Speaker 1: Col Zone media.
Speaker 2: In nineteen forty eight, there was a rash of crossburnings
Speaker 2: in Suffolk. Virginia newspapers throughout the late forties and all
Speaker 2: through the fifties assure the reader that there is no
Speaker 2: Ku Klux clan activity in Virginia. Local clan groups had
Speaker 2: more or less died out in the mid forties, and
Speaker 2: Virginia wouldn't really see a rise in widespread organized clan
Speaker 2: activity until the threat of integrated schools whipped aggrieved white
Speaker 2: men back into a frenzy in the fifties. But the
Speaker 2: lack of a clear leadership structure or the formal blessing
Speaker 2: of some grand dragon or imperial wizard in some other
Speaker 2: state didn't seem to deter the one hundred men in
Speaker 2: robes who set fire to a twelve foot cross in
Speaker 2: a peanut field in Nurneville. And whether or not the
Speaker 2: local prosecutor believed that the clan still existed, everyone in
Speaker 2: the South knows what a burning cross means. The third
Speaker 2: one in that neighborhood. In recent months, the local prosecutor
Speaker 2: had simply shrugged, it's not illegal to burn across two
Speaker 2: thousand members of a local peanut workers union approved a
Speaker 2: resolution demanding a response from the Governor and Attorney General, writing,
Speaker 2: we reject the hair splitting thinking of some Commonwealth authorities
Speaker 2: regarding what constitutes violation of the law. The fact remains
Speaker 2: that one hundred white robed persons burned across in the
Speaker 2: field of NH. Bradshaw. Whether this group was the KKK
Speaker 2: or a similar organization is not important. The tactics of intimidation.
Speaker 1: And terrorism are.
Speaker 2: That same year, nineteen forty eight, twin boys, Barry and
Speaker 2: Bruce Black were born in Pennsylvania. Berry didn't burn that
Speaker 2: cross in the peanut field. He was just a baby
Speaker 2: then given some time to grow. Though his name would
Speaker 2: one day become synonymous with cross burning in Virginia, he
Speaker 2: was barely out of diapers when Virginia did finally outlaw
Speaker 2: cross burning in nineteen fifty two, and he was decades
Speaker 2: into his career as a clan leader when he lit
Speaker 2: the cross that would take him all the way to.
Speaker 1: The Supreme Court.
Speaker 2: I'm Molly Conger, and this is weird, little guys. There
Speaker 2: is a story that I've been writing and rewriting for years,
Speaker 2: digging deeper into the past while I wait for the
Speaker 2: future to deliver some kind of ending. I have notebooks
Speaker 2: full of scribbled transcriptions of courtroom testimony, and a hard
Speaker 2: drive full of grainy footage, and folders upon folders labeled
Speaker 2: with men's names, each one containing varying degree of a
Speaker 2: half baked biographical sketch of a man who lit a
Speaker 2: torch one summer night in twenty seventeen. Lately, I'm combing
Speaker 2: back through my notes about the events of August eleventh,
Speaker 2: twenty seventeen, because unless something changes in the next week
Speaker 2: or so, I'll be spending a few days in October
Speaker 2: sitting in my favorite seat at the county courthouse. It's
Speaker 2: the aisle seat in the second row, on the defendant
Speaker 2: side of the bench. I don't know why that one's
Speaker 2: my favorite, but if I can't sit there, this is
Speaker 2: not right. To date, twelve men who march with the
Speaker 2: torch here in Charlottesville seven years ago have been charged
Speaker 2: under a Virginia law that makes it a felony to
Speaker 2: burn an object with the intent to intimidate.
Speaker 1: And I'm going to tell you about some of those men.
Speaker 2: I am there is some real weird little guy behavior
Speaker 2: going on in a lot of their backstories, but not today,
Speaker 2: as always we have to start before the beginning. In
Speaker 2: the year and a half since those charges were first filed,
Speaker 2: I've written the case citation Commonwealth v. Black in my
Speaker 2: little notebook probably one hundred times. Commonwealthy Black was the
Speaker 2: Supreme Court case that held that the original version of
Speaker 2: Virginia's crossburning law was unconstitutional. The law was rewritten in
Speaker 2: response to this challenge, and the current version of the
Speaker 2: statute is what's being used to prosecute the torch marginers.
Speaker 2: So Commonwealthy Black, that's all I really needed to know.
Speaker 2: Some clansmen burned across and he challenged the law, and
Speaker 2: he won, and we changed the law. That's good enough
Speaker 2: to get by. But how many times can you write
Speaker 2: a man's name without bothering to find out who he was?
Speaker 2: So I set out to get a little more context
Speaker 2: on the man who brought the case. But what I
Speaker 2: found wasn't just some boring bit of backstory about constitutional
Speaker 2: law and legislative history.
Speaker 1: I mean, we're definitely going to do some of.
Speaker 2: That, But they found was a complicated story of small
Speaker 2: town bigotry and the people who stand up to it.
Speaker 2: Barry Black was the leader of a clan group in Pennsylvania,
Speaker 2: whose hatred touched the lives of people whose stories are
Speaker 2: worth knowing. This episode is just the first half of
Speaker 2: Barry Black's story, and we won't even get to his
Speaker 2: precedent setting appeal until next week.
Speaker 1: This week, it's.
Speaker 2: Just a strange little stroll through some of the side
Speaker 2: characters in the life of a man who donned a
Speaker 2: pointy hood to infringe on the civil rights of everyone
Speaker 2: around him, but just kept going to court to fight
Speaker 2: for his own. So before we can talk about a
Speaker 2: lit tiki torch on a college campus, we have to
Speaker 2: talk about a fiery cross on a hillside. We have
Speaker 2: to talk about Barry Black, the clansmen who fought the
Speaker 2: law all the way to the Supreme Court and won.
Speaker 2: Barry Elton Black and his twin brother, Bruce, were born
Speaker 2: two months before their mother's seventeenth birthday. Their twenty three
Speaker 2: year old father, also named Bruce, didn't stick around. When
Speaker 2: the boys were two, The nineteen fifty census shows they
Speaker 2: were living with their mother at her parents' home, and
Speaker 2: their father was living a few miles down the road
Speaker 2: as a lodger in an elderly divorcees boarding house. Barry's
Speaker 2: obituary says he was a Vietnam veteran, that he was
Speaker 2: in the Navy. That's the only place I found that information.
