Rasp
Senior Editor
Klan approved for rally at Gettysburg (Sept. 2)
Klan gets permit for Gettysburg protest
GETTYSBURG, Pa. - The National Park Service granted a request by the Ku Klux Klan to rally and protest near the spot where a failed offensive by the Confederacy turned the tide of the Battle of Gettysburg.
Gordon Young of the World Knights of the Ku Klux Klan obtained the permit Wednesday for about 100 people to participate in a Sept. 2 event on the lawn of the Cyclorama Center at Gettysburg National Military Park, near the site of Pickett's Charge.
The permit said the purpose will be to demonstrate opposition to the Iraq war and to speak on "white unity between the north and south."
Gettysburg park Superintendent John A. Latschar said in a statement Mon
day that the permit was granted in light of the constitutional rights of free speech and peaceable assembly.
"As custodians of land owned by the American people, the National Park Service has a responsibility to make that land available for exercising those rights," Latschar said.
Young said Monday he was not surprised that the permit had been granted.
"We're not out here to show everybody that we're hate," he said. "We're separatists. We choose not to be around certain people, or colors."
Young's group and other white-supremacist organizations held a similar event June 10 at Antietam National Battlefield in Sharpsburg, Md. About 30 people took part in the Antietam rally, which featured speeches attacking immigrants, blacks and other minority groups. There also were about 30 counter-demonstrators and about 200 law-enforcement officers.
"Nobody threw anything, nobody was physically assaulted," said James Lewis, a Wrights
ville Klan member involved in promoting the Gettysburg event. "So as far as I'm concerned, everything went pretty well."
The Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863, which repelled a Confederate advance into Pennsylvania, was the largest and bloodiest battle of the Civil War. More than 51,000 combatants were killed, wounded, captured or disappeared.
Klan gets permit for Gettysburg protest
GETTYSBURG, Pa. - The National Park Service granted a request by the Ku Klux Klan to rally and protest near the spot where a failed offensive by the Confederacy turned the tide of the Battle of Gettysburg.
Gordon Young of the World Knights of the Ku Klux Klan obtained the permit Wednesday for about 100 people to participate in a Sept. 2 event on the lawn of the Cyclorama Center at Gettysburg National Military Park, near the site of Pickett's Charge.
The permit said the purpose will be to demonstrate opposition to the Iraq war and to speak on "white unity between the north and south."
Gettysburg park Superintendent John A. Latschar said in a statement Mon
day that the permit was granted in light of the constitutional rights of free speech and peaceable assembly.
"As custodians of land owned by the American people, the National Park Service has a responsibility to make that land available for exercising those rights," Latschar said.
Young said Monday he was not surprised that the permit had been granted.
"We're not out here to show everybody that we're hate," he said. "We're separatists. We choose not to be around certain people, or colors."
Young's group and other white-supremacist organizations held a similar event June 10 at Antietam National Battlefield in Sharpsburg, Md. About 30 people took part in the Antietam rally, which featured speeches attacking immigrants, blacks and other minority groups. There also were about 30 counter-demonstrators and about 200 law-enforcement officers.
"Nobody threw anything, nobody was physically assaulted," said James Lewis, a Wrights
ville Klan member involved in promoting the Gettysburg event. "So as far as I'm concerned, everything went pretty well."
The Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863, which repelled a Confederate advance into Pennsylvania, was the largest and bloodiest battle of the Civil War. More than 51,000 combatants were killed, wounded, captured or disappeared.
