single rite in vote the year prior history was 0:03:25.120 --> 0:03:29.359 repeating itself. Barry was elected constable of Johnstown's twenty first 0:03:29.400 --> 0:03:32.160 ward in nineteen ninety one, and was removed from office 0:03:32.240 --> 0:03:34.920 just a few months later when the county prosecutor filed 0:03:34.920 --> 0:03:37.000 a petition to have him removed on the grounds that 0:03:37.080 --> 0:03:39.640 his criminal record made him ineligible to hold a position 0:03:39.640 --> 0:03:45.240 of public trust. A judge agreed. Barry appealed that decision 0:03:45.240 --> 0:03:47.720 and fought it all the way to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, 0:03:48.040 --> 0:03:50.800 holding clan rallies at court houses and in small towns 0:03:50.840 --> 0:03:54.280 throughout the year and a half long appeals process. The 0:03:54.320 --> 0:03:57.119 state's highest court told Barry in nineteen ninety three that 0:03:57.160 --> 0:03:59.560 he wasn't allowed to be the Constable and nothing in 0:03:59.560 --> 0:04:01.600 the law had changed in the five years since. But 0:04:02.320 --> 0:04:05.320 here he was fighting the same fight all over again. 0:04:06.480 --> 0:04:08.640 This time around, he argued that the petition to remove 0:04:08.680 --> 0:04:12.280 him from office was retaliation, pure and simple. The county 0:04:12.320 --> 0:04:14.480 was punishing him for his clan rally and for the 0:04:14.520 --> 0:04:17.080 complaint he'd filed against the state troopers who arrested his 0:04:17.080 --> 0:04:21.080 friends at the picnic in mid August of nineteen ninety eight. 0:04:21.120 --> 0:04:23.560 The issue of whether the Clansmen could continue operating as 0:04:23.600 --> 0:04:27.400 Constable was with the courts. There was no injunction preventing 0:04:27.440 --> 0:04:30.120 him from acting as a law enforcement official, but the 0:04:30.120 --> 0:04:33.200 county had apparently instructed officers of the court to use 0:04:33.279 --> 0:04:36.880 him to serve Warrens as sparingly as possible. In the meantime, 0:04:38.240 --> 0:04:41.960 Barry's lawyer shrugged this off, telling the local paper. I 0:04:42.000 --> 0:04:45.039 think he's pretty well preoccupied with his grand wizardry in 0:04:45.080 --> 0:04:51.719 the clan, and that's true. He was keeping busy, And 0:04:51.800 --> 0:04:54.600 it was in August nineteen ninety eight that Barry Black 0:04:55.440 --> 0:05:00.479 took a road trip. This wasn't Barry's first out of 0:05:00.520 --> 0:05:03.960 state clan field trip. Six people were arrested when the 0:05:04.000 --> 0:05:06.800 crowd got out of control during Barry's opening prayers at 0:05:06.800 --> 0:05:09.520 a clan rally in Millville, New Jersey, in nineteen ninety. 0:05:10.680 --> 0:05:13.040 When Barry head lined across burning in Maryland in nineteen 0:05:13.120 --> 0:05:16.680 ninety one, the Washington Post printed the slurs that came 0:05:16.720 --> 0:05:20.599 out of his mouth. When clan leaders from six states 0:05:20.640 --> 0:05:23.680 converged in Ohio in nineteen ninety five, Barry told the 0:05:23.680 --> 0:05:27.360 Cincinnati Inquirer that it was like a family reunion and 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:30.599 lamented that no one ever gives the clan credit for 0:05:30.680 --> 0:05:34.560 all the good things we do. When clansmen in South 0:05:34.600 --> 0:05:38.080 Carolina came under federal investigation for burning down black churches, 0:05:38.640 --> 0:05:41.320 Barry was there at a cross burning in Lexington in 0:05:41.400 --> 0:05:44.719 nineteen ninety six, pledging the support of the Keystone Nights 0:05:44.760 --> 0:05:49.080 in this legal battle to come. No, his lawyer was right. 