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This week we spoke with John, an anti-racist insurrectional anarchist who grew up in the U.S. South. John discusses the anti-klan rally that happened on July 18th in Columbia, SC, what he saw, implications, who was there and why. Next week’s episode we’ll discuss media representations of the rally, such as positing it as a showdown between the KKK and the “Black Panther Party” (meaning in actuality the New Black Panther Party, an organization unconnected to the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense around during the 60’s and 70’s). We’ll also talk about violent opposition to racists and the concept of the New South. If you CAN’T wait to hear that, check out our podcast file version of this episode, which will bring you one and a half hours of the conversation plus our regular announcements, Sean Swain segment and some dirty south jams.
OR, here’s a youtube video that friends made for the audio. For those in the radio audience, the second portion of our conversation with John will be aired next week along with other material.
Please note that John wished us to inform y’all that he’s the kinda guy who doesn’t do interviews normally and was nervous, so his laughter during serious points is not a sign of levity or lack of seriousness, but more of a sign of discomfort.
In relation to today’s episode, those with internet access may choose to visit the new anarchist news site, http://itsgoingdown.org, to check out a story entitled “all the news you didn’t even know was going down.” That story describes and links to examples across Canada and the U.S. of events over the recent past of people defacing confederate monuments, protesting the cops in response to deaths in detention, the shortcomings of labor unions and the fight for $15, Recent arrests in Oakland of 2 folks accused by the FBI and charged under the Animal Enterprise and Terrorism Act for freeing Minks and so much more
Announcements
A reminder to listeners with graphic skills. We here at The Final Straw have gotten some great submissions for sticker, poster and merch designs for the show but would love to see what else y’all could throw our way. If you have an idea or an image that could include the: show name, ashevillefm.org/the-final-straw and some kind of thematically related title (like, A Weekly Anarchist Radio Show) or imagery. You can email designs to bursts@ashevillefm.org or mailed to:
The Final Straw c/o AshevilleFM
864 Haywood Rd
Asheville, NC 28806
If you’re in the Asheville area, consider volunteering at AshevilleFM, WSFM-LP. It’s a great chance to learn skills, share skills, make friends and more. Whether you want to end up behind the mic or behind a table, drop us a line at volunteer@ashevillefm.org or, better, fill out the application at visiting http://www.ashevillefm.org/volunteer.
Call for Solidarity from Turkey
From http://anarchistnews.org we get this headline:
“Turkish-based anarchist group Anarşi İnisiyatifi (Anarchy Initiative) are calling on the global anarchist community to hold worldwide demonstrations outside Turkish consulates on July 26, 2015 at 7PM in response to the government of Turkey’s complicity in the Suruç, Massacre. 32 young people were murdered in the suicide bombing committed by the so-called Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL/Daesh) including 2 anarchist comrades: Alper Sapan from Anarşi İnisiyatifi Eskişehir and Evrim Deniz Erol. The 32 comrades from various socialist, communist and anarchist youth groups were planning to cross the border from Turkey / North Kurdistan into Kobane in Rojava to deliver gifts for the war-affected children of the city and to participate in the reconstruction of war-ravaged Kobane.” Short notice, but there ya go. http://www.anarchistnews.org/content/anarchy-initiative-call-worldwide-solidarity-demonstrations-against-turkish-state-july-26
Eric King
On a separate tip, the main topic of our conversation on the last episode, anarchist prisoner Eric King of Kansas city, will be having a birthday on August 2nd. Drop him a line, share some of your own poetry, make friends… whatever.
You can write Eric at:
Eric King
#27090045
CCA Leavenworth
100 Highway Terrace
Leavenworth, KS 66048
Also, he has an amazon wishlist where you can buy books online and get them shipped to this voracious reader. Details on that or direct deposits into his commissary can be found at http://supportericking.wordpress.com“
Michael Kimble
Michael Kimble is a self described black, gay anarchist who is currently serving a life sentence in a maximum security facility in Alabama for the self defense killing of a “white, homophobic, racist bigot”. Mr. Kimble is a writer and is part of the Free Alabama Movement, which is a group that organizes against prison work conditions by putting together work strikes and work stoppages around the state of Alabama. More about them at http://freealabamamovement.wordpress.com
Michael Kimble has a parole date set for December of this year, and it’s been a long time in coming! Stay tuned for any support that he needs, as well at to read his writings, at http://anarchylive.noblogs.org
Receiving mail while incarcerated has been shown to be very important, firstly to help combat the brutal isolation which prison forces people to undergo and secondly to demonstrate to prison officials that people’s cases do not go unnoticed. To write Michael Kimble, address your letters to:
Michael Kimble
#138017
3700 Holman Unit
Atmore, AL 36503
Tyler Lang
On Wednesday, July 22, Tyler Lang plead guilty (in a non-cooperating plea agreement) to a single count of conspiring to travel in interstate commerce with the purpose of damaging an animal enterprise. Specifically, Tyler’s charges stem from the mink release and vandalism of a fur farm carried out by him and Kevin Olliff (aka Kevin Johnson) in August of 2013.
Tyler, like Kevin, faces a maximum of 5 years in prison and 3 years of supervised release. He also faces the possibility of hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines and restitution. Tyler is currently not in custody, though his sentencing has been set for November 9th, 2015 at the Federal Courthouse in Chicago, IL. Please stay tuned for info on court support at that time! A show of community support for Tyler in the courtroom on that day would help lift his spirits and keep him strong. You can see updates and information about his and Kevin’s case at http://supportkevinandtyler.com
MOVE 9
August 8th 2015 marks 37 years of unjust imprisonment for the MOVE 9, who are part of the MOVE organization founded by John Africa. The MOVE organization is a multi faceted group whose tenants include: anti slavery, anti racism, anti industry, anti colonialsm, and pro-revolutionary-ism among many others. The MOVE 9 are a group of men and women who have been in prison since August 8, 1978, following a massive police attack on them at their home in the residential neighborhood of Powelton Village in Philadelphia. The government and Philadelphia police dropped a bomb on their house, killing 11 people, including 5 children. One officer died in this attack, and it’s since been proven that none of the MOVE 9 were responsible. Despite this evidence they are still held captive by the state.
On Saturday August 1st there is a call for support at a community town hall meeting to demand the Justice Dept take action to investigate the case and wrongful imprisonment of the MOVE 9. This meeting will take place in Philadelphia, PA from noon to 4PM the African American Museum located on 701 Arch Street Downtown Philadelphia. Topics to be covered will include: the destruction of the house, the beating of Delbert Africa, the trial of the MOVE 9, and the illegal practices of the Pa Parole Board.
For more information about this organization and about the MOVE 9’s case, people can go to http://www.onamove.com
To hear our past episodes on the case of the MOVE 9 click here.
FAMM
As a final little heads up to folks in the listening audience, I’d suggest you check out the July 9th 2015 episode of the blogtalk Free Alabama Movement podcast. The show is produced by prisoners within the Alabama and Mississippi prison system and connects them with the folks on the outside and folks incarcerated across the U.S. This episode features a convo between members of FAMM, Imam Siddique Abdullah Hasan of the Lucasville Death Row prisoners currently held at OCF Youngstown, as well as Alex, of Prison Legal News newsletter. You can find links to this episode and tons of other interviews and resources up on the site http://supportprisonerresistance.noblogs.org.
