Last Updated: May 31, 2000
Printer-friendly version
One of three winning stories by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that
won the Jesse Laventhol prize for deadline writing in 1998.
Wednesday, March 18, 1998
The hooded face of hatred and intolerance appeared Downtown yesterday,
and the Ku Klux Klan’s racist message was met with name-calling, stone-throwing,
scuffling, counter rallies and prayerful pleas for unity.
Although friction between opposing factions approached a flashpoint,
and the potential for violence hung in the air, the Klan rally on Grant
Street ended largely without incident. Three arrests were reported by a
heavy force of city and county police clad in riot gear and body armor.
Thirty-nine Klansmen in robes or storm-trooper uniforms gave white-power
salutes and delivered similar speeches laced with racial taunts and profanity
from the steps of the City-County Building.
But a chain-link fence and police barricades on Grant Street separated
them from about 3,000 raucous onlookers who shouted back their own obscenities
and delivered middle-finger salutes.
Two in the crowd were arrested for throwing rocks, and a third person
was charged with disorderly conduct and failure to disperse.
On a drizzly day when the Klan and its Nazi symbols appeared, messages
of a far different nature resonated from elsewhere in the city.
A rally for unity drew 3,000 people to Market Square, hundreds more
jammed St. Mary of Mercy Church on Stanwix Street for a Mass and ecumenical
prayer service, about 200 members of a group called The Concerned Black
Citizens held a teach-in at Westinghouse Park in North Point Breeze.
Anti-Klan rallies sprang up spontaneously.
The ugliest incident occurred at Cherry Way and Fourth Avenue, just
a few hundred feet from where Klan members spoke.
Six Klan supporters - five men and a woman - were spat upon, shoved
and taunted before police stepped in to protect them. One of the supporters
was sprayed in the eyes with pepper spray, apparently by someone in the
crowd, before they were driven away in an ambulance.
"We saw today the very best and very worst of Pittsburgh," Mayor Murphy
said after the Klan rally ended shortly after 3 p.m. "I’ve never felt that
kind of revulsion.
"Police Chief Robert W. McNeilly Jr., whose forces were responsible
for the security of both the Klan and the onlookers, breathed a sigh of
relief.
"We survived," he said tersely.
The Indiana-based American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, one of dozens
of Klan factions in the United States, initially said it wanted to march
in Homewood, a predominantly black neighborhood. Then the Klansmen settled
on a rally outside the City-County Building.
Most Klan rallies are designed to show a presence in a town, sometimes
to recruit new members.
Yesterday’s rally, said Pennsylvania Grand Dragon C. Edward Foster,
the main force behind the rally, was simple.
"Our ultimate goal was to stir up the white revolution. To cause enough
hate and dissension so they’d riot down there.
"We hope they burn the place down." They didn’t.
The Day Unfolds
Shortly after 9 a.m., paramedics and police SWAT team members gather
in a parking lot near the City-County Building to prepare.
Paramedics review procedures for washing pepper spray out of afflicted
eyes and brief each other on anti-riot techniques. They also don bulletproof
vests and gas masks.
The SWAT teams assemble outside their old headquarters on the Boulevard
of the Allies near Smithfield Street. A bomb-squad trailer is parked outside
while police put on their body armor and gas masks while checking their
weapons and plastic handcuffs.
A little more than an hour later, at St. Mary of Mercy, people more
concerned with the spiritual than the confrontational gather.
The Rev. John O’Toole celebrates Mass for more than 500 casually dressed
men, women and children in a church that can hold 850.The faithful don’t
seem to mind the television and newspaper photographers walking down the
side aisles.
As the Mass progresses, a lone police car is parked on Fourth Avenue
beside PPG Place. Across the street and toward Market Square, four police
officers chat idly. Their riot helmets and a water bottle sit atop a garbage
receptacle, against which lean four long riot batons.
The crowd at Market Square is light - the Pittsburgh Coalition to Counter
Hate Groups’ counter-rally won’t begin for another 50 minutes, but people
of all ages, races and ethnicities are starting to gather, holding placards
and staking out spots next to a stage.
After the Mass lets out at St. Mary, more than 400 people stick around
for an ecumenical prayer service conducted by the Christian Leaders Fellowship,
an organization representing 11 major denominations.
"Racism is an evil that must be rooted out of the church and every aspect
of our community," the organization says in a statement read by Bishop
Alden Hathaway of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh.
"As spiritual leaders, we must speak out without reservation against
any effort that promotes racism, hatred or intolerance in any form, especially
when this is done by those who identify themselves as Christian, such as
the Ku Klux Klan.
"The clergy conclude the service by singing, "Let there be peace on
Earth," a hymn that ends with the words, "and let it begin with me."
