No Password For Klan Says City

Austin Indymedia | October 28, 2005
By Stefan Wray

Austin City officials deny that the Klan will get a secret password to use for entry into the parking garage below City Hall on Nov. 5, the day of the planned Klan rally. But will exclusive use of parts of City Hall put local officials in the position of enforcing “whites only” areas?

Steven Edwards, Grand Dragon of the American White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in Texas, and one of the organizers of the KKK rally in Austin, wrote on an AWKKKK discussion bulletin board on Oct. 21 that the Austin Police Department had made the underground parking garage available to them and that “our people will have to have a password to enter, so if anyone wishes to attend with us, they will need to let us know in advance so that we can give them the password.”

Responding to a question as to whether this is true, Assistant City Manager Rudy Garza said, “There is no 'secret' password to the garage or City Hall, however there will be security processes in place.”

Garza also said, “We are working on a plan towards a peaceful, safe and secure event. While we will not be sharing our security plan, I can confirm that we are taking all necessary steps to protect our citizens, staff, interested parties and the rally participants.”

Even though they won’t have a password, it’s still not clear to whether the KKK will have exclusive access to – and be able to determine who uses – the underground parking garage or other facilities like the external bathrooms on the City Hall plaza.

In addition, City officials have still not answered questions whether or not videographers, community access TV producers, filmmakers, or other independent media makers will have access to the City Hall plaza to video record the Klan rally and, if they want, to cross police lines to also video record anti-Klan protests.

It’s one thing for the City to honor the KKK’s first amendment rights and let them use the plaza for a rally. But it’s something else – and raises legal questions – if the City enforces the Klan’s exclusive use of other parts of the building, in the name of security.

By definition, the American White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan is a “whites only” organization. If the City makes the bathrooms on the plaza available only to the Klan, will they be enforcing a “whites only” bathroom policy?

AWKKKK of Texas is headquartered in San Angelo. Steven Edwards , the Grand Dragon for the state, is presumably related to Jessica Edwards, the secretary for the organization. Her letter to City officials, where she says the Klan wants to have a "pro–family values rally” in support of Prop. 2, is quoted by a number of media stories.

But its Steven Edwards bulletin board posts on the AWKKKK web site that reveal some of the background planning that’s gone in to the Austin rally on Nov. 5. Apparently, they had initially tried to get the State Capitol but couldn’t find a sponsor among state legislators.

“When our State Secretary [Jessica Edwards] told the Lieutenant of APD that we were coming, he sounded scared,” Steven Edwards wrote on Oct. 16.“He said that the last time the Klan rallied in Austin Texas was in the 80's, and that it caused a big riot. There are at least ten members here in Texas who can and will attend. We are not worried for our safety, but if thousands show up to this event, as I feel they will, then I at least want the AWKKKK to have enough people there to make us appear as the Real Klan that we are.”

Although the White Knights are the public KKK figures behind this Nov. 5 rally, there is no reason to think that they will be the only Texas KKK group at the Austin rally.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center there are – or there have been at one point – 8 different Klan groups active in Texas. Besides the White Knights based in San Angelo, there are the Imperial Klans of America Knights in Austin, the National Knights in Blue Ridge and Thorndale, the White Camelia Knights in Cleveland, the Mississippi White Knights in Dallas and Red Oak, the Texas Knights of the Invisible Empire Inc. in San Antonio, the Southern White Knights in San Leon, the Aryan Nations Knights in Somerset.

So far at least one group is organizing to protest the Klan’s rally in Austin. Anti-Racist Action has called for people to gather on Nov. 5 at 11:30 a.m. at Republic Part located at 4th and Guadalupe.

Last modified October 28, 2005