KKK Recruitment Flyers Found In New Lenox
UPATED: 10/18/2013 4 p.m.
NEW LENOX, Ill. (CBS) -- The Ku Klux Klan apparently has been trying to make inroads in the southwestern suburbs.
WBBM Newsradio's Bernie Tafoya reports flyers for the KKK recently were found in New Lenox Township.
They were weighed down by rocks, and urged people to join the hate group, providing a website and hotline number, which features a "white power" recording.
The leaflet says, Save Our Land, Join the Klan.
A group called The Loyal White Knights of the KKK have been placing them at homes.
One local resident said she was shocked, and called the Will County Sheriff's Department, which admitted others had reported finding KKK flyers.
Much like during the group's infamous days carrying out hate crimes – from burning crosses on lawns to lynching African Americans – the leader of the current KKK admitted to the New Lenox Patch his group dropped off flyers during their regular night rides.
He said the New Lenox area is fertile ground for recruiting.
New Lenox Mayor Tim Baldermann told CBS 2's Suzanne LeMignot: "I can assure you that the attitude of this community would never condone this type of activity."
"If I'm going to get on my soapbox here, there's absolutely too much hatred and bigotry in this world."
Reached by phone by CBS 2, a man claiming to be William K. Spears, the Imperial Kaltrop of the Loyal White Knights of the KKK, said racism is not part of the group's message.
It's about equality for whites.
"You hear black pride all the time, you hear brown pride, you never hear white pride," he said.
"The first thing that comes to everybody's mind is racist and you get all these stereotypes that we're a bunch of backwoods bigots, and they're basically saying, we don't have the right to exist in our own country."