The Peace Is Threatened
Anti-Klan demonstrators mill around a fenced-in parking lot across Grant
Street from the Klan roost. Police hope the cage, as some call the enclosure,
will keep Klan members far apart from their detractors.
One of the first people to arrive inside the fence, 135 feet from the
steps of the City-County Building, is Chuck Grodes, 49, of South Fayette.
Like everyone who follows him inside, he is checked for weapons by police
holding chirping metal detectors.
On the chain-link barrier are signs that say: "Warning, Do Not Climb
Fence! Violators Will Be Sprayed With Mace.
"Grodes recalls a black friend during his Vietnam days as he denounces
racism.
"I didn’t look at it like black and white. He saved my ass. He was my
brother. In combat, you don’t have time to hate a guy. We were like family."
In the same hour, the mayor heads Downtown, first for a final look at
police preparations and then for an appearance at the anti-Klan event at
Market Square.
Along Grant Street, Murphy works his way among the waiting police officers,
shaking hands and offering thanks.
"I hope we’re overreacting," he confides to one.
Murphy’s public day began tethered to a rope held by a member of the
Pittsburgh Explorers Club. He rappeled down the face of Mount Washington,
grabbing rusted beer cans, decaying cups and the odd champagne bottle.
It was part of the annual cleanup the club organizes to scour the Pittsburgh
landmark, a reminder that many Pittsburghers would spend their day demonstrating
engagement with their city in ways that have nothing to do with opposition
to, or support for, the Klan.
"I’d rather be doing this than what I’m going to be doing the rest of
the day," he said with a glance back at the cliff.
After a change of clothes, Murphy heads to the DoubleTree Hotel for
a political meeting with labor leaders.
Less than a mile away, more people are milling around outside the Fourth
Avenue entrance to the enclosed observation area than have gone in.
There are young black men with dreadlocks and braids; one is dressed
in a blue pin-stripe suit. Young white women with black lipstick and pierced
brows, noses and ears, and young white men in black pants and T-shirts
all are wearing "Stop Racism" stickers.
Several members of the Anti-Racist Action group from Detroit are there,
too. Rebecka Helton, 20, observes that Pennsylvania Klan members seem to
be more openly racist than those in the Detroit area.
She turns toward some young women wearing T-shirts depicting Confederate
flags who’ve turned their backs to Fourth Avenue.
"Why are you hiding?" Helton shouts to them. The women turn and curse
at her.
Derek Johnson, 25, a photographer accompanying the Detroit contingent,
predicts, "There’s going to be some trouble today.
"A young black man stands in the street outside the entrance to the
cage.
"I came down here because I hate the Ku Klux Klan," he says. He won’t
enter the cage, he says, because the hand-held metal detectors used by
police at the entrance would stop him cold.
Inside Kaufmann’s a block away, a black security guard and a white clerk
at the pastry counter discuss the Klan.
"Have you ever seen one of them in costume?" asks the clerk, a woman
in her 50s."I’ve never seen them except on TV," says the guard, a much
younger man who gives his name as Jonathon.
The clerk describes the store as "dead" for a Saturday. Jonathon, who
occasionally pulls weekend duty, says foot traffic seems about normal.
He resumes his post near an entrance to the shoe department. Several
other doors are covered by uniformed security people.
"It’s a shame that they’ve got to do this," Jonathon says of the store’s
management.
Outside the store, a family of five decked out in Penguins sweaters
notices the overwhelming police presence on street corners. On the way
to the Penguins’ 1:30 p.m. game against the Ottawa Senators, the family
stops to have a word with four officers at Smithfield Street and Forbes
Avenue.
A beat officer whose name tag says "Carnahan" tells them he’s hoping
for heavy rain. Nothing better than a downpour to cool a crowd running
on adrenaline, he says.Carnahan, who declines to give his first name, says
he doesn’t necessarily think police are in for a long afternoon. "We really
don’t know what to expect," he says.
At Fifth Avenue and Smithfield Street, 30 or so anti-Klan marchers zip
along, many carrying signs that say, "Absolute KKKrap.
"Ben Zimmerman of Farmington waves a placard that says, "White sheets
hide red necks."
"We came to Pittsburgh today because we believe all men were created
equal," Zimmerman says.
Klan On The Move
By prearrangement with Pittsburgh police, Klan members take the Pennsylvania
Turnpike to Exit 5, Harmarville, and their vehicles pull into a lot behind
a Giant Eagle. They arrive at 12:45 p.m.
C. Edward Foster, Pennsylvania grand dragon of the American Knights
of the KKK, can’t find the undercover police officers assigned to the group.
