Originally published in Synapse on April 16, 1981.
Last Saturday, International Committee Against Racism (InCAR) and Progressive Labor Party took a leading role in forcibly preventing a Ku Klux Klan recruiting rally from occurring in San Jose. I’d like to share some impressions of that event, particularly as UCSF plans to show a film promoting the KKK under the guise of “informing” us about the Klan.
First, the crowd was gigantic; it filled most of a park the size of a square block. A great deal of effort had been made to discourage people from coming. For several days the Mayor of San Jose, who had ensured that the KKK got their permit and police protection, had been on TV and radio hourly telling people not to go to the park but to come to a pacifist rally miles away where Joan Baez would be singing.
Eight hundred people attended the mayor’s rally, but 2,000 people came to the park to actively confront the Klan. NAROC, the “anti-Klan” network which persuaded UCSF to show the movie “The New Klan” on campus and which has shown it all over the country, says ignorance of the Klan is a big factor in the Klan’s growth.
The size and militancy of the crowd in San Jose shows that NAROC’s contention is absurd; people know about the Klan and want to fight it. If NAROC had been in San Jose instead of having an “anti-Klan conference” 50 miles away they might realize this.
Second, people who hate the Klan want to know that there are people physically fighting the Klan and will follow that example. I was in the park distributing leaflets to people before the Klan arrived and also before the main body of InCAR and Progressive Labor people arrived. Our main body arrived in a column with flags, arms linked, and chanting “Death to the Klan”.
The effect on people in the park was electric: people stopped talking, so many people rushed over, to our group entering the park that I could only see the flags, and a minute later everywhere I looked people were raising their fists shouting “Death to the Klan!” with us.
I believe this is the thing which changed a crowd which was extremely hostile to the Klan and which would have shouted it down, to a crowd which was able to actually drive the Klan out of the park under a barrage of soda cans, rocks and bottles, in spite of 250 cops in riot gear protecting the KKK. Resistance to the Klan breeds more resistance.
This is the message which the movie “The New Klan” hides, which explains why the movie has been shown on local and national TV, why it helps the Klan, and why it should not be shown at UCSF.
Third, people felt good about being able to drive the KKK off, but they also had the sense that the fight against the Klan would go on. People were shouting “Wait ‘til next time!” and “Come back, you chickens!” and “We’ll see you again!”
This feeling is absolutely correct, as the Klan has already announced plans to hold four rallies in the Bay Area over the summer.
We must grow to meet that challenge. Join the Committee Against Racism at UCSF.
