The New York Times

Sunday, October 24, 1999

KKK Rallies in NYC Amid Protesters

By The Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) -- After days of legal maneuvering about their rights to rally, Ku Klux Klan members stood silently inside a pen fashioned from police barricades on Saturday and literally faced the jeers of thousands of protesters.

New York City succeeded in unmasking the Klan when a federal appeals court ruled Friday that the city could refuse to permit the event if participants insisted on wearing their traditional masks. The Klan contingent wore their traditional pointed hats, minus the usual face cover.

Police reported seven arrests, all counter-demonstrators, on a variety of charges -- including one man who allegedly assaulted a Klansman just prior to the rally by 16 Klan members at outside a courthouse in lower Manhattan. He and two other men posed as Klan members to infiltrate the group.

``Death to the Klan!'' shouted one of the trio as police led them off. The other two men were charged with disorderly conduct.

James Sheeley of the New York and New Jersey KKK suffered a scrape on his cheek when three men jumped the real Klan members as they walked into the pen.

Denied a city permit to use a sound system, the Klan stood silently inside the pen, surrounded by police officers in riot helmets. The Klan members -- including two women -- were joined by two skinheads, one sporting a ``White Power'' patch.

``We can't get our message out,'' complained Jeffrey Berry, the national Imperial Wizard of the American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. ``We are silenced.''

While the Klan had predicted that up to 80 of its members would turn out, barely more than a dozen appeared. Berry said it was the ban on masks, not the protesters, that kept attendance down.

The crowd of anti-Klan protesters, estimated at about 6,000, jeered and shouted angrily at the Klan as they walked out. There were about 2,000 onlookers, police said.

``We're fired up! No more talk! Klan crawl back under your rock!'' they chanted.

Three police officers were injured trying to control the angry anti-Klan crowd, said Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.

Among those demonstrating against the Klan were several people who had argued for their right to rally -- including Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., and civil rights lawyer Ron Kuby.

``We protect the right of free speech even if it is stupid and hate speech,'' said Nadler.

The rally ended after 75 minutes, with the Klan members flashing a Nazi salute to the crowd and shouting, ``White pride!'' Police escorted the Klan inside the courthouse as the demonstrators dispersed.

It was the first Klan rally in New York City since 1990, when Klansmen protested the removal of a picture of Jesus Christ from a Queens public school, said Laurie Wood of the watchdog group Klanwatch. The city has only 35 to 40 KKK members, according to Klanwatch.

The rally followed a legal battle that eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court on Saturday. Giuliani initially tried to deny the group a rally permit, but was overruled.

The city then argued that under an obscure 1845 law, the Klan could not gather if they wore hoods that covered their faces. On Friday, a federal appeals court upheld the city's position.

The Klan appealed Saturday to Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to keep their masks, but Ginsburg turned down the request.