0:05:49.800 --> 0:05:53.479 Barry was very busy being the grand Wizard. He was 0:05:53.520 --> 0:05:57.479 always driving off to Indiana, Ohio, Maryland, or just the 0:05:57.480 --> 0:06:00.320 other side of Pennsylvania for some appearance at a clan event. 0:06:01.920 --> 0:06:04.240 This trip to Virginia should have been like any of 0:06:04.279 --> 0:06:09.600 the others, show up, make a scene, light across, upset 0:06:09.640 --> 0:06:14.600 the locals, and head home again. But this time was different. 0:06:16.160 --> 0:06:18.440 The Keystone Knights of the Ku Klux Klan packed up 0:06:18.480 --> 0:06:20.960 their white robes and their crossburning supplies and made the 0:06:21.000 --> 0:06:25.680 six hour drive from Johnstown, Pennsylvania to Hillsville, Virginia, a 0:06:25.720 --> 0:06:28.920 small town in Carroll County in Virginia's far southwest tip, 0:06:29.520 --> 0:06:33.159 not far from the North Carolina border. And here's Barry 0:06:33.200 --> 0:06:35.200 in his own words, talking about the event in an 0:06:35.240 --> 0:06:38.440 interview recorded in two thousand and five for Duke University 0:06:38.480 --> 0:06:41.600 School of Law's Voices of American Law Project. 0:06:43.120 --> 0:06:47.360 What I was doing down there was starting a new den, 0:06:47.480 --> 0:06:50.640 or starting a new clavern, giving the people the books 0:06:50.680 --> 0:06:53.000 to read, telling the people what we expect to them 0:06:53.000 --> 0:06:56.400 and how we want them to become pillars in their community. 0:06:58.279 --> 0:07:03.320 Pillars of the community, he says. And when he was 0:07:03.360 --> 0:07:05.640 placed in the back of a deputy's patrol car, that night, 0:07:05.920 --> 0:07:08.920 he offered some insight into what he meant by that 0:07:09.560 --> 0:07:14.080 to Carroll County Sheriff's Lieutenant Rick Clark. Here's Virginia's Solicitor General, 0:07:14.120 --> 0:07:17.440 William Hurd relaying that statement to the Supreme Court. 0:07:19.520 --> 0:07:23.600 What we had in the case of Barry Black was 0:07:24.200 --> 0:07:28.600 he heard that he's from Pennsylvania. He heard that down 0:07:28.600 --> 0:07:32.080 in Carroll County, blacks and whites were holding hands on 0:07:32.160 --> 0:07:32.800 the sidewalk. 0:07:35.520 --> 0:07:39.480 Barry Black was arrested that night, handcuffed and taken away 0:07:39.520 --> 0:07:43.200 while the cross was still burning, because, regardless of why 0:07:43.240 --> 0:07:49.280 he came, what he'd done was a felony here in Virginia. 0:07:49.520 --> 0:07:51.720 The first half of this story opened with a twelve 0:07:51.760 --> 0:07:55.000 foot cross set ablaze in a peanut field in Suffolk, Virginia, 0:07:55.040 --> 0:07:59.680 in nineteen forty eight. Local agricultural union workers denounced it 0:07:59.680 --> 0:08:02.200 as an act of terrorism and demanded a response from 0:08:02.240 --> 0:08:05.280 state government officials. After being brushed off by local law enforcement, 0:08:06.440 --> 0:08:10.400 it just wasn't a crime. Newspaper archives for the next 0:08:10.400 --> 0:08:14.400 few years show a frustrating pattern. Crosses were burning all 0:08:14.440 --> 0:08:17.320 over the state, and every time it happened, it was 0:08:17.360 --> 0:08:21.160 dismissed as some isolated incident. Some kind of prank, some 0:08:21.320 --> 0:08:26.720 kind of childish active vandalism. Every cross that burned in 0:08:26.800 --> 0:08:30.280 Virginia was written off by newspapers and cops here in Virginia, 0:08:30.920 --> 0:08:33.920 But those same papers ran stories of flaming crosses in 0:08:33.960 --> 0:08:38.679 Tennessee and South Carolina, properly identifying those as what they were, 0:08:39.840 --> 0:08:43.040 a burning line in the sand, keeping black Southerners from 0:08:43.080 --> 0:08:46.200 moving into white neighborhoods, from getting elected to office, from 0:08:46.280 --> 0:08:49.960 gaining civil rights, and from feeling safe in their homes. 