Ku Klux Klan still thriving against backdrop of US racial tensions
By David Millward
Documentary shows Klan leader promoting “lethal force” by whites in Ferguson, Missouri scene of days of rioting after unarmed black teenager was shot by police last year
The Ku Klux Klan is flourishing and exploiting racial tension in America, according to a new behind the scenes documentary.
With race relations still on a knife edge in some parts of the country following the deaths of African Americans at police hands, the white supremacist group is unashamedly promoting more hatred.
Images include a cross-burning ceremony in farmland outside St Louis, the scene of days of rioting last summer after Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, was shot by police.
One clip shows Frank Ancona, a Klan leader, promoting the use of “lethal force” in Ferguson under the guise of self-defence.
Last month’s shooting of nine worshippers at a black church in Charleston, South Carolina reignited fears that an undercurrent of white supremacist violence remains powerful in the United States.
In April three Klan members, including a prison officer, were charged with conspiring to murder a former black inmate.
Dan Vernon, who made the film, spent time with the KKK in several parts of the country, including Missouri, where the wounds have barely healed after Michael Brown’s death.
The Traditionalist American Knights, which is the fastest growing Klan group in America, is operating near Ferguson.
His alarming documentary shows men and women in Klan Robes while children as young as 12 watch flames shooting 30 feet into the air.
While mainstream America has hailed the advance in civil rights over the past 50 years, the KKK is still finding recruits among those who refuse to accept changes which have taken place.
One 20-year-old woman, who enlisted, tells Vernon: “I've always agreed with the morals and the values that the Klan associates with ever since I was growing up. I didn't see a reason not to join.”
Inside the Ku Klux Klan is on Monday, 10pm, Channel 4
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