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KKK to rally in St. Petersburg
By BRYAN GILMER, Times Staff Writer ST. PETERSBURG -- An Indiana-based Ku Klux Klan faction with a presence in Lakeland plans to rally on the steps of City Hall on Saturday, preaching white pride and decrying the firing of former police Chief Mack Vines. The black socialist Uhuru Movement and aligned groups plan to hold counterdemonstrations at City Hall beginning at noon, but other community leaders vowed to ignore the Klan. NAACP president Darryl Rouson and many City Council members are advising people simply to ignore the rally. "People need to ignore those fools," council Chairwoman Rene Flowers said of the Klan. She is black. Rouson said people should skip the rally and instead attend the previously scheduled "Come-unity Day" party sponsored by the Front Porch Florida effort to improve predominantly black neighborhoods in the city. The party is in Campbell Park, across town from City Hall. "We don't need to be there," Rouson said of the Klan rally. "They are preaching a message we don't need to hear." It is believed to be the Klan's first visit to St. Petersburg since the late 1980s. That rally, in 1988, lasted a few minutes before counterprotesters threw debris at the seven Klansmen, causing them to flee. Former Klan figure David Duke visited in 1998. This year, the Klan received a city permit for the rally. Its application for the permit said the group expects up to 100 people to show up. It would have been unconstitutional to deny the Klan its right to speak on the City Hall steps, City Attorney John Wolfe said Tuesday. St. Petersburg police Chief Chuck Harmon said he will assign "a very light presence" of officers to maintain order Saturday, adding, "We're going to try to separate the antis from the pros." Vines said he had not heard about the rally until a reporter asked him about it Tuesday. "Obviously, I'm surprised to hear something like that, and I have nothing to do with it." The Ku Klux Klan today is highly fragmented. Many independent and even rival groups include the designation in their names. "Since the 1970s, the Klan has been greatly weakened," says the Web site for the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks the Klan. "While some factions have preserved an openly racist and militant approach, others have tried to enter the mainstream, cloaking their racism as mere "civil rights for whites.' " Saturday's rally is by the National Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, a relatively small sect based on a farm near South Bend, Ind. The group openly slurs Jews and blacks. Burt B. Colucci, the group's "Grand Dragon of Florida," lives in Lakeland and goes by the alias Burt Nicosia. "The Ku Klux Klan is not just a bunch of dumb rednecks with no teeth who spit Copenhagen (snuff)," Colucci said. He said his group believes Mayor Rick Baker violated Vines' civil rights by firing him last year. Vines used the word "orangutan" in discussing the arrest of a black suspect.
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From the Times South Pinellas desks |