0:08:51.200 --> 0:08:53.880 In late nineteen forty nine, a series of cross burnings 0:08:53.920 --> 0:08:57.480 culminating in an explosion, destroyed the construction site for a 0:08:57.520 --> 0:09:01.360 planned housing project for black residents in Nashville. After Judge 0:09:01.400 --> 0:09:05.160 Wade's wearing open South Carolina's previously whites only primaries to 0:09:05.200 --> 0:09:09.760 black voters, his home was targeted repeatedly with crosses burning 0:09:09.800 --> 0:09:13.480 on his front lawn in nineteen fifty. But the same 0:09:13.520 --> 0:09:16.160 papers that ran those wire stories from cities and other 0:09:16.200 --> 0:09:19.880 states wrote their own local coverage of crossburnings closer to home, 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:23.319 with a very different tone. When a cross burned in 0:09:23.400 --> 0:09:27.439 Nashville or Charleston, it's safe to say that those cities 0:09:27.960 --> 0:09:32.480 have racial unrest. Those cities have the clan. In the 0:09:32.480 --> 0:09:35.920 summer of nineteen fifty, several black residents of Colonial Beach, Virginia, 0:09:35.960 --> 0:09:38.280 found a lawsuit to force the locality to allow them 0:09:38.320 --> 0:09:42.240 to swim in a public beach. The town relented, there 0:09:42.280 --> 0:09:44.560 was no need to go to court. The beaches are 0:09:44.559 --> 0:09:48.480 open to all residents. But when those black residents and 0:09:48.520 --> 0:09:50.160 their attorney went to the beach to see if that 0:09:50.240 --> 0:09:55.880 was true, five hundred white men attacked the fifteen black beachgoers. 0:09:57.559 --> 0:10:02.640 Later that week, crosses burned all down the beach. Another 0:10:02.679 --> 0:10:05.040 cross was erected and burned outside of the Black church, 0:10:05.559 --> 0:10:09.720 accompanied by rifle fire, and the letters k k K 0:10:10.440 --> 0:10:15.240 were scrawled on sidewalks all over black neighborhoods. The town 0:10:15.280 --> 0:10:18.600 council took no official notice of the crossburnings and said 0:10:18.600 --> 0:10:21.120 they not only had no obligation to anticipate on the 0:10:21.200 --> 0:10:23.760 rest of the beach, but it would in fact amount 0:10:23.800 --> 0:10:26.720 to discrimination to have done anything to ensure those black 0:10:26.760 --> 0:10:30.240 residents could access the beach. There was no KKK in 0:10:30.320 --> 0:10:33.959 Virginia in nineteen fifty. Just look at any newspaper anywhere 0:10:33.960 --> 0:10:37.080 in the state. When a woman had found a cross 0:10:37.080 --> 0:10:39.280 burning on her front porch in Noffolk in September of 0:10:39.360 --> 0:10:42.400 nineteen fifty. The police told then Offolk Ledger Dispatch that 0:10:42.880 --> 0:10:45.199 it was only a small cross, just two feet high, 0:10:45.280 --> 0:10:49.400 and quote the clan usually puts on a bigger show. 0:10:50.840 --> 0:10:53.679 There had been eight cross burnings in neighboring Nansaman County 0:10:53.720 --> 0:10:56.440 in just the last few months, but this was probably 0:10:56.480 --> 0:11:00.360 just mischievous kids. The Bristol, Virginia Time in the Sea 0:11:00.400 --> 0:11:03.400 and reported in October of nineteen fifty that the twelve 0:11:03.400 --> 0:11:06.120 foot cross burned on a hillside near the reservoir, where 0:11:06.160 --> 0:11:09.600 it was visible to hundreds of residents, was just a prank. 