Klan

PHILADELPHIA, Miss. - The long-awaited murder trial of Edgar Ray Killen got under way yesterday with attorneys for both sides acknowledging to a racially diverse jury that the 80-year-old defendant was a member of the Ku Klux Klan when three civil rights workers were killed in 1964. But the difference in the opening statements was that state Attorney General James Hood wants jurors to believe that Killen, a former high-ranking state leader of the white supremacist group, was responsible for seeing that "troublemakers" targeted for "elimination" were murdered.

The Informant: The FBI, The Ku Klux Klan, and the Murder of Viola Liuzzo By Gary May. Yale University Press. 432 pages. $35. Gary Thomas Rowe Jr. was the FBI's man on the inside of the Klan. Inside and up close. Very close. Rowe had a knack for being in the vicinity of just about every conflagration of racial violence in the virulently segregated Alabama of the early 1960s. He was around for beatings, bombings, ultimately even murder. Many in the FBI, including J. Edgar Hoover himself, considered Rowe an incomparable asset in the war against racist extremists.

FREDERICK -- Civil rights leaders say they'll boycott the Great Frederick Fair today in protest of a car promoting the Ku Klux Klan being allowed to compete in a demolition derby earlier this week."

The Ku Klux Klan will make a swing through Mount Airy as part of an 11-town, three-month membership drive that is expected to culminate with an Ocean City rally on July 4."We want to let the folks in Mount Airy know what the Klan is all about, that we are against drug abuse, child molestation, rapists and all of that stuff," said Dale Reeves, an officer with the Invisible Empire, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. "We just want to let people see what we're against and what we condone."What the white supremacist group condones, however, is far more than a world free of child abuse, drug addiction and rape, says a former vice president for the Carroll County chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Anne Arundel County Executive Janet S. Owens yesterday rejected pleas by the ACLU to allow the Ku Klux Klan to join the county's Adopt-A-Road program, and pledged to keep the program closed rather than allow the racist group to participate.Owens said she would meet with her staff on the issue this week and was willing to talk to the American Civil Liberties Union about its concerns. But she said the Klan's request is raising the ire of some county residents."I got some calls from some friends," Owens said.

The Invisible Empire apparently lived up to its nickname yesterday.A Ku Klux Klan rally that was supposed to take place in the Crofton area last night never materialized -- at least as far as the Anne Arundel County police and reporters looking for it could determine.But Roger A. Kelly, imperial wizard of what he calls the Invincible Empire Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, said the rally took place on private property in Crofton, complete with a cross burning before a crowd of about 80 people.

A member of the Ku Klux Klan who created a stir three years ago by building a snowman in the shape of a hooded knight is now causing headaches in Anne Arundel County by demanding that the Klan participate in the county's Adopt-A-Road program.Rather than raise signs giving the Klan credit for picking up roadside litter, the county has shut down the program.Genewalter Newport Jr. of Mayo said he wants his group to "adopt" Gambrills Road near Millersville and win the same respect as the Lions Club or Elks Club for cleaning up the community.

METAIRIE, La. -- Republican presidential candidate David Duke says he is "proud" of his years as a Ku Klux Klan leader and still believes in "genetic differences" based on race.Duke also said that blacks and other minorities now have the upper hand in America, and that he sees "minority problems as a threat" to the white culture he loves."Obviously the scale is tipped over in their favor, and what happens is the rights of the majority come down," he said in an interview at his suburban New Orleans campaign office.

It was probably the worst-kept secret in town - the identity of the suspects in the September 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., in which four black girls were killed. And yet because enough people kept quiet for years, only one suspect has ever been brought to justice. But now, what was said, even bragged about, at family gatherings or in offhand conversations may finally become public, as testimony in the first of two trials against surviving suspects begins in Birmingham this week.

Inside the modest Silver Spring home Daryl Davis shares with his two cats, Spanky and Miss Ann, the walls speak of passions and paradox.Davis is a 39-year-old black boogie-woogie pianist with a five-piece band that plays 200 gigs a year. Photos from his music career crowd one wall, pictures of Davis with musical heroes like Muddy Waters and Little Richard.On another wall, a visitor finds a shrine of sorts to Linda Evans, the night-time soap goddess of the '80s.The pictures of Davis jamming with celebrities such as Chuck Berry and Bill Clinton have a definite pop culture cachet.