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Transcription
TFSR: This week, on the final straw, we are talking to a comrade named John who was present at the July 18th counter protest for the KKK in Columbia, South Carolina. Thanks for coming on, John.
John: Yeah, thank you for having me.
TFSR: First of all, would you like briefly describe what was going on the day, for the benefit of people who haven’t heard yet?
John: So at 1:30 there was a call out to meet up at a location on the USC college grounds, which is about four blocks south of the Capitol. It was a call from Anti-racist South Carolina, which is some sort of anti-racist group in South Carolina I imagine. There were about 40 people that showed up to that and had big banners that declared being against white supremacy. One of the cooler banners was an American flag and a confederate flag on fire, and that said Carolina Anti-racists. So I think it was good to show that. That group marched up Sumter Street, which is runs along the east side of the Capitol, and really didn’t gain much attention at all until we got to the corner of the Capitol. Once we got there, there was already the Black Educators for Justice/RBG Columbia rally happening. That was a black power rally/anti white supremacy rally, and most of us just kind of hung out there for a while, not trying to disrupt it. Originally, the news had said that the RBG group and the KKK had the same rally section point that would have an overlap of an hour. So we were waiting to see what would happen. We imagined that the RBG group wouldn’t leave, and then there’d be some kind of scuffle right there.
Friends from South Carolina actually gave us information that the Klan meeting was now moving to the south side of the State House, there were already barricades set up, and there were already some Klan supporters as well as a lot of counter-protesters. So we made our way down there. The Klan was scheduled to go on at three, and I think this was probably like 2:30, 2:00. As soon as we got there, we got confronted by some neo-Nazis screaming, “white power” and there was a confrontation there. Cops rushed in, but surprisingly, there weren’t too many of them. The Klan came in around 3:30 and it turned out, it was KKK mixed with National Socialist Movement. They weren’t wearing their robes. They were all wearing military style fatigues. There was a differentiation. If there was the Klan they had the little Klan logo that’s a white cross inside of a red circle with a red drop of blood. If they were National Socialist Movement, it’s an American flag with a swastika in the middle of it. As they came in, they were protected by police, and at first, people just kind of were yelling at them. I’d say they were probably about anywhere between like 500 and 1,000 counter-protesters in the very beginning.
It seemed like people were just content to spit and yell at them. Then, as soon as they got into the little gated area in the south side of the State House, I don’t know what happened right at that moment, because I wasn’t there, but I saw the crowd surge where they had their permit to protest and a bunch of white people that I had seen supporting the Klan run the opposite direction. Then I looked up, and I just saw bottles and rocks in the air for a second. A few people got arrested, and there was some kind of clash that happened as they were coming in. While the rally was happening, it was funny, they didn’t have a sound system, so it was just 25 people yelling incoherently at one another without anyone hearing for a while. During the rally someone, I don’t know who, stole a Confederate flag from either a supporter or from an actual Klansman and ran away and they burned it. Then the police went that way, which was around the east side of the State House. It was a tense moment where it wasn’t clear what we were gonna do, and no one was really sure. There was a lot of yelling back and forth, some like pro-Klan or pro-Confederate supporters were fought. That’s when I first noticed there was a really large contingent of Blood/Piru/Damu gang members in the front. Then I also noticed with them, several Crips, because those people wore mostly blue, with them throwing C’s in the air. Then also a contingent of kids wearing mostly black bandanna print stuff, which I think is Gangster Disciples, which is like a Chicago based gang. Now, I was like, “Oh, this is cool. These people are close to each other and not having fights and just kind of like tearing up Confederate flags already.”
The police ended up cutting the rally an hour short because they felt like they couldn’t control the crowds. I’m sure the KKK is like “They were silencing us because we were speaking truth to power,” but whatever. As that was happening, the police formed a much wider line, so people couldn’t get as close to the Klan but then we noticed that the line only went about 15 cops long. So several anarchist anti-racists, along with a crew of what seemed like Crips, (because it was dudes in all blue) walked just beyond those cops, and then cut off the route.
Then cops started pushing, and one of the younger black men that I was around said, “let’s just go to the street. We can just cut them off there.” So I was like, “All right, man.” I could see a really tall black guy was doing the image of punching your fist, getting ready to fight. I was like man, this is crazy. There’s so many cops here, but they’re not really doing a very good job of controlling this. This is gonna go crazy. So we were walking down onto the street. There was an underground parking deck that you have to walk over the entrance of, and so there’s two adjacent sidewalks at that point. All the anti -Klan people are on the left side, and the Klan and the cops are on the right. I saw a couple bottles being thrown across at that point. I was like, this is crazy. The cops aren’t doing anything. Then we got onto the street, and a bunch of us realized that there was a little barricade in front of the State House. Essentially, it’s a 9/11 precaution so people can’t drive car bombs in but it sort of made a wide sidewalk area. The Klan was on the sidewalk closest to the building, and then the cops were right outside of them, and then there was just tons of people that were yelling at them.
I think the first thing I saw was a few bottles get thrown at the Klan (these aren’t glass bottles. It was mostly like full Gatorade bottles and water bottles) and hit some people. That’s when I noticed also, that the Klansmen and Nazis were using small children that they had, and we’re putting them in front of them, so that they could protect themselves from violence. Which is just despicable.
TFSR: Well, what about people who had youth who were in the anti-racist side?
John: Yeah, there were definitely kids. A friend of ours brought kids because I think that they wanted to show them that it’s important to fight against white supremacists when they organize, especially in the southeast. But those folks had their kids behind them at all points, especially if it got tense. They wanted the kids away from things, and we all kind of made sure to keep the kids away from conflict. As opposed to these Klansmen. We were like, “where’s your 14 words now?”
TFSR: I heard those kids were anywhere from like, four to maybe ten years old.
John: There was (it’s kind of hilarious in a bad way, but), a picture of some crying baby skinhead. Which is funny. It’s ^%# up because I don’t think that they should have brought their kid to that, but it’s funny because he does look exactly like a miniature Nazi. It’s like a little bald, white boy.
TFSR: That sounds like when the Dixie be Damned presentation happened here in town, someone shared a story of this media person about the skinhead getting yelled at who had a kid. The media putting in their mic and asking “Hey, is it okay for me to ask your kid a question?” They point to the kid and say, “Would you would you want to talk? How does it make you feel what these people around you are saying about what your dad is doing, and how you’re dressed?” And the kid just looks and starts bawling. Then they’re like, “okay, okay, enough. Stop.”
