White Sail
Junior News Editor
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/ne...05839659C855480C862577060007B6D7?OpenDocument
Judge says Klan can have barbecue at battle site
BY ROBERT PATRICK
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
04/15/2010
ST. LOUIS — Missouri officials cannot bar a Ku Klux Klan splinter group from holding an event Saturday at the site of one of the state's biggest Civil War battles, a federal judge in St. Louis ruled Wednesday.
Frank Ancona, who identified himself as imperial wizard of the Traditionalist American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, filed suit Wednesday morning for an emergency order to overrule rejection of its application to rent a large pavilion at the Fort Davidson State Historic Site.
It's in Iron County, about 70 miles south of St. Louis.
Ancona said in a phone interview after winning the ruling that he's not sure the event will be held, because of financial concerns. U.S. District Judge Rodney Sippel required the group to post a $1,800 bond and comply with all laws and regulations, including having liability insurance of $300,000.
In addition to a barbecue, a bean bag toss and a duck pond game, the KKK was planning to hang its banner, a U.S. flag, a Confederate battle flag and a Klan insignia, according to the suit and testimony in two hearings Wednesday.Some attendees would be wearing Klan robes and hoods. They also planned to have a flier on hand, discussing the state's removal of a "Confederate Battle Flag" from the park.
"We only want to draw attention to the plight of our heritage," a letter sent to park official reads.
State officials rejected Ancona's request earlier this year, citing historical inaccuracies in the flier,
and the park's historical mission to preserve the site. It's where about 1,000 Confederates died in an attack on Union solders in 1864's Battle of Pilot Knob.
The Klan group is wrong about the flag, Department of Natural Resources general counsel Chris Pieper wrote in a March 23 letter to the American Civil Liberties Union, which represented Ancona. The flag depicted in Klan fliers is the unit flag of the Army of Northern Virginia and was never flown at Fort Davidson; the fort flew the 2nd National flag, he wrote.
Sippel, citing long-established legal precedent, said officials could not bar the group from a public place just because of the content of its speech or message. He said that even if everything the group says is incorrect, "They do have the right to say it."
Discrimination against a group is not allowed, the judge said, even if it holds discriminatory views, or if its views are "repugnant." He continued, "That's the wonderful thing about our country."
Ancona's organization is an offshoot of the Klan group that fought and won the right to participate in Missouri's "Adopt-a-Highway" program some years ago, said ACLU lawyer Anthony Rothert.
Ancona, a self-employed contractor who lives in Washington County, acknowledged that his group is a white supremacist organization, but he said that it is not a hate group and that it bars neo-Nazis.
"This has nothing to do with race," Ancona said, but rather free speech and "a historic site and a flag that once flew there that was taken down."
Judge says Klan can have barbecue at battle site
BY ROBERT PATRICK
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
04/15/2010
ST. LOUIS — Missouri officials cannot bar a Ku Klux Klan splinter group from holding an event Saturday at the site of one of the state's biggest Civil War battles, a federal judge in St. Louis ruled Wednesday.
Frank Ancona, who identified himself as imperial wizard of the Traditionalist American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, filed suit Wednesday morning for an emergency order to overrule rejection of its application to rent a large pavilion at the Fort Davidson State Historic Site.
It's in Iron County, about 70 miles south of St. Louis.
Ancona said in a phone interview after winning the ruling that he's not sure the event will be held, because of financial concerns. U.S. District Judge Rodney Sippel required the group to post a $1,800 bond and comply with all laws and regulations, including having liability insurance of $300,000.
In addition to a barbecue, a bean bag toss and a duck pond game, the KKK was planning to hang its banner, a U.S. flag, a Confederate battle flag and a Klan insignia, according to the suit and testimony in two hearings Wednesday.Some attendees would be wearing Klan robes and hoods. They also planned to have a flier on hand, discussing the state's removal of a "Confederate Battle Flag" from the park.
"We only want to draw attention to the plight of our heritage," a letter sent to park official reads.
State officials rejected Ancona's request earlier this year, citing historical inaccuracies in the flier,
and the park's historical mission to preserve the site. It's where about 1,000 Confederates died in an attack on Union solders in 1864's Battle of Pilot Knob.The Klan group is wrong about the flag, Department of Natural Resources general counsel Chris Pieper wrote in a March 23 letter to the American Civil Liberties Union, which represented Ancona. The flag depicted in Klan fliers is the unit flag of the Army of Northern Virginia and was never flown at Fort Davidson; the fort flew the 2nd National flag, he wrote.
Sippel, citing long-established legal precedent, said officials could not bar the group from a public place just because of the content of its speech or message. He said that even if everything the group says is incorrect, "They do have the right to say it."
Discrimination against a group is not allowed, the judge said, even if it holds discriminatory views, or if its views are "repugnant." He continued, "That's the wonderful thing about our country."
Ancona's organization is an offshoot of the Klan group that fought and won the right to participate in Missouri's "Adopt-a-Highway" program some years ago, said ACLU lawyer Anthony Rothert.
Ancona, a self-employed contractor who lives in Washington County, acknowledged that his group is a white supremacist organization, but he said that it is not a hate group and that it bars neo-Nazis.
"This has nothing to do with race," Ancona said, but rather free speech and "a historic site and a flag that once flew there that was taken down."