0:11:10.640 --> 0:11:13.160 There's no way to know what those men in hoods 0:11:13.160 --> 0:11:15.720 were doing up there, and a police captain told the 0:11:15.720 --> 0:11:19.240 paper that the Confederate flag left behind was evidence that 0:11:19.640 --> 0:11:23.840 this was obviously just a prank. That same newspaper had 0:11:23.880 --> 0:11:26.280 been running coverage of a clan march in South Carolina 0:11:26.360 --> 0:11:29.400 just six weeks earlier. After letting up a cross in 0:11:29.440 --> 0:11:32.640 Myrtle Beach, the clan marched into town surrounding a black 0:11:32.720 --> 0:11:38.640 dance hall. There was a riot. Charlie Fitzgerald stood in 0:11:38.640 --> 0:11:40.560 the doorway of his bar with a gun, but he 0:11:40.640 --> 0:11:42.400 never had a chance to fire it before the mob 0:11:42.440 --> 0:11:44.240 beat him and shoved him into the trunk of a car. 0:11:45.720 --> 0:11:48.280 The clansmen emptied their guns into the sides of the building, 0:11:48.360 --> 0:11:50.800 riddling the walls with bullet holes and shattering all of 0:11:50.800 --> 0:11:54.560 the windows. Amidst all this chaos, one of their own 0:11:54.600 --> 0:11:57.839 took a stray bullet in the back. When his robes 0:11:57.880 --> 0:12:01.160 were removed to the hospital where he died, he was 0:12:01.200 --> 0:12:06.000 wearing a policeman's uniform. Underneath. These stories running in the 0:12:06.000 --> 0:12:09.040 same paper may give you some insight into a small 0:12:09.080 --> 0:12:12.480 town police officer's eagerness to explain away these flames on 0:12:12.480 --> 0:12:17.600 a hillside, but you can draw your own conclusions. The 0:12:17.679 --> 0:12:22.079 clan was thriving again across the South. In January of 0:12:22.120 --> 0:12:24.959 nineteen fifty one, the state of Georgia outlawed crossburning in 0:12:25.000 --> 0:12:27.520 an effort to stem the tide of this white robed violence. 0:12:28.800 --> 0:12:31.440 In February of nineteen fifty one, crosses were lit outside 0:12:31.480 --> 0:12:34.079 the homes and businesses of black residence in Guchland and 0:12:34.120 --> 0:12:38.400 in Reiko Counties in Virginia. Black families reported seeing half 0:12:38.400 --> 0:12:40.440 a dozen men firing their guns into the air as 0:12:40.480 --> 0:12:43.559 they ran back to their cars after lighting the flames. 0:12:44.880 --> 0:12:47.760 The FBI said it was a local matter. The sheriff 0:12:47.800 --> 0:12:52.679 said it was pranksters. When the local NAACP demanded an investigation, 0:12:52.800 --> 0:12:56.920 the county prosecutor said, there is definitely no racial relations 0:12:57.040 --> 0:13:02.480 question connected to the recent crossburnings. By June of nineteen 0:13:02.520 --> 0:13:06.600 fifty one, Florida, Alabama, and South Carolina had joined Georgia 0:13:06.640 --> 0:13:11.480 in banning crossburning across the South. The crosses burned, and 0:13:11.520 --> 0:13:15.320 there was no question about what it meant except when 0:13:15.360 --> 0:13:19.440 it happened here. The same papers that ran the wire 0:13:19.480 --> 0:13:23.480 stories about the legislative attempts to combat clan activity everywhere 0:13:23.520 --> 0:13:27.000 else said the six foot cross doused and gasoline in 0:13:27.000 --> 0:13:30.160 the middle of Route one in Stafford was just a prank. 0:13:30.640 --> 0:13:34.880 It was just kids messing with traffic. In August of 0:13:34.880 --> 0:13:37.040 that year, a widow and Appomatox was awoken in the 0:13:37.040 --> 0:13:39.040 middle of the night by the sound of an explosion. 