Klan fliers circulate in Wiregrass

The plain flier features a clip art picture of a hooded man carrying a torch. He is wearing a white, flowing cape and sits on top of a horse.

Around him are the words “Save Our Land. Join the Klan.”

The fliers are circulating in the Wiregrass, according to the Rev. Kenneth Glasgow, who said one found its way to the offices of WCMA Radio in Level Plains. The station is managed by Glasgow’s Christian ministry known as TOPS, or The Ordinary People Society.

Glasgow said the station received calls from several residents in the Daleville area who reported receiving the flier.

“I just couldn’t believe it,” Glasgow said.

Underneath the picture of the klansman on a horse is contact information for the headquarters of the International Keystone Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, an Arkansas-based group whose Web site references an Alabama office in Pinson as well as one in Newton. No contact information is on the Web site for the Newton office, only a post office box.

“I don’t know if this has been going on all the time and they just got more bold or what,” said Glasgow, who is black. “We have a lot of local leaders in our community who are working together — black, white and hispanic — and that’s something positive that is going on.”

A phone message left by the Dothan Eagle at the International Keystone Knights headquarters in Colt, Ark., was not returned.

Mark Potoc, director of the Intelligence Project for the Southern Poverty Law Center, said “literature drops” are a common form of recruitment for klan groups.

“Sometimes they will make literature drops indiscriminantly, at a Wal-Mart parking lot or a Sam’s, something like that,” Potoc said. “Other times, they will flier a neighborhood they believe would be sympathetic to their beliefs.”

The International Keystone Knights is designated as a hate group by the SPLC. Potoc said the number of klan chapters had dropped between 2005-07, but increased last year.

“Some have speculated (the rise) grew on the backs of the immigration issue, or possibly related it to Obama,” Potoc said. “I don’t think there is really a definite explanation.”