John: That’s kind of crazy. As we got to the sidewalk, there’s open confrontation, or verbal/physical-ish. I think the first thing I saw was someone started spitting on this one Klansman, or neo-Nazi (it was hard to tell, but he had a really big confederate flag). The guy was like, “spit on me again, boy.” And then the guy did and then the Klan, or whatever, the white man with a flag, tried to attack the person. Then people pushed him back. A cop pushed him back as well. Then, almost simultaneously, to my left, a black man in his late 20s got out of the crowd and just slugged a KKK guy right in the face. It looked like a slow motion movie or something. You see the face go and the cops grabbed him, and another guy who turned out to be his brother, tried to de-arrest him. A bunch of us tried to de-arrest the man that was de-arresting and it turned into a little melee. A cop got knocked on the ground. Another white anti-racist protester was arrested by the police.
That sort of was a little confrontation zone right there. Then, from my experience, what happened was, I was getting pushed up against that barricade that I talked about earlier by the police, and so I hopped over it, and then was in the streets. That’s when I realized, looking around, that there was probably a couple hundred people just in the streets, ready to fight the Klan. I’d already started seeing kids, mostly young black kids, but other people as well, with Confederate flags that had been snatched from Klan and Klan supporters. At that moment I thought, “huh, this could actually turn into a real riot. The police do not control the streets of Columbia right now.” This amalgamation- of Bloods, Crips, Gangster Disciples, anarchists, parents, some Latino children- are who run the streets right now.
There kept being more fights. What I noticed is that the police, because they were overwhelmed, wouldn’t arrest people if they hit a Klansman with a rock or a bottle, but if you actually physically got them, then they got arrested. At that point, we marched for a while alongside and eventually, basically ran the Klan into the parking deck where their cars were parked. Then the police formed a pretty strong cordon around that and a funny scene ensued where there’d be Klansmen mooning people, because their just #$%^* idiots and people just yelling. What happened right there was one of the cooler celebratory moments I’ve experienced in my life. Once people couldn’t really get at the Klan, but were still waiting, you’d see just like tons of kids and adults just with the Confederate flags, like tearing them up and spitting on them. I saw a really cool picture of the three different gangs I mentioned earlier posing. Kids from those gangs were all posing together, throwing up neighborhood signs, and all with torn Confederate flags and posing for pictures. Then that other dude peeing on the Confederate flag. It was really positive feeling. I was out there hugging people and giving people daps and stuff. It felt really like the most positive experience of violence that I’ve ever had where it was a really celebratory moment between different gangs and people of different races. I remember friends of mine telling me that people were like, “hell yeah, there’s white people out here trying to fight the Klan too” and hugging. It was just a really amazing. It made me tear up, sort of. I remember one guy was like, “Yeah, man, this is the new South. Y’all are the old South. This is the new South.” And that was really moving. I was kind of glad I was wearing sunglasses, because I think it was not a moment to be teary eyed, because you had to be serious. But it was also amazing.
The next thing felt like an hour, but was probably 20 minutes of the Klan and the Nazis being stuck inside of the parking deck. It really felt crazy. There wasn’t very much media there. It felt weird to be like, “You guys are stuck in this parking deck and people are waiting to beat you.” Eventually, the police cornered a line off west side of the parking deck. There was an exit. The route they gave the Klan led up to the State House. The cops cordoned off an area so the Klan vehicles could get out. Once again, a thing happened where they were making a line, but their line only went so far. So the first few cars got away, and then there was this Klanswoman and man driving a drop top Chevy. Everyone was like, “%$# y’all” because you could see them. Everyone ran around and tried to bang on their car. They were flipping people off. The next vehicle up was this black SUV driven by a guy from the National Socialist Movement who I think is from another part of the country. People saw his license plate it said Kansas. People ran up to his car, and he was swearing at people. Then I think he called people a racial slur. He called everyone monkeys or something and then in cool guy fashion, he tried to speed off, really just fear, but also trying to look cool. He hit the gas really hard, and turned the corner, and ran straight into a light pole. It felt like we were in a movie. People were cheering being like, “you don’t know how to drive, you ugly mother$%^#” or whatever. I saw an old white guy and a black guy high fiving, and people putting their arms around each other. I was like, “This is the greatest day I’ve ever experienced.” People all ran up to the car, and I hear, tried to break windows out of the back of it. I was at the front. I saw some people trying to move the light pole that had been dislodged into the street.
I didn’t see any of the next thing, but there’s a lot of documentation. At that exact moment, a crew of kids had foresight to go even farther away from the police, basically, near the State House. It’s like two blocks up, and they were just waiting and just started pelting KKK. There’s a video online of kids pelting a KKK truck with rocks, and then also, some Klan supporter got jumped by what I assume were Bloods, literally wearing red pants that had gang bandanna print. I don’t know what else to say, but they were beating the ^%$ out of him in the middle of the street. In that same video, you see somebody else being like, “Welcome to SC, mother^%##, and then throwing up C’s and wearing blue. So even in that moment there was gang unity. I also heard from a friend that was more ARA oriented (Anti-Racist Action, which is a particular kind of anti-racist), who said that where the line of cars got stopped, and the police all rushed to the messed up SUV, that people attacked a car behind it as well and tried to break windows. I didn’t see that.
Eventually, the police took over the intersection. Some people got detained right there, but I don’t think anyone actually got arrested right at that moment, but maybe. There was a lot of other stuff happening. I didn’t see nearly everything that happened. We marched back up to the State House, and then I saw another celebratory moment where people were just like tearing flags, and at that point my friends kids, who are young boys, were burning a flag with some other kids. A cool thing I saw were people tying the Confederate flag around their shoes and like stepping on it as a sign of disrespect.
All in all, it was a really nice day. It was very hot. It was almost 100 degrees, and very humid but people held on. We just had some water bottles we were giving out to people. I think some people aren’t really comfortable around “street people” or have a fear (which is maybe understandable) of people that you’ve heard of as being like criminals.
TFSR: You’re not talking you’re not talking about houseless folks, right?
John: No. I mean street organizations, like gang members. Some people felt a little intimidated. Like at the very beginning, when they got Confederate flags, when the Klan rally was still happening, there was a ton of people just throwing up B’s and yelling “squad.” It was, I thought it was amazing but I think some people felt nervous. Another thing was that people throughout that time were just yelling at the police, saying *&$ the police. Also young black men were going up to black officers and calling them house n-words and like, Uncle Toms and stuff. Which was really intense and moving. That’s what happened.
TFSR: What could you say about the demographic of the police present? How do you think the state of South Carolina and the city, the capital, were politicking what the police presence looked like and how they interacted with the Klan and with the crowd?
John: You mean the racial demographic?
TFSR: Racial demographic, representation and then also how do you think that they were, as a department, being directed to respond to the demonstrators and the counter demonstrators?
John: It’s hard to gauge how they were told to respond. I’ve never really experienced that level of underpolicing. I think that if all of us that were there, knew how underpoliced it was going to be, things would have gotten a lot crazier, a lot faster. But people were feeling each other out. A lot of people out of anarchy world went as affinity groups, and then a lot of other folks went in their crews. So you’re like, “Yeah, my six friends are cool. But I don’t know how these random weirdos.” But to the racial demographics, it felt really mixed as far as I’d seen. I’m unfortunately ignorant of South Carolina, but where I live, which is also a southern state that’s a city that’s majority black, or at least majority not white and there are a lot of black police. South Carolina is I think 30% black, and Columbia is about 41% black. So I would tend to assume that the police in general are a rather mixed group of cops. And I know that the chief of the Capitol Police is black, because there’s that ridiculous picture of him helping out some old ass neo-Nazi who’s suffering from heat stroke that everyone’s showing around, like it matters.