0:13:40.160 --> 0:13:42.400 The cross burning on her front lawn had ignited the 0:13:42.480 --> 0:13:46.720 dynamite late at its base. A postcard from the clan 0:13:47.240 --> 0:13:51.200 was left to the scene. The newspaper ran the headline 0:13:51.760 --> 0:13:56.600 crossfire lacks motive, with the sheriff quoted saying, my office 0:13:56.679 --> 0:14:00.400 dropped the matter. It was probably a personal thing or 0:14:00.440 --> 0:14:06.040 just some children. In my haphazard search of newspaper archives, 0:14:06.080 --> 0:14:10.440 I found nearly a hundred of these pranks in Virginia 0:14:10.600 --> 0:14:14.199 and the nineteen fifties. A white cop tells a white 0:14:14.200 --> 0:14:17.840 reporter that there's nothing to worry about here, it's only 0:14:17.880 --> 0:14:21.600 a joke. As a black family douses the burning embers 0:14:21.600 --> 0:14:38.400 on the law. No one could see the racial terror 0:14:38.440 --> 0:14:41.480 we already had here at home. It was always kids 0:14:41.560 --> 0:14:46.120 or vandals or pranksters. But in nineteen fifty two, the 0:14:46.200 --> 0:14:50.520 Virginia State legislature was finally ready to act. Responding to 0:14:50.600 --> 0:14:53.560 reports that Florida Clan leader Bill Hendrix was planning a 0:14:53.640 --> 0:14:57.360 rally in Richmond and South Carolina Clan leader Thomas Hamilton 0:14:57.480 --> 0:14:59.480 was planning to start chapters in more than a dozen 0:14:59.520 --> 0:15:02.760 towns in Virginia, a bill was introduced to outlaw the 0:15:02.760 --> 0:15:06.840 wearing of masks in public. At the urging of religious groups, 0:15:06.880 --> 0:15:10.480 a ban on crossburning was added. The threat of these 0:15:10.880 --> 0:15:14.920 out of town clansmen pushed the bill through without significant pushback, 0:15:15.400 --> 0:15:17.760 and it was signed by Governor John Battle in April 0:15:17.840 --> 0:15:23.560 nineteen fifty two. But changing the law didn't change anyone's attitudes. 0:15:24.240 --> 0:15:26.880 Throughout the nineteen fifties, most of the crossburning stories I 0:15:26.880 --> 0:15:31.200 could find were dismissed as pranks, and if I'm being 0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:35.600 entirely honest, some of them might have been. There were 0:15:35.640 --> 0:15:39.440 several crossburnings in Newport News that teenage boys eventually confessed to, 0:15:40.160 --> 0:15:41.880 with one cross being placed on the law of a 0:15:41.920 --> 0:15:45.960 state delegate by mistake. The boys said they were pranking 0:15:46.040 --> 0:15:48.800 their high school teachers, and I did find at least 0:15:48.840 --> 0:15:51.760 three stories of high school teachers and Newport News who 0:15:51.760 --> 0:15:55.280 had crosses burned on their lawn. The boys' names were 0:15:55.280 --> 0:15:58.000 never published, so I don't know what they got up 0:15:58.000 --> 0:16:02.400 to later in life, and I have to wonder exactly 0:16:02.400 --> 0:16:07.000 what kind of pranks these were. It's the fifties. Had 0:16:07.000 --> 0:16:10.640 those teachers expressed support for integration, Did they go on 0:16:10.720 --> 0:16:14.400 dates with black women or rent property to black tenants. 0:16:14.920 --> 0:16:17.160 It wasn't unheard of for behavior like that to earn 0:16:17.160 --> 0:16:19.560 a white man a visit from those seeking to enforce 0:16:19.600 --> 0:16:24.280 the established social order. But it's impossible to say seventy 0:16:24.360 --> 0:16:27.240 years later what prompted those nighttime visits from their students. 0:16:28.920 --> 0:16:32.240 And I tell you about these ones that maybe were pranks, 0:16:33.040 --> 0:16:36.400 because I don't think any of them being pranks really 0:16:36.440 --> 0:16:40.000 helps explain it at all. If anything in underscores how 0:16:40.040 --> 0:16:44.840 widespread and commonly understood this was as a symbol. You 0:16:44.840 --> 0:16:47.600 didn't have to be a clansman to know what it meant. 