Speaker 2: Decades of newspaper articles about his clan hijinks never mention it.
Speaker 2: I will absolutely concede that it is entirely possible that
Speaker 2: he joined the Navy right out of high school and
Speaker 2: maybe was on one of the earliest deployments of the war.
Speaker 2: He was eighteen in nineteen sixty six, so it's possible.
Speaker 2: But by nineteen sixty eight he was too busy going
Speaker 2: to jail to go to war. In the summer of
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty eight, Barry and his brother were caught stripping
Speaker 2: parts of a car in a salvage yard. Two years later,
Speaker 2: Barry was back in jail again, reports Barry, and lacks
Speaker 2: specificity as to exactly why he was in jail in
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy.
Speaker 1: One report at.
Speaker 2: The time says it was a morals charge. Another says
Speaker 2: it was a paternity case. A list of his arrests
Speaker 2: that appeared in an article decades later says he was
Speaker 2: awaiting trial in nineteen seventy on charges of bastardery and fornication.
Speaker 2: Sounds like he might have just been guilty of having
Speaker 2: a good time, but he got himself into some extra
Speaker 2: trouble by escaping from the jail. Barry and two other
Speaker 2: inmates climbed a pipe, crawled through an air vent, got
Speaker 2: into the adjoining courthouse, and escaped by jumping out an
Speaker 2: open window in the judge's chambers, and no one even
Speaker 2: noticed the men were missing until Barry's brother called the
Speaker 2: sheriff to say he'd gotten a call from Barry earlier
Speaker 2: that afternoon and he wanted to know if his brother
Speaker 2: had posted bond The sheriff assured Bruce that no, Barry
Speaker 2: hasn't bonded out. He's still in his cell, but he
Speaker 2: was not. Barry was only free for about six hours
Speaker 2: after this daring jail break. The other two men hid
Speaker 2: out in barns for over a week before being recaptured,
Speaker 2: but a deputy found Barry limping around town later that
Speaker 2: same evening. He'd broken bones in both of his feet
Speaker 2: jumping out of the judge's window. A judge ordered him
Speaker 2: to pay one hundred dollars fine and the medical costs
Speaker 2: in his paternity case, and he got another year for
Speaker 2: the escape. It's not clear what the paternity case entailed,
Speaker 2: and if there is a secret child out there of
Speaker 2: berry Black, I couldn't find any record of it. In
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy one, he went back to jail for a
Speaker 2: burglary of an autopart store, and between stints and jail,
Speaker 2: he married his wife, Judy in nineteen seventy four, and
Speaker 2: they had their first of six children in nineteen seventy five.
Speaker 2: And then he went back to jail in nineteen seventy
Speaker 2: six for stealing a gun from his brother.
Speaker 1: He escaped again, this.
Speaker 2: Time just walking right out the front door of the
Speaker 2: psychiatric hospital the jail had sent him to for observation.
Speaker 2: But he was out again by nineteen seventy seven, when
Speaker 2: he was arrested for trying to buy a car with
Speaker 2: a check from a closed bank account. This time he
Speaker 2: just caught probation, and he was given probation again when
Speaker 2: he was convicted in nineteen eighty six for illegally possessing
Speaker 2: a revolver. And that's all there really was to know
Speaker 2: about berry Black until the late eighties. He had a
Speaker 2: couple of kids, his wife worked as a clerk. He
Speaker 2: drove a truck and after going to jail half a
Speaker 2: dozen times. In his twenties. He mostly stayed out of trouble,
Speaker 2: except for that gun charge in nineteen eighty six, but
Speaker 2: by nineteen eighty nine he's a klegal in his local clan. Now,
Speaker 2: I don't want to sound like I'm being dismissive of
Speaker 2: the Ku Klux Klan as a bunch of silly guys
Speaker 2: in costumes who do live action role playing and who
Speaker 2: would have been better off doing something like joining this
Speaker 2: society for creative anachronism or getting into dungeons and dragons.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I'm in no way trying to minimize the decades and
Speaker 2: decades of vicious racial terror, the violence, the lynchings, the
Speaker 2: campaigns of terror waged in towns across the country for
Speaker 2: over a century. The clan was very real. It was
Speaker 2: very dangerous. People died, But oh my god, do they
Speaker 2: make it hard to take them seriously with their special
Speaker 2: clan vocabulary. A klegal that's spelled like beagle, but with
Speaker 2: a kl upfront. It's an official clan office that's basically
Speaker 2: just the local recruiter. So in nineteen eighty nine, Barry
Speaker 2: was responsible for recruiting new members to his local clan
Speaker 2: chapter and at this point he's still a member of
Speaker 2: the Invisible Empire of the ku Klux Klan. So the
Speaker 2: Invisible Empire is the overarching national organization with an Imperial
Speaker 2: Wizard overseeing it. The Empire is subdivided into realms by state,
Speaker 2: and each realm has a Grand Dragon, and within each
Speaker 2: realm there are provinces. Each one is made up of,
Speaker 2: however many counties the Grand Dragon sees fit to assign
Speaker 2: the Grand Titan who oversees them. The Clan had two
Speaker 2: main eras, so first in the Reconstruction era right after
Speaker 2: the Civil War, and then it sort of died out,
Speaker 2: and then it had a second era when it was
Speaker 2: revived in nineteen fifteen. And the second era of the
Speaker 2: clan kept a lot of the goofy nineteenth century made
Speaker 2: up words, but it seems like they lost some of
Speaker 2: the finer subdivisions. It used to be that the Grand
Speaker 2: Titan could appoint a Grand Giant, who could in turn
Speaker 2: a point henchmen called goblins. I don't think they kept
Speaker 2: the goblins the second time around, which just seems like
Speaker 2: a huge loss, you know.
Speaker 1: But anyway, so.