TFSR: So you’re talking about an old white man who was protesting on behalf the Confederate flag, being carried away by cops wrapped in the Confederate flag? Sounds like a Norman Rockwell picture to me, sort of.
John: South Carolina itself is really shockingly savvy when it comes to trying to quell a certain level of racial (on the black side of things) violence, or popular violence. So maybe that’s how it’s reflected. In my mind, when that cop killed an unarmed black man in North Charleston, they arrested him instantly. He’s still in jail. When Dylann Roof, the white terrorist, killed nine people in the AME Church in Charleston, they tried to find him as fast as possible and put him in jail. Now, because all this controversy, the governor, all these people wanted the Confederate flag down, not because they really care about the legacy of racism, but because they don’t want their state to look bad, or they don’t want rioting. Understandably, they’re afraid. The whole state of South Carolina could become, in some way or another, like a Ferguson. It’s a really impoverished state, it has a high level of organized gang activity, it’s incredibly racist, there are a lot of guns. When I said it felt like it could have turned into a riot, I mean the police had real guns. They also had pepper ball guns, and they had grenade launchers for shooting tear gas. They did not even seem like they were gonna do that, because the only time I saw a gun out was because some old-ass, racist man had a knife behind some black kids. The cops quickly dealt with that. Not like I’m trying to give cops credit. I think they were concerned with the idea of it turning into a black riot, or a popular riot, more so than being worried that a few Klansmen got punched. So probably having a mixed police force was really good for PR, obviously.
TFSR: You mentioned Dylann Roof earlier. Would you talk about this day, as much as you can, within the recent context of white supremacist oppression in this country?
John: I mean, I can talk about what I think. I don’t know, it’s the US so we have white supremacy. I think it’s important to note that the demonstration was called for a month and a day after Dylann Roof killed the nine people in the AME Church in Charleston. It’s a really significant thing that the media just was like, “it’s a pro-confederate flag rally”, because that’s what the Klan said. For some reason, we take the Klan at its word. Then it wasn’t a race thing. It was just about “our heritage.” It was like, “No, but you’re the Klan. No one believes you.” Dylann Roof was, what? He was a 21 year old white kid from South Carolina who was a racial extremist. He could have done that at any point in time. He was a racist that hated black people and believed in racial war. I think the reason why he chose right now is because he’s part of a white supremacist backlash to the recent Black Lives Matter/anti-police, black uprising in this country. He’s basically like the old KKK. They were like, “Oh, well, these police aren’t doing their job.” The job of the police is to suppress any resistance, but especially in the south and everywhere, to suppress black people. That’s what this nation is built on, is the creation of upping white people in the suppression of black insurrection.
I think it’s also notable (I don’t know if I don’t think he knew this, because he doesn’t seem that smart, but maybe he did) the day that he shot up that church was close to the anniversary of the Denmark Vesey failed insurrection. He was a slave in South Carolina who had been a slave in Haiti and brought in ideas from the Haitian Revolution. He was planning a huge insurrection that would attack Charleston, but was snitched out by a scared slave. Denmark Vesey was actually a figure in that church, in the AME Emanuel church, before it was in its current location. I think he definitely knew that black churches have a huge, significant presence in black insurrection, or more modernly, black civil society protest in the southeast. Clearly, he could have killed black people anywhere, right? But he chose the biggest, oldest black church in South Carolina, to my knowledge. I could be wrong. I think that his whole thing is that the police aren’t doing their job.
The anti-confederate flag debate is a really easy way for the state, being the state of South Carolina, and also the State being the United States and Obama, to ignore the fact that really, what the problem is, is that we have a nation where black men and women and all people of color are murdered by the police on an outrageous level. Right? There’s something like 500 police killings this year already. Those are all related. Like the church burnings that have been happening since Dylann Roof. I feel like there’s no major distinction between Dylann Roof’s murders, the church burnings and the execution of Mike Brown by police in Ferguson, Missouri. I think it’s all part of a similar white supremacist framework. Certain white supremacists want to push that farther. In white people, there’s a fear that people have that’s also a very basic point, or tenet of white supremacy. Originally it was that poor white people could feel good because they were above blacks and above (not Latinos at the time, but above) native people. There’s a fear that somehow it’s gonna get taken away, that there’s gonna be people breaking into their homes and raping their women. I mean, Dylann Roof literally said you’re raping our women. That is the most like basic tenet of white supremacy is that there’s this black menace. So I don’t know. The Klan group is from Pelham, North Carolina, which is northern North Carolina, close to Virginia.
TFSR: The Loyal White Knights?
John: Yeah, which you can find their website online, and if you felt like it, there’s a phone number there that’s a 24 hour hotline. You could call it maybe, and harass them. Or not harass. Express your opinions.
TFSR: At least on their web skills suck.
John: They have, like, a GeoCities-style website. But it’s crazy.
TFSR: One of the most interesting things for me personally, about July 18th, was the various forms of unity that were happening. I see it having happened in three distinct ways. One of them was the gang unity, which you’ve spoken about, and the other two were unity in support of violent action and the other one, which for me was the most important one, was unity against the police. I remember hearing people talk about the very, very few, pro-police sympathizers within the anti-racist crowd, being like, “You shouldn’t talk bad about the police” and people being like, “Nah uh.” I was wondering if you could talk about the role of violent actions, and also the role of anti-police sentiment within the crowd, and how that felt for you if you saw that.
John: The role of violent actions there specifically or in life in general?
TFSR: No, just on the day. Like peace police versus people who were in support of violent action.
John: I positioned myself trying to be with crazier people, so I didn’t actually see anyone trying to stop people. I didn’t see peace police other than actual officers of the peace. But in a video, I saw some people yelling at some progressive-looking white man. If there was that, that was a tiny minority of the people that showed up. I feel like the people that showed up to this particular demonstration intended on violently confronting white supremacists and mostly to express, “You guys are trying to claim control over our state or over the South”, and people were not having it. At all. There was definitely a unity of the crowd against police, which was amazing because I think that, as anarchists we sometimes stand out for being freaks or something. We’re like, “Oh, and the police!”, and everyone’s like, “Why are you bringing this up right now?” I remember a point where, while the rally was still happening, a bunch of anti-racist type folks with a bunch of banners had marched into the side of the rally and started chanting “^%# the KKK” in a particular kind of dancey way. The whole crowd started, and then someone was like “#$%^ the police” too. People were like, “Yay.” Later, when we were outside of the parking garage, I remember talking to a few young people who were saying, “Really, to be honest, I’m not scared of these Klansmen. We can take them any day, but I’m terrified of the police. They’re the ones that kill Black people all the time. They’re the ones that are actually the real enemy” or maybe not the real enemy, but they are an enemy. There was a recognition that both of those are the same thing. I remember somebody saying something like, “Who cares about ISIS? These people kill way more of us every day.” They were talking about the KKK and I was like, “To be honest, the cops kill more people than anyone.” They were like, “Indeed, brother”.