0:16:49.000 --> 0:16:52.160 You didn't have to mean it yourself to know how 0:16:52.160 --> 0:16:59.920 it would be read. In nineteen sixty five, George Lincoln Rockwell, 0:17:00.240 --> 0:17:03.400 the founder of the American Nazi Party, ran for governor 0:17:03.440 --> 0:17:08.359 here in Virginia. He didn't win, obviously, he got nearly 0:17:08.400 --> 0:17:12.040 six thousand votes, though one percent of the total caste. 0:17:13.800 --> 0:17:18.000 The new governor was Mills Godwin, once a staunch segregationist 0:17:18.320 --> 0:17:21.159 who had distanced himself from the political machine of Harry Bird. 0:17:22.200 --> 0:17:24.320 Whether he had a change of heart or just saw 0:17:24.320 --> 0:17:26.600 the writing on the wall after the failure of Virginia's 0:17:26.600 --> 0:17:31.359 massive resistance to school desegregation is impossible to say, but 0:17:31.440 --> 0:17:35.640 in December of nineteen sixty six, Governor Mills Godwin announced 0:17:35.640 --> 0:17:38.920 a one thousand dollar reward for information leading to the 0:17:39.040 --> 0:17:45.160 arrest and conviction of cross burners. In response, the Klan 0:17:45.280 --> 0:17:47.280 burned a cross outside the Governor's mansion. 0:17:49.160 --> 0:17:52.879 The clan dead rear its head in certain areas of 0:17:53.000 --> 0:17:57.239 Virginia in that period, even to the extent that they 0:17:57.359 --> 0:18:00.919 burned a cross on the sidewalk right by I'm the 0:18:00.960 --> 0:18:05.360 Governor's mansion. And we made some arrest and there were 0:18:05.440 --> 0:18:10.080 some sentences meeted out to those that were convicted, and 0:18:10.359 --> 0:18:14.880 it had a real deterring effect. 0:18:15.359 --> 0:18:19.520 A rash of cross burnings followed. Crosses burned all over 0:18:19.560 --> 0:18:22.520 the state of Virginia in protest of Governor Godwin's declaration 0:18:22.600 --> 0:18:26.320 of war against the Clan. On New Year's Day nineteen 0:18:26.359 --> 0:18:30.160 sixty seven, Wilson Ralph Price and his wife, Nanny Jane 0:18:30.240 --> 0:18:33.680 Price were arrested for burning across on a sidewalk in Richmond. 0:18:35.200 --> 0:18:37.399 All three of their young children were waiting for them 0:18:37.400 --> 0:18:40.639 in their parked car, where police found several loaded guns, 0:18:41.119 --> 0:18:44.000 a second cross they intended to burn elsewhere later that day, 0:18:44.600 --> 0:18:48.919 and a stack of Clan literature. Barry Black wasn't the 0:18:48.960 --> 0:18:53.120 first clansman to fight this law, and win. Price had 0:18:53.119 --> 0:18:56.159 his conviction overturned by the Virginia Supreme Court a year later, 0:18:56.640 --> 0:19:01.120 with the court ruling that technically the law didn't apply here. 0:19:02.480 --> 0:19:06.399 The Prices had burned that cross on public property on 0:19:06.480 --> 0:19:11.479 the sidewalk not on the property of another, as stated 0:19:11.480 --> 0:19:15.359 in the statute. The Virginia General Assembly amended the law 0:19:15.359 --> 0:19:19.240 that year to include a bannon crossburning on public property 0:19:19.359 --> 0:19:23.359 as well. In nineteen sixty eight, the state Supreme Court 0:19:23.440 --> 0:19:26.119 seemed to believe that the purpose of banning crossburning was 0:19:26.480 --> 0:19:30.679 to protect private property. The law didn't protect people, it 0:19:30.720 --> 0:19:35.760 protected their laws, and with this amendment, the legislature clarified 0:19:35.760 --> 0:19:40.320 their intention. The law isn't about property or truspass or 0:19:40.359 --> 0:19:43.679 the possibility of danger from the flames themselves. It is 0:19:43.720 --> 0:19:49.639 intended to prevent a particular act of intimidation. But in 0:19:49.680 --> 0:19:52.320 their efforts to close off this avenue of attack, they 0:19:52.440 --> 0:19:57.639 accidentally created another. This amendment to the statute also added 0:19:57.720 --> 0:20:01.440 language that the unlaw full burning of a cross shall 0:20:01.480 --> 0:20:05.320 be primaphacia evidence of the intention to intimidate a person 0:20:05.600 --> 0:20:09.879 or group of persons. This language was likely intended to 0:20:09.920 --> 0:20:13.119 get around the defense of whill it was just a prank. 