At least they identified themselves and I like that,' said David. It's their position, and to some extent it's preferable to them being the type of covert racists whom you can't spot because they have on their suits or casual clothing. I don't think there's anything wrong with knowing where the racists stand. 'I wanted to hear them speak, I think they have a right to speak. Paul, an African American man in the crowd, said he was disappointed he couldn't hear what the Klan members were saying. McQueeny and others shouted through a bullhorn and public address system, but the chants of an estimated 1,200 anti-Klan demonstrators prevented most observers from hearing the speeches. 'How long can the white race continue to deny and attempt to cover up the fact that the world we live in resembles a horror film? Every day crime in America is getting worse, and vicious crimes by Negroes are so common that most people have become immune to the crime that exists around them,' McQueeny said. Michael McQueeny, a grand dragon of the KKK from Wisconsin and the rally organizer, set the tone of intolerance. The members of the National Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and the National Socialist Movement took turns blasting various racial groups and calling for a pure white race. Michael McQueeny of Mercer, Wis., the organizer of the rally, set the tone.įORTY-SIX MEN DRESSED IN HOODED, WHITE ROBES OR BROWN SHIRTS with swastika arm bands stood defiantly on the steps of the state Capitol waving Nazi and Confederate flags. Fewer than 50 Klan members spoke from the Capitol steps, and their message of white supremacy was largely drowned out by opponents.Ī member of the Ku Klux Klan addresses a rally at the Minnesota state Capitol Saturday. Despite calls from the Anti-Defamation League, Trump was slow to distance himself from Duke's racism and initially claimed he knew nothing about Duke and his beliefs.A Ku Klux Klan rally and counter demonstration drew more than 1,000 people to the Minnesota state Capitol Saturday, and a heavy police presence apparently helped head off any violence. When Trump was a candidate for president, he was endorsed by white supremacist and former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke. He also said the election of Trump proved that 'white America has failed to confront systemic racism' and disowned what he called modern-day slavery in the form of mass incarceration. Rice, meanwhile, drew parallels between Adolf Hitler's use of militancy to drive economic populism and America's own military-industrial complex. 'I am not an object,' said Sheehan, Albany's first woman mayor. Rice's own story of escape from Nazism was followed by a fiery speech from Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan, who praised her city's tolerance of Muslims, the LGBT and other disenfranchised minority groups before turning her attention to Trump's now-infamous tape of him bragging about grabbing women by the genitals. The Albany rally, organized by the Capital District Coalition Against Islamophobia, brought together a diverse chorus of voices. That, she said, is a central tenet of her belief and the overall religion. 'I just cannot fathom how any person could think this way.' Esat, a Muslim, said she wished more people could come to understand the social justice aspects of Islam. 'I think I'm still in denial,' Esat said of Trump's proposed Muslim registry and the rise of Islamophobia in America. Rice and Esat joined more than 200 people who gathered in Townsend Park in Albany to oppose the Ku Klux Klan, which had its own gathering - reportedly a 'victory rally' for President-elect Donald Trump - planned for later in the day in Caswell County, near the North Carolina-Virginia border. The two have at least one thing in common: They are extremely concerned for the future of the country they've adopted as home. Fatima Esat was born under apartheid in 1965 in Rhodesia, now called Zimbabwe.

Kkk victory march