TFSR: I think there’s something like 4,000 KKK members in the United States, yeah. And something like 900,000 officers who have arresting powers in the United States.
John: Yeah, I mean, New York City has like, 40,000 active police. I think that number, the 4,000 is also maybe a random number. Not to quote Vice or anything but there was a really interesting video documentary that they did recently about the rise of the Klan and white supremacists, in general, trying to organize disenfranchised veterans. Which I do think is a real thing. I think that it’s really important to confront these groups and to show that we are the real rebels, not the South. There’s a real possibility for a lot of young, disenfranchised white kids in the south, or the Midwest, or rural California or wherever, to join up with these groups, because they, in their minds, represent anti-system. This is tangential but I think it’s really important somehow. I don’t know how to try to organize something that is anti-racist, but not like ARA, because I think ARA is far too specifically-focused. I don’t have any beef with anyone in ARA and I respect what they do, but I don’t think it’s as open culturally.
TFSR: For security reasons for the people that are involved in organizing?
John: Yeah, security reasons. Also, I think because at some point there’s a professionalization. I do think there needs to be some amount of attempt at reaching young, white people. In a way maybe a lot of us have leftover Maoist traditions inside of us. We read Sakai, or Settlers, and even though I don’t think we really believe this, maybe some of us do have this myth of the white working class, or feel different. But these other groups are trying really hard to organize poor, white people in the southeast. Poor white people and black people obviously have similar enemies, and white supremacy is keeping everyone in place.
TFSR: To kind of jump back to Dylann Roof, some of the media portrayals of him have presented him has a lone gunman. Do you think that’s true, or do you think that’s a misrepresentation? As if he was just a lone wolf, acting on his own, and a total out of the blue thing?
John: Weirdly, it’s the media misusing the concept of the lone gunman. The lone gunman is, from my understanding, this white supremacist, third positionist concept. The third position is some kind of weird, not totally authoritarian, right wing racialist thing that was actually inspired somewhat by anarchist groups/animal rights organizations in the ’80s. This is really just me thinking, but I’m pretty sure it came out of the ’80s and ’90s repression towards larger scale white power organizations, and then them realizing that the way to actually commit terror is the individual.
I think he is, technically speaking, a lone wolf. He believed in himself as being this vanguard in inserting himself in things. But I don’t think he’s a lone wolf in the way that the media means, where it doesn’t mean anything. He was inspired by something called the last The Last Rhodesian, a website that’s from South Carolina. These groups are really pushing for isolated individual youth, just as ISIS does. They’re like, “Individuals should take action, and thus it will inspire more people.” That’s their whole thing. So I don’t think he’s a lone wolf in that it’s like an isolated incident. It’s very clearly part of a concerted white power/State response to the most recent wave of anti-police, black (and not just black, but mostly black) uprisings in the US. It was sort of ignorant for me and my friends to not assume this was gonna happen soon when we were watching Baltimore and Ferguson.
A lot of us were lost as what to do after the shootings. It was just sort of a reeling, wrenching feeling inside of us that this was happening again. Then these churches started burning. I, at least to myself, was like, “Look. If any group comes out in support of them publicly, we have to go.” It was imperative that people go and try to crush the Klan, or run the Klan out of town, as the propaganda said, because more so now than ever, these people are a threat. At least in South Carolina or anywhere, you can’t let a group that basically is cheerleading for a person that’s acting as an anti-Black actor.
TFSR: Someone trying to spark the race war.
John: Yeah, but what’s cool is that, in some ways, their race war, what they really sparked was (not to be too much of an insurrectionary anarchist) but a mini social war against them and the police. What they wanted to have happen, happened minorly. They wanted to have large groups of black men fighting dumb white people who claim they weren’t for the Klan, but we’re just for the flag and happened to show up at this Klan rally. What they really wanted was to display this image of black versus white or whatever. I keep saying black versus white, because South Carolina, at least in the city that I saw, is very black and white. It’s not like the west coast or other places. I’m sure there are a lot of other groups represented. Obviously, the governor is of Indian descent. Aziz Anzari is from there. But I think it’s important to contextualize it in the South as black and white.
They wanted that and instead, what happened was black people of all ages and different backgrounds came together. White people came. Some Latino people. People of different backgrounds came to physically fight them. It was kind of like the best outcome from an anarchist perspective. I mean, not the best, obviously. I guess, you know, the abolition of the State and capitalism. But in a realistic way, I think that was probably the best thing that could have happened the way it went down.
TFSR: What would you say the role of anarchist intervention in the day was? Would you say it was useful or not, and how or not?
John: I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, because I feel like there will be people that claim, when they write reports on it, or whatever, will use the “we” in the way that I try not to. Which in some ways, implies anarchists had a bigger role than maybe they did. I think that anarchists, or anti-racist anarchists, or people that came down there, almost all were from the South, or came from other southern places, which is really important. In some ways, anarchists from other places might not as much because they don’t see some people don’t see race as being as important, or don’t see things like this as being important. And I think that as a whole, Southern anarchists have a better perspective of this stuff, because we’re forced to.
TFSR: It’s palpable.
John: Yeah. Growing up here, if you’re not a black person (I mean, maybe if you are too, but I’m not) you have to define yourself against the legacy of violent white supremacy and for black insurrection. It’s an imperative, to be able to have any sort of real political analysis here. Maybe that’s not the case in places where people don’t have as much of a direct thing. But to get back to that role, it’s weird to see. I think that in some ways it was inspirational to some.
There are definite points where I think that the anarchist roles actually helped the crowd. In the very beginning when the Klan was coming in, when I first got to that point, there was mostly pro-Klan/Confederate white people there. Funnily enough, a media person actually told the crowd, “Oh, the Klan’s coming in this way.” So then that word was spread throughout the crowd really quickly. In that instance, once we got that word spread, then all of a sudden instead of 50 or 40 white supremacist or pro-Confederate people, there was like 300 anti-Klan protesters. Trying to do a little bit of recon was a helpful thing. So there’s that. Then during the KKK rally, when people went off to go burn a confederate flag, anarchist-type people came back and were chanting &^%# the Klan and had a drum. That really livened the crowd up when, at least I, was getting bored and hot. So there’s a musical element. Also no one had really (except for individually) sworn. I was kind of nervous, because South Carolina is more south than North Carolina, and there’s etiquette in the south. You have to really mean it. Swearing means more. Maybe I’m wrong, but I think it was really helpful for the crowds, because people started dancing around. The fact that anarchists brought really big banners that clearly stated “Against white supremacy” and then the Confederate flag one, or the burning flags one. Then also someone brought a drum. That was an anarchist. I think those things were material help.