0:20:14.680 --> 0:20:17.520 Burning across is such a heinous act with no other 0:20:17.640 --> 0:20:20.679 purpose than to intimidate that if you can prove it 0:20:20.720 --> 0:20:23.760 was done at all, then the starting assumption is that 0:20:23.800 --> 0:20:28.199 it was done to intimidate. So this amendment to the 0:20:28.240 --> 0:20:31.040 law shifts the burden of proof to the party trying 0:20:31.080 --> 0:20:35.399 to prove otherwise. So when Bury lit that cross in 0:20:35.480 --> 0:20:38.800 Carroll County on August twenty second, nineteen ninety eight, the 0:20:38.880 --> 0:20:42.359 law on the books read, it shall be unlawful for 0:20:42.440 --> 0:20:46.080 any person or persons, with the intent of intimidating any 0:20:46.119 --> 0:20:49.480 person or group of persons, to burn, or cause to 0:20:49.560 --> 0:20:53.520 be burned across on the property of another, a highway 0:20:53.720 --> 0:20:57.199 or other public space. Any person who shall violate this 0:20:57.240 --> 0:21:00.440 section shall be guilty of a classic spelony. Any such 0:21:00.480 --> 0:21:02.919 burning of a cross shall be primophacia evidence of an 0:21:02.960 --> 0:21:07.600 intent to intimidate a person or group of persons, And 0:21:07.680 --> 0:21:11.439 Barry had done that. When the sheriff's lieutenant arrived, he 0:21:11.480 --> 0:21:15.600 asked who lit this cross, and Barry stepped forward and 0:21:15.640 --> 0:21:19.679 claimed responsibility. He was charged in Carroll County and released 0:21:19.720 --> 0:21:21.840 on bond, but he was having a hell of a 0:21:21.880 --> 0:21:25.080 time finding a lawyer. Most lawyers in the area wouldn't 0:21:25.080 --> 0:21:29.920 even return his calls. But then, as in so many 0:21:29.960 --> 0:21:32.600 cases of extremists trying to force their way into the 0:21:32.640 --> 0:21:38.520 conversation about civil rights, the ACLU stepped up without even 0:21:38.560 --> 0:21:43.040 having to be asked. 0:21:42.200 --> 0:21:46.240 Well, I walked into the courthouse. I just looked at him. 0:21:46.560 --> 0:21:50.760 He says, is there something wrong here? And I says, 0:21:51.720 --> 0:21:54.879 you're David Ball. He said yeah. I said you're black. 0:21:55.000 --> 0:21:58.040 He says yeah. I said, are you going to fight 0:21:58.119 --> 0:22:00.760 for me? Are you going to give me one hundred 0:22:00.760 --> 0:22:02.760 and fifty one percent? He says, I'm not going to 0:22:02.800 --> 0:22:05.600 change your views. He says, in my views about you 0:22:05.640 --> 0:22:08.080 aren't the greatest in the world either. He says, but 0:22:08.160 --> 0:22:10.280 I will give you one hundred and fifty one percent. 0:22:10.320 --> 0:22:12.640 You have my word on that, sir. He says, I'll 0:22:12.640 --> 0:22:15.320 defend you to the end. And I says, good enough. 0:22:18.520 --> 0:22:22.560 The Virginia ACLU was no stranger to this strange bedfellow's 0:22:22.600 --> 0:22:26.080 type of attorney client relationship. Just a few years earlier, 0:22:26.160 --> 0:22:28.800 they'd taken on the case of Buddy Hernandez, a clansman 0:22:28.840 --> 0:22:30.879 who was arrested in nineteen eighty nine for handing out 0:22:30.920 --> 0:22:34.840 clan literature while wearing full clan regalia, including a hood 0:22:34.880 --> 0:22:39.080 that covered his face. Like the crossburning law, Virginia's anti 0:22:39.119 --> 0:22:42.080 masking