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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsNAACP and KKK joint meeting in Wyoming
this is a very good story on several levels
http://trib.com/news/state-and-regional/in-possible-first-and-under-heavy-security-kkk-and-naacp/article_50271edd-04e9-5765-a05b-1d6297d25073.html
Response to SwampG8r (Original post)
Rebellious Republican This message was self-deleted by its author.
SwampG8r
(10,287 posts)are you replying to someone else?
Rebellious Republican
(5,029 posts)SwampG8r
(10,287 posts)kick carlin up its good stuff
Erose999
(5,624 posts)GP6971
(31,275 posts)Not sure what to make of it. If the meeting was a sincere "meeting of the minds", then it's a good thing If only posturing, then not so good
SwampG8r
(10,287 posts)read it the quotes are gold
madinmaryland
(64,934 posts)was completely normal and why there was no interest in this thread.
struggle4progress
(118,379 posts)November 08, 2005 12:00 AM
Civil rights activist and former Ku Klux Klansman C.P. Ellis has died at age 78. Ann Atwater, a black civil rights activist, talks about her friend. Ellis had a change of heart after a 10-day forum on integration of schools in Durham, N.C. He renounced his Klan membership, became lifelong friends with Atwater and went on to organize black and white labor unions.
An Unlikely Friendship
A new documentary by Chapel Hill filmmaker Diane Bloom gives Ann Atwater and C.P. Ellis an opportunity to tell their own story
by Jamie Sue Potorti
... In Bloom's documentary, the two, in separate interviews, recall their feelings the first time they met, at a Durham City Council meeting. "Blacks are taking over the city. They got the good jobs--and you're all sittin' here letting 'em do it," Ellis recalls shouting at the council, in a quote that summed up his resentment. "That's when I wanted to cut his head off," says Atwater, who remembers brandishing a pocketknife and charging through the crowd toward Ellis, the president of the local KKK chapter. A couple of friends held her back. "That's what they want you to do," they told her, and Atwater grudgingly put away the knife ...
Face to Face with Durham History
October 2, 2007
... Atwater, an activist for fair housing in Durham's black neighborhoods, and Ellis, a gas station owner who rose to the position of Exalted Cyclops in the Ku Klux Klan, were enemies on different sides of the color line during Durham's civil rights-era desegregation struggles. Chosen as the co-chairs of a 10-day-long series of meetings to improve public education, the two discovered that their kids had many of the same problems in school. It was then that they realized that poverty was a common bond and that class had shaped their experiences far more significantly than race separated them. A deep friendship ensued, which led to a profound personal transformation for Ellis. He abandoned the Klan, took a job at Duke, and became a union organizer. He and Atwater remained close until his death ...
C. P. Ellis: "Why I Quit the Klan
from American Dreams: Lost and Found
by Studs Terkel
... I really began to get bitter. I didnt know who to blame. I tried to find somebody. I began to blame it on black people. I had to hate somebody ... The natural person for me to hate would be black people, because my father before me was a member of the Klan ... I joined the Klan, went from member to chaplain, from chaplain to vice-president, from vice-president to president. The title is exalted Cyclops ... Heres a guy whos worked all his life and struggled all his life to be something, and heres the moment to be something ... The majority of em are low-income whites, people who really dont have a part in something. They have been shut out as well as the blacks. Some are not very well educated either. Just like myself ... I will never forget some black lady I hated with a purple passion. Ann Atwater. Every time Id go downtown, shed be leadin a boycott ... I felt very big, yeah ... What happened? As a result of our fightin one another, the city council still had their way. They didnt want to give up control to the blacks nor the Klan. They were usin us ... The same thing is happening in this country today. People are being used by those in control, those who have all the wealth ... I got a telephone call from the president of the state AFL-CIO. Wed like to get some people together from all walks of life. I said: All walks of life? Who you talkin about? He said: Blacks, whites, liberals, conservatives, Klansmen, NAACP people ... Ann Atwater was there ... I just forced myself to go in and sit down Some of the blacks stood up and say its white racism. I took all I could take. I asked for the floor and I cut loose ... Howard Clements, a black guy, stood up. He said: Im certainly glad C. P. Ellis come because hes the most honest man here tonight. I said: Whats that nigger tryin to do? ... The third night ... Howard Clements stood up and said: I suggest we elect two co-chairpersons. Joe Beckton, executive director of the Human Relations Commission, just as black as he can be, he nominated me. There was a reaction from some blacks. Nooo. And, of all things, they nominated Ann Atwater, that big old fat black gal that I just hated with a purple passion, as co-chairman ... It was impossible. How could I work with her? But after about two or three days, it was in our hands. We had to make it a success. This give me another sense of belongin, a sense of pride. This helped this inferiority feelin I had ...
Mother Muckraker
(116 posts)There can be no meeting of minds with the KKK. The KKK guy was all succession from the union where he and his fellow fascists can establish a homeland for the "white race". The meeting was about getting black folks to agree to succeed from the union and form their own state with black folks. The meeting was not about working together and integrating as fellow Americans.
It's completely in line with what the far-right in this country is all about. They want "small government" so fewer laws protecting consumers and workers are in place which allow big corporations to exploit at will. It would also allow whatever "corporate culture" to be established allowing whatever racist policy the business owners want. Mussolini called it the "corporate state" when reporters asked him what "fascism" was.
What the KKK organizer is promoting is treason and the NAACP members who allowed him to be a member are nothing more than chumps.
Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center, told the Associated Press that the meeting was "outrageous and counterproductive" as it "gives legitimacy to the Klan as an organization you can talk to."
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/09/kkk-naacp-meeting-casper-wyoming-quotes
SwampG8r
(10,287 posts)in fact find the idea he is espousing silly
read the things this man said and see if the loss of credibility doesn't fall from him with each syllable
his every utterance proves out his ignorance and in now way gives anyone the idea he has any thing of value to add to any discussion
he gives whatever the opposite of legitimacy is
Mother Muckraker
(116 posts)FYI: Potok is with the Southern Poverty Law Center. The SPLC has been a thorn on the side of the far-right and have been targeted for murder by far-right fascists.
Do you think an disingenuous attempt to deceive members of the NAACP into succession "good news"?