The Loyal White Knights, a North Carolina-based group thought to be the largest KKK faction, scheduled the protest to stop the removal of the flag. The group decided to carry on regardless. They received support from other KKK factions, National Socialist Movement members and Christian fundamentalists.
“The blacks have been out here attacking people, stealing people’s property, taking their flags,” said Steven Johnson, a South Carolina father of two who was among those waving Nazi flags during the rally. “I’m scared of what my family’s about to grow up with.”
Forgoing their notorious hoods, more than 50 protesters brandished flags and yelled racial epithets at minority onlookers from behind the protection of steel barricades, watched by dozens of law enforcement officers. According to Bader, some KKK members had planned to hold a church burning, wearing the infamous Klan uniforms.
South Carolina governor Nikki Haley this week called for people to ignore the “disruptive, hateful spectacle” of the KKK members and “to make the statehouse a lonely place for them”. Despite the wishes of the Republican governor, who demanded the flag’s removal following the Charleston shooting, about 2,000 people showed up to watch the demonstration, according to public safety officials. THE GUARDIAN
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