He decides he’s been tricked.He picks up a cell phone and calls Sgt. Mona
Wallace of the police intelligence unit. Where are his contacts, Foster
demands.
She directs him to a truck nearby, where two undercover officers await.
The caravan follows the officers to the Pittsburgh Public Safety Training
Academy on Washington Boulevard in Highland Park.
Foster and his entourage had left the village of Walston, just outside
Punxsutawney, Jefferson County, a few hours earlier. Their first destination
was the Sunrise Inn in Monroeville, where a group of out-of-state klansmen
had stayed overnight.
About noon, as some robed Klan members leave the motel, some of them
jaw with customers of a Burger King nearby.
"One person that wasn’t (a Klan member) and one that was started running
off at the mouth," says an employee of the restaurant.
A state trooper shoos the Klan members toward the turnpike before the
confrontation can escalate into a fight.
Monroeville police characterizes the standoff as a "slight incident."
But the mood of the rest of the day had been set.
East Of Town
For the 200 people gathered at The "Black Family Day Teach-In" at Westinghouse
Park in North Point Breeze, it was more pep rally than protest.
The gentle flapping of the red, black and green African-American unity
flag and the steady beats of the 10-member Imhotep drummers filled the
air.
A stream of speakers, from community organizer Emma Slaughter, who pushes
for building a black cultural museum in Homewood, to civil rights lawyer
Leroy Hodge, who urges economic and political awareness, lends its own
rhythms to the breezy, drizzly afternoon.
The crowd, clad mostly in wind suits, sweats and T-shirts, feasts on
an array of political empowerment messages - register to vote, start your
own business - but also on salad, cookies, fruit and fried chicken.
Bariki, an organizer who goes by her first name only and is a member
of Concerned Black Citizens, which sponsored the teach-in, says the day
was one to focus on "the plight of the African in America."
"We should be aware of the Klan’s devastation through history, but more
importantly we’re here to mobilize independent and free-thinking African
Americans."
Politics wasn’t always on center stage. The teach-in was a way for everyone
to get into the act.
Eight young girls from Homewood’s Sankofa Rites of Passage program drill
team march; men from the Nation of Islam rap.
Councilwoman Valerie McDonald stops by. She had earlier visited the
anti-Klan rally in Market Square.
"It was good to get away from the Klan and get back into the community.
I like the messages of unity here."
Dora Martin visits with her two children, Jaymie, 8 and Malcolm, 5."With
the Klan in town, you wouldn’t know it was Pittsburgh 1997. You’d think
it was Selma 1963," she says. "I want my kids to know their history, but
I also want them to know that they have a future."
Downtown prepares
Pittsburgh Coalition to Counter Hate Groups rally organizer Barney Oursler
is checking preparations, lining up the speakers and coordinating his team.
"The hard work is going to be after today," Oursler says.
A cheer erupts a few minutes later as about 40 people from the North
Side march toward Market Square. Overall, the noontime atmosphere is festive
as about 3,000 people - young singles, couples and families - listen to
the first of 50 speakers.
They include representatives of the city and county, the state Legislature,
religious organizations, community groups and labor unions.
The mood all afternoon is reminiscent of a family reunion as old friends
kiss, hug and shake hands.
The mood is far different nearer to Grant Street.
A 17-year-old boy from the South Hills - he won’t give a name - turns
up in a black T-shirt with a swastika and "Weiss Macht" - white power -
emblazoned on it. Alyson and Laura Finney, sisters from Mt. Lebanon, also
have come to support the Klan. Alyson is wearing her "grim reaper" pendant,
and Laura is wearing a T-shirt with a Confederate flag.
For a few minutes, Alyson talks a tough game. Black people, she says,
are inferior.
The first confrontation begins. Alyson is spotted by a group of anti-Klan
protesters, who confront her.
"Y’all get the hell out of here!" shouts Elmer Hyatt, a black man from
Wilkinsburg.
"I’m allowed to stand here if I want to, right? Why should we get out?"
Finney says.Angry words go back and forth, and Finney turns around to discover
that her cohorts have melted away into the crowd.
"You know what I’d like to know?" George Spratley, a North Side man,
asks Finney. "What are you going to do when you go to heaven and you find
out God is a black man?"
"I guess I’ll go to hell," Finney says.
Police SWAT Team Cmdr. Dom Costa eases his way into the growing clot
of angry people and quietly breaks it up.
On Fourth Avenue near Oxford Centre, about 30 people, black and white,
primarily young, mill about.
Their numbers are dwarfed by the police officers in riot gear. Half
a block away, at Cherry Way, five county police officers atop horses stand
at the ready.
