"Have You Ever in Your Life Attended a Meeting of the Ku Klux Klan?"

[Nevilledog]

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ProPublica
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New: Why a team of reporters embarked on an in-depth exploration of 150 years of history in Alamance County, North Carolina.

“Have You Ever in Your Life Attended a Meeting of the Ku Klux Klan?”
Why a team of reporters embarked on an in-depth exploration of 150 years of history in Alamance County, North Carolina.
propublica.org
2:05 AM · May 27, 2021

https://www.propublica.org/article/have-you-ever-in-your-life-attended-a-meeting-of-the-ku-klux-klan

Last summer, as thousands of people around the country poured into the streets to express their grief and fury at the death of George Floyd and so many other Black people killed by police and vigilantes, I opened a file of a long-closed court case.

The complaint that launched the case said the Alamance County Sheriff’s Office, under the direction of Terry Johnson, “intentionally discriminates against Latino persons in Alamance County by targeting Latinos for investigation, detention, and arrest, and conducting unreasonable seizures and other unlawful law enforcement actions.”

Sheriff Johnson has long been the most visible representative of the local power structure in Alamance County, North Carolina, a place where the governing board is all-white, where Black people still endure racial slurs in grocery stores, and where a marble statue of a Confederate soldier looms over the downtown square of the city of Graham, the county seat. A tireless political operator, Johnson has served as the county’s top law enforcement official since first being elected in 2002. So dominating is his presence that supporters and opponents alike refer to Graham as “Terry’s Town.”

Johnson denied the racial profiling allegations and insisted he was not racist. In a deposition, a U.S. Department of Justice attorney asked about his use of racial slurs. He said he hadn’t used the N-word, for example, since he was 10 or 11. Johnson won the case in federal district court, then settled with the Obama administration following an appeal.

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[lastlib]

1. (well, I think it was disguised as our Thanksgiving dinner at home......)

...but that's a story for another time.

[dalton99a]

2. Kick

[Solly Mack]

3. K&R