Just the fact that non-black people, that are pro-criminal, came to express our physical solidarity with people in South Carolina and people in Columbia was probably really helpful. Sometimes when I’ve read things about white anarchists participating in riots that are mostly not white, people have this silly analysis (this is me pitching my politics) that everyone becomes one in the moment of riot. I don’t think that’s true. I think what it is, is that like people accept white people (sometimes, not always) because they’re actively acting against whiteness, and they’re actively putting their safety on the line in solidarity with other people. Just having white people yelling at the cops, yelling at the Klan, throwing stuff at the Klan, up in there de-arresting people, I think was important for some people. I can’t speak to everyone there but maybe some people were like, “Why are these people here? I have no idea.” Not all the anarchists were white by any means but I think in that way where that’s what people will see, just because, I don’t know. It’s hard to say in the end.
I think anarchist there did a pretty good job, going in groups of two or three and just kind of milling about. We all didn’t wear black bloc because there’s a million reasons, but it was 100 degrees. There’s anti-masking laws. Two friends of ours put on masks that said ‘Black Lives Matter’ on them, to distinguish themselves from white supremacists. They started yelling at the police and saying, “Who are you protecting? Look at this. You’re protecting Nazis.” And they were detained and had their masks ripped off because of, ironically, a law that exists in most southern cities, that is an anti-KKK law. I don’t really know that many Klan people, but I’ve known that to be enforced against anarchists and young people that are in riots all the time, even though they’re obviously not part of the Klan.
TFSR: It’s also to stop banditry.
John: To be fair, it’s not unreasonable. Then also, people didn’t want to wear all black, because a lot of these groups are now trying to wear black fatigues and look more militant, so as to shed their old imagery of Klan robes, because that’s really outdated. So some people found themselves, unfortunately dressing closer to the Klan than they intended to. I don’t know what else for anarchist roles… I don’t know. People were there throughout. I don’t think that anarchists definitely played as front-facing of a role as other people. Some anarchists and anti-state communist that went, really blended well, crowd wise, with other people. That was actually a really interesting thing, that the crowd moved in such a way that I’ve really never experienced because everyone was there in an anti-law unity against the Klan, against the police, and there were no leaders. You’d usually expect to see some Stalinists or even the New Black Panther Party (who was associated with a rally that was happening elsewhere) trying to tell the crowd what to do. But no one did that. The crowd just moved collectively in a flow that I’ve never experienced. That was pretty amazing. So I know we had some impacts, but I think just being there was also really important. From my perspective.
TFSR: Can you talk about some of the anti-racists who have been arrested to your knowledge?
John: There were five arrests from what I understood, which is confusing, because there were definitely more detainments. I saw white power people being detained, and they aren’t even in the arrest lists. Of course the State…
TFSR: …wants to hide the identity of white supremacists.
John: Yeah, but they’re gonna give the names out of anti-racists. I’m pretty sure there were five arrests. Four out of the five are out of jail now. If they were from South Carolina, got released on their own recognizance, which means they didn’t have to pay. It was like a suspended $20,000 bail or something. There are two white people who got arrested, were both from out of state. They bailed out with $213 which is like 21,300. Then there’s one man that’s still in jail because he was on probation. This is my understanding from talking to a friend that got arrested. He is facing, it seems like 10 months in jail at the Richland County Detention Facility, but I’m not clear. It’s the Columbia City Jail. We’re sending letters to him and trying to raise money. He’ll be in jail for a while, and so hopefully we can raise money for his commissary. The friend that I talked to who got arrested, who was white, said that he had a good time in jail. He’s been arrested before, but he said it was cool. Everyone knew why he was there, and people were supportive. The other people he got arrested with, he got some of their numbers. We’re gonna follow up hopefully with them. It was positive, right?
TFSR: Who are the other people that were in the jail?
John: I got kind of worried, because, you know, there’s white power people in prison, but I guess less in county jails in South Carolina. My friend said there’s about 90% black men. Obviously the police weren’t happy but it sounded like people knew exactly why they were there and gave them props because everyone got charged with, at least simple assault. So it wasn’t like anyone got arrested blocking the street or whatever.
TFSR: So you mentioned the new Black Panther Party, and number of media outlets, including Democracy Now! (even whatever was on Comedy Central last night) were doing the same thing of presenting that the event in South Carolina was the KKK versus the Black Panther Party. Can you talk about that? Who the New Black Panther Party?
John: It’s one of these cases where you’ll read a thing or watch the news, see the imagery and then be confused about how they didn’t put in any effort. The New Black Panther Party, to my knowledge, came about in the ’80s or ’90s. They’re an offshoot of the Nation of Islam out of Dallas originally. They are not in any way connected to the original Black Panther Party for Self-defense, which was originally out of Oakland, California. The New Black Panther Party, to my knowledge, once again, because I’m not an expert on these things, is a much more culturally nationalist, Muslim, in that way that the Nation of Islam is. They’re a black Muslim organization that is a separatist group, and also is antisemitic and homophobic. I don’t really like that. They’re distinctly a reactionary political movement, like the Nation of Islam. I think that the appeal of them is that they’re militantly black. In some ways, people might think they’re of the left or for revolution, but in fact, they’re a right-wing organization in my opinion. Whereas the original Black Panther Party was a leftist organization. Whether or not the individuals were about this, Huey Newton wrote statements in solidarity with the Gay Liberation Front. They were not a separatist organization, and they were against cultural nationalists.
TFSR: Like in LA with United Snakes?
John: Yeah, or the United Slaves U.S. organization and they were a cultural nationalist organization. I don’t think that if the Black Panthers were there today, they would love us, or something. There’s an argument that sometimes people make where they’re like, “They’re not real.” I think they’re very different. Bobby Seale, Kathleen Cleaver and folks have consistently said there is no such thing as a New Black Panther Party. So that’s worthwhile to note that they’re more just taking the name on.
TFSR: I want to give a shout out to Big Man and Howard if you’re in the listening audience. KWTF. I remember the conversations. He was one of the founding members of the Panther Party. I asked him about the New Black Panther Party before, and he was just like, “Yeah, they suck. We’ve tried to sue them over name rights. They’re confusing people.”
John: I don’t know about suing anybody about stuff, but it makes sense. So there was two rallies. On the north side of the State House, there was a rally from a group called Black Educators for Justice, which is not actually the New Black Panther Party. They’re associated, but that rally was also from this group, RBG, which is a coalition of black militant groups. I don’t know where all they exist, but they were having a conference that weekend in Columbia. That refers to either Red, Black and Green, or Revolutionary but Gangsta. Which is the dead prez thing. Red, black and green is the African liberation flag. That group had its own rally that went from about noon till three. That rally was fine. It was boring. It was hot. It wasn’t offensive. It wasn’t anti-white, it was anti-white supremacy. People were saying “black power”, but anyone that thinks that black power and white power are the same thing are stupid. It’s like saying that being a feminist means you’re anti-man. It just means taking power for blackness.
There were some New Black Panther Party looking individuals on stage. There were also weird punk, white, biker kids that had all these anti-Klan things and weird signs, like “My baby mama’s black.” So I don’t really even know what that was, but it was not the New Black Panther Party exclusively. That rally happened simultaneous to some of the conflict with the Klan. A lot of people that came out for that rally, came out to fight the Klan. Maybe they came up for the rally, but some people did, obviously come over to the anti-Klan demonstration. The group itself did not fight the Klan. There were no New Black Panthers fighting the Klan. For sure, there were maybe actual Black Panthers. I don’t know. There were some old people there.