Speaker 2: By nineteen ninety, Barry is the Grand Titan of western Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2: Sylvania has a Grand Dragon, and the Grand Dragon appoints
Speaker 2: the Grand Titans, and Bury's the Grand Titan. A nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety one report on clan activity in the United States
Speaker 2: estimates nationwide membership at about four to five thousand clansmen,
Speaker 2: with an estimated three hundred members in Pennsylvania and with
Speaker 2: most of that activity being in the western half of
Speaker 2: the state in Barry's province. Under Barry's leadership, the clan
Speaker 2: was growing again in western Pennsylvania, and he was very active,
Speaker 2: holding multiple marches and little towns all over the state
Speaker 2: every year, and nobody wanted it. Nobody's excited to see
Speaker 2: the clan. In January of nineteen ninety one, they marched
Speaker 2: in Westchester, Pennsylvania to protest Martin Luther King Junior Day.
Speaker 2: In September of nineteen ninety one, Barry held a march
Speaker 2: in his own hometown of Carmichael's, Pennsylvania. The town fought
Speaker 2: tooth and nail to prevent it, but he was to
Speaker 2: turn to put on a show and even tried to
Speaker 2: rope the ACLU into forcing the town to give him
Speaker 2: a permit. Ultimately, the tiny town resigned themselves to this
Speaker 2: clan invasion, and they didn't make Barry take them to court.
Speaker 2: The town closed down every shop and restaurant that day
Speaker 2: out of protest, and residents lined the streets to watch
Speaker 2: a few dozen men walk about half a mile with
Speaker 2: Barry leading them a chance of what do we want
Speaker 2: white power?
Speaker 1: When do we want it now? Scoofy.
Speaker 2: The Sener Daily Times ran a story the next day
Speaker 2: with the headline forty Clan members stage march in depressed town.
Speaker 2: Even after reading the article, it's not actually clear whether
Speaker 2: the paper meant the town was depressed, like economically. It
Speaker 2: kind of just sounds like the town was just depressed
Speaker 2: at having to look at the clan. Every resident quoted
Speaker 2: in the paper sounded very unimpressed when man told the paper,
Speaker 2: I think they are a joke, and added Hitler tried
Speaker 2: this once and it didn't work, did it. Barry told
Speaker 2: the paper that his marches weren't a racial thing, but
Speaker 2: that it was about bringing white people together to fight
Speaker 2: for their civil rights and against what he called the
Speaker 2: deterioration of our race. He just wanted to raise awareness
Speaker 2: about important issues, like how the banking system is controlled
Speaker 2: by a Jewish conspiracy and how the government is giving
Speaker 2: away white men's rights to black people and Asians. I
Speaker 2: don't know what that means, giving them away, like there's
Speaker 2: only a set number of them. Two months later, in
Speaker 2: November of nineteen ninety one, Very Black was elected to
Speaker 2: the office of constable in Johnstown, Pennsylvania's twenty first ward.
Speaker 2: The office of constable is kind of a holdover from
Speaker 2: the olden days. It's kind of a cop, but not really.
Speaker 2: Their function varies from state to state, with powers ranging
Speaker 2: from largely ceremonial to full policing authority. In Rhode Island,
Speaker 2: constables aren't allowed to carry guns. In Vermont, one of
Speaker 2: the main roles of the constable is the destruction of
Speaker 2: dangerous dogs. So I guess there are guys in Vermont
Speaker 2: running for the office of dog murderer. And in Pennsylvania
Speaker 2: the office has undergone some reform in the last few decades,
Speaker 2: but in the nineties the constable's duties were mainly prisoner
Speaker 2: transportation and process service. But it's an elected office, and
Speaker 2: the office he won was for constable in a single
Speaker 2: ward of a borough of a county, and he was
Speaker 2: able to secure a victory without even really running. He
Speaker 2: won with just a few dozen ride in votes because
Speaker 2: no one was running. I looked up some recent voter
Speaker 2: turnout stats for Cambria County, Pennsylvania, and Johnstown's twenty first
Speaker 2: ward had four hundred and four registered voters in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty three, and only one hundred and seven of them
Speaker 2: voted in the November twenty twenty three election. So it's
Speaker 2: not hard to imagine someone mounting a successful write in
Speaker 2: campaign by buying a few rounds at the bar. But
Speaker 2: it wasn't meant to be. There's nothing I can find
Speaker 2: in any local news from that time that indicates there
Speaker 2: was any kind of specific issue. The Constable of the
Speaker 2: twenty first ward of the Borough of a County probably
Speaker 2: doesn't have enough to do to really do much damage.
Speaker 2: But a few months in too Barry's six year term
Speaker 2: as constable, Cambria County District Attorney Timothy Creeney noticed that
Speaker 2: they had a klansman serving papers for the court. How
Speaker 2: much he could really do about that, though it's not
Speaker 2: against the rules to be in the clan, but Barry
Speaker 2: did have a pretty long rap sheet. He'd been arrested
Speaker 2: for burglary, he'd escaped from jail twice, and he had
Speaker 2: a conviction for illegal possession of a firearm, so Creaney
Speaker 2: filed a petition to have Bear he removed from office
Speaker 2: on the grounds that Pennsylvania doesn't allow people convicted of
Speaker 2: what are called infamous crimes to hold positions of public trust.
Speaker 2: The judge agreed, and Barry was ordered by the court
Speaker 2: to cease and desist his duties of constable in April
Speaker 2: of nineteen ninety two, just a few months after taking office.
Speaker 2: When he filed his appeal a month later, he walked
Speaker 2: the papers into the courthouse himself, dressed in a white robe,
Speaker 2: a pointy white cap, a green cape, and the kind
Speaker 2: of sunglasses my grandmother wore when I was a kid.
Speaker 2: A dozen robed klansmen waited for him outside the courthouse,
Speaker 2: and he entered the courtroom with his personal bodyguard, a
Speaker 2: man in fatigues and a black beret. He was no
Speaker 2: longer just a legal or a grand Titan. Barry was
Speaker 2: calling himself the Grand Dragon.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: Over the next few months, Barry staged several protests of
Speaker 2: what he called this violation of his civil rights, and
Speaker 2: he appealed at all the way to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
Speaker 2: In October of nineteen ninety four, that court upheld the decision.