Statute was adopted in nineteen fifty two with the 0:22:42.119 --> 0:22:47.040 explicit intention of curtailing clan activity. The anti masking statute 0:22:47.080 --> 0:22:50.679 was upheld by the Virginia Supreme Court, and the actual 0:22:50.720 --> 0:22:54.040 Supreme Court declined to hear Hernandez's case. In nineteen ninety four, 0:22:56.160 --> 0:23:00.439 ACLU attorney David Baugh went to Batford Barry, and he 0:23:00.480 --> 0:23:05.000 spent years on the case. When the pair first appeared 0:23:05.040 --> 0:23:07.920 in court together, the Richmond Times Dispatch ran the headline 0:23:08.720 --> 0:23:13.800 crowd likely as black defends klansmen. The news stories can 0:23:13.840 --> 0:23:18.160 be a little tough to parse sometimes because our klansman's 0:23:18.240 --> 0:23:22.800 name is black, and the African American attorney representing him 0:23:22.880 --> 0:23:26.439 is being referred to often in these newspapers as a 0:23:26.640 --> 0:23:30.679 black and the case was getting a lot of publicity. 0:23:31.359 --> 0:23:34.040 This tiny town of just twenty seven hundred was suddenly 0:23:34.080 --> 0:23:38.359 swarming with reporters and lawyers. The state Attorney General's office 0:23:38.359 --> 0:23:42.879 sent a team to assist the local prosecutor. Carroll County 0:23:42.880 --> 0:23:46.640 District Court Clerk Christine Beck told the paper, it's going 0:23:46.680 --> 0:23:50.320 to be a circus, and added, I guess some things 0:23:50.359 --> 0:23:53.800 are just fascinating, like the sex lies of the President. 0:23:55.480 --> 0:23:57.640 This would have been right around the time the Star 0:23:57.800 --> 0:24:01.080 report was released to the public, and everyone was just 0:24:01.119 --> 0:24:05.800 in a frenzy about the Monica Lewinsky scandal. The last 0:24:05.880 --> 0:24:08.320 few months of nineteen ninety eight were hectic for Barry. 0:24:09.400 --> 0:24:11.560 Now he was fighting his own case down in Virginia, 0:24:11.760 --> 0:24:14.280 but the four clansmen arrested at the White Bride picnic 0:24:14.280 --> 0:24:18.080 were still fighting their cases at home in Pennsylvania. A 0:24:18.080 --> 0:24:20.399 few weeks after this cross burning, Barry was kicked out 0:24:20.400 --> 0:24:22.480 of the court room during a hearing in Don Penrod's 0:24:22.520 --> 0:24:26.120 case for pointing his rifle at that state trooper, and 0:24:26.200 --> 0:24:28.600 Barry had to appear in court repeatedly in his fight 0:24:28.640 --> 0:24:32.200 to keep his job as constable. He's under more scrutiny 0:24:32.200 --> 0:24:35.520 than ever his local prosecutor, state troopers, and the courts 0:24:35.520 --> 0:24:38.880 in Virginia were just waiting for Barry to make a mistake. 0:24:40.600 --> 0:24:43.080 In March of nineteen ninety nine, a judge in Virginia 0:24:43.160 --> 0:24:46.840 ruled against emotion to dismiss Barry's criminal case, rejecting the 0:24:46.920 --> 0:24:51.119 argument that cross burning was protected First Amendment conduct. A 0:24:51.160 --> 0:24:53.600 few days later, Barry was back in court in Pennsylvania, 0:24:54.160 --> 0:24:56.920 railing against the corrupt judicial system trying to take away 0:24:56.920 --> 0:25:00.639 his job as constable. He told reporter in the hallway 0:25:00.640 --> 0:25:03.080 after the hearing that if they would just let him 0:25:03.160 --> 0:25:06.639 keep the job, he would be too busy working to 0:25:06.720 --> 0:25:10.840 keep up his clan activities. That's not really a great 0:25:10.960 --> 0:25:14.280 argument if you ask me, you know, just let me 0:25:14.359 --> 0:25:17.440 be a cop and I'll be too busy to do crime. 0:25:18.920 --> 0:25:23.240 I don't know that that's very convincing. And while we're 0:25:23.240 --> 0:25:26.440