That was ridiculous. The fact that they keep saying that, is either laziness or maybe it’s more calculated. They try to equate the New Black Panthers with the Klan, and then they try to make it seem like it’s these two outside groups. They’re like, “Oh, these groups are from Florida. It’s just outside freaks that are extremists.” Even if they’re separatists, they’re not as bad. They’re not the same as the Klan. It’s a different thing. Their group is against confrontational street violence. In Ferguson, they were there trying to shut people down and yelling at women to go home.
TFSR: Same during the Oscar Grant stuff in the Bay Area back in 2009.
John: They’re not gonna be there fighting the Klan. This is militant groups in general. There’s authoritarian communists that were at the other rally and didn’t come to this because they don’t want the rabble or the people to fight. They want to have their organized military response or whatever garbage they say. Maybe some of the people from that rally were there fighting but it was not the New Black Panthers versus the Klan. It was random, everyday people of South Carolina. 60% black, 40% others.
TFSR: How many cops were there would you say?
John: No idea. There were so many kinds of cops from a meter maid to Terminator. I have no idea, to be honest. It felt like a lot, but then it felt like not enough. That’s another thing. The amount of cops that were there, I assume were the amount of cops that Columbia city could afford to be there, and they couldn’t control things. That’s why I was like, “This might go crazier”. It’s the power of the people. People were definitely were running the streets. If those groups of people had wanted to riot or attack the police, it would have happened. I just think people were focused pretty firmly on the Klan or Nazis or their supporters. It wasn’t the new Black Panther Party versus the KKK. That’s an important statement.
TFSR: In terms of the future, do you hope to see anything specific coming out of this, in terms of anarchist organizing?
John: I’m not getting in any state specifically, but people from pretty much every state around South Carolina and South Carolina came there. Hopefully that furthers ties and whatnot. Hopefully people are organizing or doing whatever, where they live, either contributing themselves or backing up people who are doing anti-police work or anti-Klan work. Obviously, there are anarchists everywhere in the country, many more probably outside of the South than in the south, but I think those that are in the South and grew up in the South, understand how important this is. Another thing that I think is really important, is that the call outs and everything for the anti-Klan demo (50 to 100 of the thousands of people that showed up there had any idea about the social media presence of @antiracistsc on Twitter) came at this as a very Southern angle. I obviously don’t have an accent. I’m not from the South, but I lived here most of my life. I think it was an important narrative to counteract the “Heritage not Hate” sort of thing.
It’s disgusted me, after the Dylann Roof stuff, the media especially located in the north (and most people aren’t from the south. It’s located in the west coast or wherever) has basically just been like, “Oh, what do you expect? It’s just like ignorant Southerners.” The flag is just a loser flag. That’s just a way to make more people feel hatred towards you. Not based on race or anything, I have a dislike of the North. I think a lot of people that grew up down here, grew up in marginalized areas. We don’t really want to hear what some CNN or MSNBC person has to say about this, unless it’s in support of fighting the Klan or being anti-police, which obviously they’re not going to be.
TFSR: CNN is based out of Atlanta.
John: Oh yeah and Time Warner in general.
TFSR: You’re not gonna find many people who are giving commentary on the station (unless they’re being interviewed) that have accents. For instance.
John: Yeah. A good southern voice right now is Killer Mike, the rapper, who’s half of Run the Jewels, and also has been around in Atlanta for years. He’s like 45, but he’s been really good. It’s important to show that the Confederate flag, A: I do know people that are not racist, that like the flag. They’re probably racist, like how everyone’s racist, but they’re not, like, actually, actively racist. They hang out with black people, with Latinos. They see that as a rebel symbol. In the past, Ludacris and Lil’ John, have used the flag. It’s kind of like in the past when hip hop was antagonistic towards the South. Now, the South runs it, but it was sort of like an “F you” to the North. This is our own thing. These sort of anti-Klan demos are our own. This is the new South, like that person said. Or not even the new South. It’s always been the South. The South is the blackest place in the country.
TFSR: New Afrika.
John: I mean, yeah. It is the Republic of New Afrika in some ways. It’s important to recognize that the Civil War wasn’t a war that the North fought against slavery. It was this war the South fought for slavery, but it was a war that the North fought to keep the Union. And the Emancipation Proclamation didn’t free anyone, because it only freed slaves that they had no control over, and then they kept slavery in states like Missouri, West Virginia, Kentucky and Maryland. So I think it’s really important to claim our heritage. Maybe not mine, but people in the south. There were a lot of abolitionists. There are a ton of black people that obviously didn’t want to be slaves. This is the area where there’s so many tribes, like the Lumbee and the Seminole, (which are really just still resisting) and are a makeup of runaway slaves, white people that refuse to be part of white society, and native people all joining together to fight against the plantation system or fight against colonization.
There’s people whose heritage was the Civil War, but who don’t want that. A lot of white people fled. There was a repressive Home Guard in the South that forced people to go to the Civil War. It’s not like this entire region was all for the Civil War.
TFSR: There were parts of western North Carolina that were fighting for the Union, for what that’s worth.
John: So that’s fighting for the Union. In the western North Carolina, it was sort of just like, if you were for or against slavery. They’re fighting for the Union, but really it was like fighting for themselves.
TFSR: And that’s kind of like an underpinning of the Hatfields and McCoys. The McCoys were more recent immigrants from Ireland, lower class, Catholic and tended to be supporters of the Union. Also, intermarried with black folks. The Hatfields were more established, Scots-Irish Protestants and more tied in with the white supremacist structure in that place. So that’s another racial dynamic underpinning privileges and class and stuff like this.
John: Yeah, and slave uprisings are obviously a heritage of the South. The Gullah Geechee culture of people who are still basically resisting whiteness in the islands of South Carolina and Georgia, who are currently trying to get more land back that they were promised by Sherman. There are a ton of instances. People have fought off the Klan in the south a million times. The Civil War probably would have kept going if it wasn’t for what W.E.B. Du Bois calls the “black general strike”, where half a million to a million slaves just refused to work and walked off the plantation. It’s important to give all those people their heritage and their culture. That is the opposite of the Confederacy, but is also not necessarily the Union.
It’s also important, I think, to show the world that people down here aren’t all just racist. I think there’s also that docile image of the South from the Civil Rights Movement. To be fair, people didn’t fight back armed, because they would have gotten killed at the time but some people did resist with arms and some people rioted. It wasn’t all cut and dry. But that is dead. I can’t quote these songs, because they’re very explicit but people are like, “This isn’t the slave days. People are gonna fight back.”
TFSR: You gotta admit though, there is a certain dignity in struggle and forgiveness, and that’s not the same as weakness. Like the responses of the family members of the people that were killed.
John: Oh yeah, for sure. I don’t think it’s inherently weak. I think it’s a different thing.
TFSR: And honestly, walking into a bunch of riot dogs and batons and stuff during the Civil Rights Movement is not weak.