Speaker 2: They agreed that his criminal history made him ineligible for
Speaker 2: the office of constable. That same month, several local papers
Speaker 2: quoted Barry on his plans to hold a Clan rally
Speaker 2: in opposition to a Halloween parade. He didn't give the
Speaker 2: quotes to the paper himself, but they were his words
Speaker 2: and in his voice.
Speaker 1: See, in the pre internet days, you.
Speaker 2: Couldn't have a website, right, so groups like the Clan
Speaker 2: would distribute flyers with a phone number on them, and
Speaker 2: nobody answers that phone when you call, but you get
Speaker 2: a pre recorded message with information about becoming a member,
Speaker 2: upcoming events, announcements, or just racist propaganda. And the Dial
Speaker 2: of Clan hotline that month offered a recorded statement from
Speaker 2: Barry Black stating that for security reasons, the time and
Speaker 2: exact location will be announced with twelve hours notice, saying
Speaker 2: we have gone to modern technology.
Speaker 1: We use fax machines, etc.
Speaker 2: But that there would be an event that month in
Speaker 2: protest of a York Pennsylvania area Halloween celebration because, as
Speaker 2: a Christian organization, the Klan felt that Halloween was satanic.
Speaker 2: Just imagine for a second, it's nineteen ninety four, and
Speaker 2: you get a fax from your local clig Grap that
Speaker 2: the nighthawks are needed at the Satanic Halloween parade to
Speaker 2: enforce white Christian morals.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's baffling, baffling.
Speaker 2: Klig Grap is the title for the clan secretary, and
Speaker 2: the nighthawks are the security cards. So I guess you
Speaker 2: know the Kliggrap is going to fax the nighthawks. A
Speaker 2: few days later, after the local paper ran a story
Speaker 2: about a planned counter demonstration, Barry told the paper that
Speaker 2: he had no such plans and he never said anything
Speaker 2: like that. He was not planning to protest the Halloween parade.
Speaker 2: He said that was just a rumor started by fellow
Speaker 2: clansman Roy franks Kauser, the leader of a splinter group
Speaker 2: called the White Unity Party. Barry explained to the reporter
Speaker 2: that if frank Kauser wanted the White Unity Party to
Speaker 2: be allowed to join Barry's new clan organization, the Keystone
Speaker 2: Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, then frank Kauser would
Speaker 2: need to accept that he didn't have Barry's permission to
Speaker 2: be doing things like holding a press conference about Halloween
Speaker 2: parades and Roy Frankhauser is I think another candidate for
Speaker 2: his own episode. He'd been acquitted earlier that year for
Speaker 2: stabbing a man with a pocket knife at a clan conference,
Speaker 2: and at one point claimed to be a government informant,
Speaker 2: although agents from the FBI and the ATF denied that
Speaker 2: on various occasions, sometimes under oath. But I'm not sold.
Speaker 2: He was convicted of obstruction of justice while working for
Speaker 2: Lyndon LaRouche in the nineteen eighties, got convicted of obstruction
Speaker 2: again in a case involving desecration of synagogues in Massachusetts
Speaker 2: in the nineties, and in twenty twenty one, someone made
Speaker 2: an uncited edit to his Wikipedia page claiming that his
Speaker 2: hometown of Reading, Pennsylvania, celebrated his death by holding a parade.
Speaker 2: I'll have to dig around on that. I hope it's true,
Speaker 2: but I have a feeling it's not. But in the
Speaker 2: nineties Roy Frankauser was beefing with Barry, And it's hard
Speaker 2: to say with any kind of certainty, but I wonder
Speaker 2: if it was Frankhauser who met with the FBI in
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety four. Barry's FBI file has a few heavily
Speaker 2: redacted pages about an aspiring clan informant who reported that
Speaker 2: he was present at a clan meeting when Barry Black
Speaker 2: said the Klan had a plan to deal harshly with traitors.
Speaker 2: The informant told the FBI that Barry Black had automatic
Speaker 2: weapons in hand grades and to their credit, the FBI
Speaker 2: seems to have taken the tip pretty seriously, and in
Speaker 2: the summer of nineteen ninety four, they opened a domestic
Speaker 2: terrorism investigation into Barry Black. After only a week, though
Speaker 2: the Pittsburgh Field Office downgraded and then ultimately closed the investigation,
Speaker 2: fighting the tipsters quote inability to factually corroborate any of
Speaker 2: his allegations to make them believable.
Speaker 1: So Barry is keeping pretty busy.
Speaker 2: Through the nineties with his new clan group. He's got
Speaker 2: barades to lead and picnics to attend, and he's holding
Speaker 2: regular cross burnings. And by the late nineties, these crossburnings
Speaker 2: are happening across the street from the Casanova Lounge, which
Speaker 2: was Somerset County, Pennsylvania's only gay bar. In its brief
Speaker 2: four years in operation, the bar was the site of
Speaker 2: relentless protests from neighbors. A self proclaimed Anabaptist Bishop and
Speaker 2: the Clan, as well as a target for shotgun blasts
Speaker 2: and Molotov cocktails. Patricia and Merrik Kramer, a straight couple
Speaker 2: in their fifties with grown children, bought an old tavern
Speaker 2: on Route nine eighty five in nineteen ninety five. They
Speaker 2: ran it as a restaurant for two years before deciding
Speaker 2: in January of nineteen ninety seven to start catering to
Speaker 2: gay clientel. It was the only such establishment for Miles
Speaker 2: and Miles. Patricia pat to her friends, and I'd like
Speaker 2: to be Pat's friend said. They had customers drive in
Speaker 2: from as far as Maryland and West Virginia for their
Speaker 2: tea dances, a kind of gay singles event whose name
Speaker 2: is the legacy of an era when it was illegal
Speaker 2: to sell alcohol to known homosexuals. In nineteen ninety seven,
Speaker 2: pat Kragmer told a reporter from the Washington Blade, we
Speaker 2: do nothing improper here. We have dancing, We served dinner
Speaker 2: from four to six pm. I do all the cooking.
Speaker 2: The DC based LGBT newspaper had reached out to the
Speaker 2: Kramers after the first time a shotgun was fired through
Speaker 2: the front door, injuring three patrons. And that's when Street
Speaker 2: preacher Ron McCrae started showing up. If you're old enough
Speaker 2: to have been politically aware in the early Obama years,
Speaker 2: this may not be the first time you've heard of
Speaker 2: Ron McCrae. In two thousand and eight, and now disbarred
Speaker 2: attorney named Philip Burg filed a lawsuit alleging that Barack
Speaker 2: Obama could not legally become the president because he had
Speaker 2: been born in Kenya. A judge threw it out, calling
Speaker 2: it frivolous and not worthy of discussion, which it was,
Speaker 2: but that's never stopped a conspiracy theorist. In December of
Speaker 2: two thousand and eight, Berg filed a motion for an
Speaker 2: emergency injunction to stop the certification of the election. In
Speaker 2: his ninety six page filing, Ron McCrae's name appears over
Speaker 2: one hundred times. So if you have any familiarity at
Speaker 2: all with the birthrism conspiracy, you've probably seen some vaguely
Speaker 2: sourced false claim that Obama's Kenyan grandmother, a woman named Sarah,
Speaker 2: who was his father's stepmother, was there in the room
Speaker 2: when he was born in Mombasa. It's not true. To
Speaker 2: be clear, Barack Obama was not born in Mombasa, but
Speaker 2: the claim originated from a selectively edited recording of a
Speaker 2: phone call Ron McCrae had with her via a translator
Speaker 2: in October two thousand and eight, and McCray was an
Speaker 2: enthusiastic participant in this conspiracy, providing a sworn affidavit about
Speaker 2: the phone call for Berg's lawsuit. The Supreme Court denied
Speaker 2: Berg's petition without comment, but mccray's hoax was now part
Speaker 2: of this official record, and conspiracy theorists can easily brush
Speaker 2: off silly complications, like the fact that the lawsuit was
Speaker 2: dismissed as being utterly without merit. Once a lie is born,
Speaker 2: it can become unkillable. The White House plumber himself, g.
Speaker 2: Gordon Liddy, repeated that same lie a year later on
Speaker 2: an episode of Hardball with Chris Matthews, conveniently blurring the
Speaker 2: facts by claiming that the sworn statement was from Sarah
Speaker 2: Obama herself rather than from McCrae, who was merely repeating
Speaker 2: what he claimed she said to him.
Speaker 3: The preponderance of the evidence is as follows. You've got
Speaker 3: a deposition, which is a sworn statement from the step
Speaker 3: grandmother who says I was present and saw him born
Speaker 3: in Mombasa.
Speaker 2: CanYa, before he gave birth to one of Berthaism's most
Speaker 2: stubborn lies. Ronnie Marcus McCrae grew up in Texas and
Speaker 2: claims to have been a police officer before turning to
Speaker 2: street preaching in his thirties, but I can't find any
Speaker 2: particular evidence beyond his own claims that he was ever
Speaker 2: a cop. By the late nineteen eighties, he was in
Speaker 2: western Pennsylvania preaching the Word of God to unwilling congregants
Speaker 2: on street corners, who was arrested a handful of times
Speaker 2: for violating noise ordinances or for disorderly conduct, And when
Speaker 2: he sued the authorities in Johnstown, Pennsylvania nineteen ninety one
Speaker 2: for violating his rights, they paid him seventy five hundred
Speaker 2: dollars to settle. And that seems to have been the
Speaker 2: origin of mccray's street preacher's fellowship, who was a fairly
Speaker 2: litigious collective of amateur street preachers who would scream Bible
Speaker 2: verses on street corners until the police would intervene, and
Speaker 2: then they would sue. And that seems like what he
Speaker 2: was trying to do to Patricia Kramer and her customers
Speaker 2: outside Casanova almost every weekend.
Speaker 1: For four years.
Speaker 2: Ron McCrae was the loudest and most persistent opponent to
Speaker 2: the gay bar, but he was far from the only one.
Speaker 2: Don and Lisa Penrod lived less than a mile away
Speaker 2: on a plot of land they'd inherited from Don's family.
Speaker 2: At a town meeting shortly after the bar opened, the
Speaker 2: Penrods were among residents complaining about lewd and filthy literature
Speaker 2: found in the neighborhood. Pat Kramer tried to explain that no,
Speaker 2: those are flyers advertising a glowstick party, saying it's nothing provocative.
Speaker 2: We don't run a dirty bar. After someone fired a
Speaker 2: shotgun through the door of the crowded bar one night
Speaker 2: in March of nineteen ninety seven, Don Penrod told the
Speaker 2: local paper that actually he'd forgotten to mention this before,
Speaker 2: but a few days before that happened. Actually, something bad
Speaker 2: happened to him too. Someone had spray painted gay haters
Speaker 2: you will all die Love Pat on his garage. The
Speaker 2: paper doesn't include a photo of this vandalism or even
Speaker 2: mention any claim that a photo might exist. In separate
Speaker 2: town meetings that spring, Don Penrod claimed that he found
Speaker 2: hardcore gay pornography on his front lawn, and his wife,
Speaker 2: Lisa Penrod, claimed that their child found an abandoned sex
Speaker 2: toy while playing outside. In both instances, the Penrods demand
Speaker 2: to know how they're supposed to explain this perversion to
Speaker 2: a child. I can find no evidence of anyone, aside
Speaker 2: from the Penrods themselves elves, who ever made any claim
Speaker 2: to have seen either of these things. In April, the
Speaker 2: Penrods and their neighbors, who were disgusted at the idea
Speaker 2: of even having to drive on a road that shared
Speaker 2: a name with a den of sin, successfully petitioned to
Speaker 2: have the town renamed Casanova Road to Hemlock Road. In
Speaker 2: May of nineteen ninety seven, the Penrods invited the clan
Speaker 2: over Barry Black's Keystone Knights, used the Penrod's farm as
Speaker 2: a staging area to park down their robes, and then
Speaker 2: marched down the street to the bar. They spent an
Speaker 2: afternoon hollering at the empty establishment, it's a bar, nobody's
Speaker 2: there in the middle of the afternoon, and then they
Speaker 2: retired to the Penrod's property for a cross burning. Patrons
Speaker 2: at the bar would have been able to see the
Speaker 2: glow from the flames when they pulled into the parking
Speaker 2: lot that Saturday night. Ron McCrae kept up his antics
Speaker 2: outside Casanova, but Barry had bigger things going on. Towards
Speaker 2: the end of nineteen ninety seve he got elected constable again.