John: Oh no, not at all. No. I don’t think that SNCC or any of those groups were weak inherently. Sometimes groups push for things as opposed to more confrontational structures. Sometimes that was because their leaders wanted to be more legitimate to white people, but sometimes it was because it was life or death. They chose slightly less likely dying. It was important to confront the two narratives of “Heritage not Hate”, but also the other being “The South is just a stupid place where everyone’s stupid.” I mean, that’s simple, but people think we’re all idiots down here. And it’s not the case. The South has a long tradition of fighting against capitalism, against slavery, as long as and maybe longer than anywhere else. Because this is the first place to be settled. Virginia and North Carolina are some of the first colonies in the New World.
TFSR: Yeah, North Carolina has a huge, extremely rich history of being a place where outlaws fled to.
John: The swamps of South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia are essentially (I’m sure you’ve heard this before, if you talked about ‘Dixie Be Damned’) places of native/black/white resistance to colonization. In North Carolina, there’s the man, Robert F Williams. Their group had armed self-defense- not before, but openly talking about it before anyone else and is credited with inspiring Huey P. and Bobby Seale. Then there’s the Deacons for Defense. Those are the two groups that officially said it. People were arming themselves forever.
TFSR: And these are just the examples coming from North Carolina and not stuff in Tennessee or Alabama.
John: Well, the Deacons of Defense were Louisiana and Mississippi. They had, like 16 chapters. There’s actually a book by a professor at Georgia State called, ‘We Will Shoot Back’ and it’s the history of armed self-defense in the Mississippi Delta from the Civil War on. That’s important. It’s really hard to find and I can’t remember his name, but he actually has written on the Black Liberation Army as well. I just think it’s important to recognize a resistance culture and history that’s still alive in the southeast. People here aren’t gonna just take the KKK coming to their town. I’ve talked to friends about this a lot. I think that when stuff starts happening more confrontationally in the southeast, (especially South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi) related to the Black Lives Matter movements, that’s when we’ll see it truly be more revolutionary. I mean, it’s been revolutionary and reform, but I think that Jackson, Mississippi, Alabama, going off will really scare the society, because there is a belief in docile people in the south. Also, those places have more black people than anywhere else, and are still rather repressive. I think our heritage is not the same as the people that have the Confederate flags, and then we’re still Southern.
TFSR: What’s up with Lil Boosie saying that stuff about the cops and being like, “Oh, not all the cops suck”?
John: First of all, I’m not Lil Boosie, but I’ve been a fan for longer than Ferguson, since, I don’t know what album, maybe it was Super Badass, which I think came out in ’07 or something. So before prison. I mean, first of all, he’s a musician…
TFSR: That’s not the real question I had.
John: Okay, I was like whatever. He’s also on probation forever, so I think he’s trying not to go to prison.
TFSR: John, you’ve been around North Carolina for a while and to bring it to a more local circumstance, I believe back in the ’90s, there was a KKK rally that happened in the Asheville area. Can you talk about that at all?
John: I can talk about it. I would have been like 10. Also I wasn’t living here at the time but folks that were here were part of that at some point. I do know, though, that the KKK and some group (I don’t know which) had organized a rally in downtown Asheville in 1997. Anti-racists, anarchist-type folks wen. (Who there were very few of in the area at the time) and the city was not known as a protest city. I’m sure it was an alternative place, but it was definitely not popular in the way that is now. It wasn’t a big deal.
TFSR: And probably folks from Chattanooga came. Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin and JoNina Irvin, both were organizing.
John: I forgot about that. Yeah. This is broadcast in Asheville right? So people from Hillcrest, Lee Walker. I’m just saying housing projects. I could just say “housing projects” but I’ll name it. People went to Hillcrest, Lee Walker, Livingston, PVA, and all over the place, The Woods and that place Mountainside that doesn’t exist anymore because they got bulldozed for rich white people condos that never even got built. There’s a ton because Asheville is insane and segregates black people into prison islands, essentially. But yeah, people went to all those housing projects, then also to the east side and to Burton street neighborhoods, and we’re like, “Hey, the Klan is coming to our city. We should fight them.” Surprisingly enough actually, the leader of the NAACP, locally, from what I’m told actually encouraged people to go to the protest. Which is against their policy. I think he got in trouble for it, because usually they organize counter, unity rallies somewhere else in town.
A thousand people showed up to protest the Klan. I hear they marched down on Patton. Then from I don’t know where exactly, they marched to the City County Plaza. People were spitting on them and attacking them the whole time. There’s pictures of people trying to grab people’s hoods. There’s also pictures of older black men throwing Black Power fists and little kids there. I know that in the media article, if you look up old Citizen Times on microfiche in the library, there was a line of riot cops, (which I didn’t even know they had those here until later) just standing. They couldn’t do anything so people were just throwing rocks and eggs over the cops.
The Klan got pretty much chased out of Asheville by everyday Asheville people. It was just everyone. The interesting thing is that they said they were gonna come back in a year, and then they put out this press statement saying that they would bring their Black Hawks or whatever. They’re the ones that wear black, and they are the armed security of the Klan, so that if there was any rock throwing, that they’d solved that problem in 88 seconds. Which is a direct reference to the Greensboro Massacre, which was when, in ’79, communist groups organized a Death to the Klan march in which five people were killed. I think five people were murdered by Klan and neo-Nazis. So they made a direct threat to the citizens of Asheville. At the time, not that I ever give credit to politicians, but Lenny Sitnick, who was a weird freak mayor of Asheville at the time, basically used it as a way to say that they were threatening the citizens of Asheville, and actually banned the Ku Klux Klan. So Asheville is one of the only places I know of, that the KKK are legally not allowed to come to. Which is something. Riots work. That’s not all we ever want, but I prefer not living in a place where the Klan is able to come and the State responded to people fighting them.
TFSR: That’s like with the Robert F. Williams example that you brought up. The town that he grew up in, or that he was living in -Monroe- actually banned KKK motorcades because they were so afraid of their local politicians and white concerned citizens getting killed, because they would participate in the motorcade as KKK. Once they tried to drive up on that first NAACP meeting, Williams reconstituted the NAACP chapter, because everyone ran with a bunch of black veterans who still had their guns and they shot.
John: Yeah, they shot at them. I know they didn’t come back for at least a while. Maybe more recently. That same Klan group went to Robeson County to fight. It was this guy named Catfish or something. I don’t know his name, but he was saying, basically, this is not my opinion, but quotes that “There’s just a bunch of mongrels out there in Robeson County”, speaking of the Lumbee. They were gonna have a rally out there and then 500 Lumbee surrounded them and shot out their lights and pushed them out of the town. There’s all this amazing footage of young Lumbee people. I think it was 1950 or 1953 or something. ’53 I think was in Monroe, so I think this was ’54, but there’s a long history of anti-Klan, popular violence in the southeast and all over the country.
TFSR: Well, thanks for sharing.
John: But Lil Boosie is great. Yeah, thank you guys. I appreciate it.
TFSR: I appreciate it too. Thanks for coming on.
John: Of course.