Speaker 1: Just as he had in nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 2: He managed to secure a victory in Johnstown's twenty first
Speaker 2: ward on write in votes alone. This time though he
Speaker 2: got one. He got one vote. Nobody was running, and
Speaker 2: I guess nobody else voted, and so he won with one.
Speaker 1: And I can't find.
Speaker 2: Any reporting on whether or not he was ever asked
Speaker 2: outright if that one vote was his own, But I
Speaker 2: think it's a safe bet. I have to wonder if
Speaker 2: it was a joke. I mean, was he having a
Speaker 2: private joke with himself or was a friend joking about
Speaker 2: how he had done it last time? Did he really
Speaker 2: think it would work a second time?
Speaker 1: And if he did do this himself, why didn't he ask.
Speaker 2: Anyone else to do it with him? Was he surprised
Speaker 2: when he found out he was the constable again?
Speaker 1: There's really no to know.
Speaker 2: So he's back in the saddle as constable, and it
Speaker 2: seems like nobody noticed. It must not be a very
Speaker 2: demanding job if no one noticed that there were no
Speaker 2: candidates at all for the office, and no one said
Speaker 2: a word when a guy who'd been ordered by the
Speaker 2: State Supreme Court to vacate the position just unilaterally voted
Speaker 2: himself back in. There it was, and in nineteen ninety eight,
Speaker 2: Casanova is entering its second year as Somerset County's only
Speaker 2: gay bar, and things are getting worse. There was another
Speaker 2: crossburning across the street. They got bomb threats. Ron McRae
Speaker 2: vowed to be out there every Friday and Saturday night
Speaker 2: until the bar was forced to shut down. The Cramers
Speaker 2: were getting death threats in the mail. The front windows
Speaker 2: were smashed out with huge rocks thrown from a passing car,
Speaker 2: but the Kramers weren't going to lie down and take it.
Speaker 2: Speaking later to Professor tu for his essay, blame it
Speaker 2: on the Casanova good scenery and sodomy in rural southwestern Pennsylvania,
Speaker 2: pat said, McCray made a pledge to these neighbors that
Speaker 2: he would have us closed in a week. Well that
Speaker 2: never happened. Never happened because McCrae didn't know who I was,
Speaker 2: and the Kramers weren't alone. Some neighbors were on their side,
Speaker 2: even forming a group called Network of Neighbors United against
Speaker 2: Hate Crimes. And I know you're probably trying to spell
Speaker 2: that out in your mind to see if that makes
Speaker 2: some kind of initialism.
Speaker 1: It doesn't.
Speaker 2: It's an NUA HC. It doesn't spell anything. And while
Speaker 2: the local gay community in Somerset County was pretty small,
Speaker 2: the gay community in cities like Pittsburgh and DC you
Speaker 2: were rooting for them. A group of gay men from
Speaker 2: Pittsburgh rented a bus to come out to Somerset County
Speaker 2: for a theme night. They called it burn in Hell Night,
Speaker 2: poking fun at the screaming preacher in the parking lot
Speaker 2: who was always telling them that's where they were heading.
Speaker 2: In March of nineteen ninety eight, a DC based group
Speaker 2: called the Lesbian Avengers drove three hours to show their
Speaker 2: support for Casanova. Washington City Paper reporter Amanda Ripley joined
Speaker 2: them for the trip. The Avengers danced, drank, mingled, and
Speaker 2: performed some comedic skits for patrons at the bar. Pat Kramer,
Speaker 2: that straight, married woman in her fifties who ran the bar, said,
Speaker 2: I thought that the girls were just wonderful, we loved them,
Speaker 2: and added even some heterosexuals offered them to stay in
Speaker 2: their homes in the future. And Pat beamed as she
Speaker 2: told these girls from out of town that a lot
Speaker 2: of her bar's patrons just call her mother. I've always
Speaker 2: wanted a large family, she explained. Pat's own daughter had
Speaker 2: died a few years earlier after contracting HIV from a
Speaker 2: blood transfusion, and now here she is with this gay
Speaker 2: bar full of chosen family. I wonder it doesn't say,
Speaker 2: but I wonder if it was at her daughter's bedside
Speaker 2: that she first came to see the importance of queer community.
Speaker 2: Her daughter had been infected by a blood transfusion, but
Speaker 2: I have to imagine Pat Kramer met patients and caregivers
Speaker 2: and grieving partners there on the AIDS ward, and she
Speaker 2: got a much more intimate look at who gay people
Speaker 2: really were than most straight suburban women were getting in
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety. Before they left DC, on the day of
Speaker 2: their visit to Somerset County, the Lesbian Avengers all agreed
Speaker 2: on the rules of engagement. They were headed up there
Speaker 2: to support Casanova, and things are different out in the country.
Speaker 2: They didn't want to make things worse for the gay
Speaker 2: people who lived there, and they really didn't want to
Speaker 2: end up in the county jail. So the rules were
Speaker 2: no cussing, no taking off your top. On the drive up,
Speaker 2: their lawyer, Kathy reminded them again to quote resist the
Speaker 2: urge to strip down an arm wrestle. This isn't DC,
Speaker 2: So they were on their best behavior when they got there.
Speaker 2: They ignored Ron McCray and the other protesters when they
Speaker 2: swarmed the women in the parking lot, calling them trash
Speaker 2: and wicked and failures as women, and telling them they
Speaker 2: would never find husbands.
Speaker 1: And that they would burn in hell.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure one of those things really bothered them,
Speaker 2: but they just walked into the bar and they had
Speaker 2: a great time. Ripley's article describes mccray's teenage sons standing
Speaker 2: silently in the parking lot next to his father, holding
Speaker 2: a sign that read Casanova customers, child molesters, strippers, whores,
Speaker 2: cross dressers, prostitutes, sodomites, five drunkards, and a handful of wackos.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure which of McCrae's sons that would have been,
Speaker 2: but I don't think it was the one who would
Speaker 2: later get arrested for inappropriate sexual contact with a lot
Speaker 2: of underage girls. And when the Avengers walked out into
Speaker 2: the parking lot lefter one, Am McCray was still there,
Speaker 2: just as they did every weekend. The protesters were there
Speaker 2: in the parking lot, and they surrounded patrons trying to
Speaker 2: leave the bar. They screamed and threatened and blocked them
Speaker 2: from getting to their van. One protester got right in
Speaker 2: the face of Beth Armitage, a member of the Lesbian Avengers,
Speaker 2: and said, you never know, this night might be her last.
Speaker 1: But they were prepared for this.
Speaker 2: The Lesbian Avengers were no strangers to confrontation. In fact,
Speaker 2: they reveled in it. They were only on their best
Speaker 2: behavior that night for everyone else's sake. They kept their
Speaker 2: heads down and refused to engage on their way into
Speaker 2: the bar earlier that evening, but now they couldn't resist.
Speaker 2: They promised they weren't going to make a scene, they
Speaker 2: weren't going to engage, But it was cold and late,
Speaker 2: and these men screaming slurs at them were keeping them
Speaker 2: from the warmth of their van. So they formed a
Speaker 2: semicircle and began to chant the Lesbian Avengers are fire eaters.
Speaker 2: In September of nineteen ninety two, Hattie May Cohens, a
Speaker 2: black lesbian, and her roommate Brian Mock, a white gay
Speaker 2: man with an intellectual disability, were burned alive in their
Speaker 2: home in Oregon after Neo Nazi's Skinheads through Molotov cocktails
Speaker 2: through the windows of her apartment. A month later, at
Speaker 2: a vigil for Cohens and Mock in New York, the
Speaker 2: Lesbian Avengers ate fire for the first time. The fire
Speaker 2: will not consume us. We take it and make it
Speaker 2: our own. Their lawyer had pleaded with them on the
Speaker 2: drive up not to do this tonight. Not here they
Speaker 2: could get charged with public disturbed and this wasn't a
Speaker 2: friendly place to have to fight a charge. But here
Speaker 2: they were, in the snow being told that they would burn.
Speaker 2: So Ron McCrae got to see those lesbians eat the fire.
Speaker 2: He was always threatening people with the Ku Klux Klan
Speaker 2: with their burning crosses, and the skinheads with their Molotov cocktails,
Speaker 2: and the street preachers with their threats of the fires
Speaker 2: of hell. They're always surprised when a bitch burns back.
Speaker 2: Barry's Clan group had staged protests directly outside Kasanova in
Speaker 2: May of nineteen ninety seven, but in July of nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety eight, he assured the Kramers that the clan's presence
Speaker 2: in the area had nothing to do with the bar,
Speaker 2: and nothing to do with the fact that the bar's owner,
Speaker 2: Pat Kramer, had just returned from a trip.
Speaker 1: To Washington, d c.
Speaker 2: Where she had testified in front of the Senate Judiciary
Speaker 2: Committee in a hearing on hate crimes legislation. No, it
Speaker 2: had nothing to do with that. The clan was just
Speaker 2: in the neighborhood for an entirely unrelated cross burning. Don
Speaker 2: and Lisa Penrod, that couple who'd been active in the
Speaker 2: protest against the bar's presence in the town, owned a
Speaker 2: little bit of land across the street, and they invited
Speaker 2: the clan to have a picnic on their property. Their
Speaker 2: farm had been the site of previous clan rallies and
Speaker 2: cross burnings, and on this July afternoon they'd be hosting
Speaker 2: the clan's White Pride Day picnic. The picnic did not
Speaker 2: go well. I'll go ahead and spoil it. One local
Speaker 2: paper ran the headline KKK picnic host arrested the two
Speaker 2: day affair was announced two weeks ahead of the event.
Speaker 2: Local residents who opposed the clan held their own competing picnic,
Speaker 2: calling it the Unity Picnic, at the Laurel Trinity Lutheran
Speaker 2: Church a few miles away. The Pittsburgh Post Gazette reported
Speaker 2: them Ron McCray himself stopped by the Unity picnic. He'd
Speaker 2: sent the church a letter denouncing their pastor of the
Speaker 2: week before and accusing members of the congregation of a
Speaker 2: variety of sexual sins. But even Ron McCrae hated the clan.
Speaker 2: I'm not totally sure why he hated the clan, to
Speaker 2: be honest. I mean, his own religious beliefs included the
Speaker 2: idea that sex outside your own race is within the
Speaker 2: biblical definition of the sin of fornication. So it's not
Speaker 2: like he's not racist. But nevertheless, he apparently enjoyed the picnic.
Speaker 2: About one hundred and fifty people attended, and the local
Speaker 2: paper reported that dinner was served potluck style, and speeches
Speaker 2: were given by various state and local civil rights organizations.
Speaker 2: Over at the clan picnic, the police were keeping an
Speaker 2: eye on the Penrod farm, specifically on Barry Black. Barry
Speaker 2: would later explain to a reporter that the reason his
Speaker 2: family friendly picnic was crawling with burly tattooed clansmen with
Speaker 2: pump action riot shotguns is that they were worried that
Speaker 2: the people from the gay bar would come bother them
Speaker 2: and just a little more clan vocabulary. Those security guards
Speaker 2: are the Nighthawks. And while these armed guards were under
Speaker 2: strict orders to prevent media or cameras of any kind
Speaker 2: really from entering the property, Barry invited Dennis Roddy, a
Speaker 2: reporter from the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, into the picnic for
Speaker 2: a little tour. And Barry was just so happy to
Speaker 2: show off his event to this reporter from the big city,
Speaker 2: and he made sure to put it on the record
Speaker 2: that there was absolutely no reason to worry about any
Speaker 2: lawlessness going on at the picnic. Not only did the
Speaker 2: Klan count many cops from a variety of counties among
Speaker 2: their membership, Barry himself was in law enforcement. Nobody seemed
Speaker 2: to have noticed up until this point that Barry was
Speaker 2: the constable again, but here he is bragging about it
Speaker 2: to a reporter, and that's going to bite him in
Speaker 2: the ass. Later sometime that afternoon, just as it was
Speaker 2: about time to start setting up the cross that they
Speaker 2: were going to burn.
Speaker 1: When the sun went down, the nighthawks saw something.
Speaker 2: State Police had made no secret of the fact that
Speaker 2: they were increasing their presence in the area that day,
Speaker 2: just as a precaution. They didn't want any chance of
Speaker 2: these competing picnics and countering one another. But in addition
Speaker 2: to their visible presence in the area, the State police
Speaker 2: had gotten permission from the Penrod's next door neighbor to
Speaker 2: be on their property, and from that neighboring property, an
Speaker 2: undercover state trooper was perched in a tree with a
Speaker 2: telephoto lens. They were acting on a tip that Barry
Speaker 2: was once again illegally in possession of a firearm, and
Speaker 2: they wanted to see if they could catch a glimpse
Speaker 2: of him handling a gun. It doesn't sound like they
Speaker 2: ever did catch Barry holding a gun, but almost everyone
Speaker 2: else was armed to the absolute tea, so when the
Speaker 2: nighthawks caught a glimpse of a guy hiding in the
Speaker 2: tree line at the edge of the property, they bolted
Speaker 2: for him. State Trooper George Emig would later testify that
Speaker 2: he was sitting up in that tree on the neighbor's
Speaker 2: property when about ten picnic attendees rushed over to the
Speaker 2: fence line. He identified himself to the armed men as
Speaker 2: a state trooper, and he explained that he had the
Speaker 2: neighbor's permission to be on their property. He said it
Speaker 2: was at that point that Don Penrod pointed the rifle
Speaker 2: at him and said, you're dead. State Police Sergeant George
Speaker 2: Bivins arrived on the scene almost immediately. He'd seen the
Speaker 2: group moving towards Emig's position, and he testified that he'd
Speaker 2: heard Emig trying to explain to the men that he
Speaker 2: was a police officer, and then Bivins heard Ronald Bendix,
Speaker 2: one of the nighthawks, reply that he didn't care and
Speaker 2: they were going to kill him anyway. It was at
Speaker 2: this point that Bivins drew his own weapon and the
Speaker 2: klansmen scattered. And now now the state police had a
Speaker 2: reason to enter the Penrod property before, they were keeping
Speaker 2: it at the fence line, but now they're giving chase.
Speaker 2: Michael Abraham was arrested inside the picnic tent. Ronald Bendix
Speaker 2: was found hiding under a blanket, and Adam Moyer was
Speaker 2: also taken into custody. But it doesn't say where he
Speaker 2: was hiding. Don Penrod was nowhere to be found that afternoon,
Speaker 2: but he was arrested a week later when the police
Speaker 2: searched his home. The police confiscated several shotguns, a pistol,
Speaker 2: a ceremonial clan sword, a Tommy gun, and a bulletproof vest.
Speaker 2: But the picnic wasn't canceled. Three members had been carted
Speaker 2: off to jail, but the show must go on and
Speaker 2: that cross wasn't going to burn itself. A few months later,
Speaker 2: Barry's lawyer was in court arguing for the return of
Speaker 2: those seized items. I'm not quite sure what the legal
Speaker 2: strategy is here, Like, I don't know if you have
Speaker 2: legal standing as the guest at a picnic to challenge
Speaker 2: the search and seizure of someone else's property. And the
Speaker 2: sword was definitely Barry's, but he absolutely was not claiming
Speaker 2: ownership of the submachine gun. But the judge did order
Speaker 2: the police to return Barry's ceremonial clan sword, but they
Speaker 2: kept the guns. It took a year to sort out,
Speaker 2: but in the end Don Penrod got six months for
Speaker 2: terroristic threats, followed by two years of supervision for the assault.
Speaker 2: Stephen Bedecks got fourteen months for the assault and terroristic threats,
Speaker 2: Michael Abraham got nine months for simple assault, and Adam
Speaker 2: Moyer was acquitted on all accounts. One article notes that
Speaker 2: Betecks got more time than the others because at the
Speaker 2: time of the incident he was out on parole for
Speaker 2: a conviction in a case related to his role in
Speaker 2: a cocaine trafficking ring that would bring drugs down from
Speaker 2: New York City and distribute them in the Lehigh Valley area.
Speaker 2: In twenty twelve, he was the president of his local
Speaker 2: chapter of the Pagan's Motorcycle Club when he was federally
Speaker 2: indicted for cocaine trafficking again. He spent five years in
Speaker 2: prison and died shortly after his release. But back to Barry.
Speaker 2: After those three Nighthawks were arrested, Don Penrod used his
Speaker 2: own property as collateral to bail out Abraham and Moyer.
Speaker 2: Bendix was held without bond due to the prole violation,
Speaker 2: and when Penrod himself was arrested a few days after
Speaker 2: the picnic, Barry walked into the jail with a ten
Speaker 2: thousand dollars cashier's check in hand to bail him out.
Speaker 2: That same week, Barry filed a criminal and civil complaint
Speaker 2: against state Police Sergeant Bivins, the trooper who drew his
Speaker 2: gun on the klansmen who were pointing their guns at
Speaker 2: another state trooper, and the county prosecutor filed a petition
Speaker 2: to have Barry removed from the office of constable. A
Speaker 2: new prosecutor now that district attorney from the first time
Speaker 2: around as a judge at this point, but the game
Speaker 2: is the same. Barry can't be the constable because he's
Speaker 2: been convicted of too many crimes. Complaining about the police
Speaker 2: intrusion on his picnic, Barry told the local newspaper, the
Speaker 2: state police are like the Gestapo. We are nice white
Speaker 2: people having a family picnic. Where's our First Amendment rights
Speaker 2: to our beliefs? And Barry's relationship to the First Amendment
Speaker 2: is something we'll explore in greater detail next week, because
Speaker 2: that's where I'm going to leave it today. We'll pick
Speaker 2: up next time with Barry's second court battle to keep
Speaker 2: his job as Cambria County Constable, and then follow him
Speaker 2: to Virginia where he'll light the cross that takes him
Speaker 2: all the way to the Supreme Court.
Speaker 1: Until then I don't know.
Speaker 2: Try to love your neighbors like Pat Kramer did, and
Speaker 2: don't bring a Tommy gun to a family picnic.
Speaker 1: Little Guys to production of cool Zone Media. For more
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