On Forbes Avenue, at the other entrance to the cage, the scene is nearly
a mirror image of what is found on Fourth - police in riot gear, deputies
with metal-detecting wands, paramedics standing in front of the Allegheny
Building.
More people trickle in. Most are young. They are black and white and
Asian, casually dressed in T-shirts and jeans, peasant dresses and sandals.
Even in this melting pot a few stick out. One man wears a blond Mohawk
haircut and has numerous piercings in his nose, ears, lips, tongue and
eyebrow. One woman has aqua-colored hair, another purple. A few of the
men sport shoulder-to-fingertip tattoos.
At 12:08 p.m., Cornell Womack of the Grant Street Anti-Klan Coalition
leads a group of people onto Forbes and begins a chant: "What do we want?"
"Justice!" "When do we want it?" "Now!"A few minutes later, some in the
anti-Klan group begin chanting to those inside the viewing enclosure, "Come
out of the cage."
Now there are several hundred people near the cage entrance on Forbes.
It begins to drizzle. The chants continue.
In front of the City-County Building, McNeilly, the police chief, huddles
with Deputy Chief Charles Moffatt as Assistant Chiefs William P. Mullen
and Nate Harper scurry about. Forty officers from the Community Oriented
Police unit, in riot gear, line a fence separating the cage from Grant
Street.
On both Forbes and Fourth avenues, police horses, wearing tiny shields
to protect their eyes, stand ready.
Lt. Daniel Quinlan walks the fence line, chatting and laughing with
spectators in the cage. He ignores the insults occasionally hurled his
way
.In the midst of all this, a frail, ancient woman with a cane inches
her way up Forbes and onto Grant, through the buffer zone and right under
the noses of the police.
She can’t speak and appears to be deaf as well.
She scribbles her name, "Helen Jean," on a pad for a questioner.
What is she doing in the middle of this?
She scratches out her answer: "71-D Hamilton Bus."
Paramedics take the woman out of the security zone.
Cherry Way
On Forbes Avenue just outside the gated-in area shortly after 1:30 p.m.,
a Klan supporter in a blue shirt ventures into the anti-Klan crowd and
flashes a Nazi salute. He quickly retreats toward Cherry Way amid shouts
from several anti-Klan demonstrators. "Don’t you stick that in my face!"
one man shouts.
On Cherry Way and Fourth, a big crowd gets angry when it spots six people
with shaved heads standing among them.
Dozens of people begin spitting at the six. Sixteen SWAT team members
with helmets, shields and automatic weapons are only feet away. They sit
tight.
The crowd, black and white alike, shouts "KKK out! KKK out!"
Young people advance on the six, spitting and threatening. A few people
throw punches. A heavy-set Klan supporter is hit in the eyes with pepper
spray.
Finally, after 90 seconds of mayhem, the SWAT team steps in to protect
the Klan sympathizers. They form a protective shield around them and hold
the crowd at bay.
Two anti-Klan people taunt the SWAT team. One shrill blond man drops
to his knees in front of a rifle-toting officer.
"Shoot me," the man says. "You know you want to. You know you want to
shoot me."
The officer stands still and grim-faced. He says nothing.
Sgt. Paul Minella, a command officer, says the six Klan supporters are
not under arrest. Rather, they are under police protection, at their request.
Golfball-sized chunks of asphalt fly and pedestrians scatter as helmeted
police walk two men, both in handcuffs, past a jeering crowd on Fourth
Avenue near Cherry Way. Shouts of "KKK!" by a small group of Klan supporters
outside the fenced in pen are drowned out by a larger crowd yelling "Whose
Streets? Our Streets!"
One of the men in handcuffs exchanges taunts with the crowd while standing
at Fourth and Cherry, waiting to be removed by police along with the second
handcuffed man. Additional police arrive. Traffic moves slowly through
Cherry Way within several feet of the disturbance. Traffic backs up on
surrounding streets, including Wood and the Boulevard of the Allies.
About 2:20 p.m., a police SWAT armored assault vehicle rumbles up the
Boulevard of the Allies toward Cherry Way with its lights flashing to remove
the six who have been under SWAT team protection.
An older man yells curses at the six as they step into the sanctuary
that will drive them far away from this angry mob.
"You should let us kill them . . . suckers," a young man says to a SWAT
team member.
The mood is nasty. People are grouped along sidewalks tightly because
Cherry is open to pedestrian and car traffic. People are sticking their
cameras right into the faces of foot patrol officers in riot gear, snapping
away. There are several young black men wearing black bandannas over their
faces. People are shouting anti-police slogans.
Send in the Klan
At 1:10 p.m., Klansmen arrive in a staging area away from the City-County
Building - police won’t say where - and are checked for weapons.
They bundle up their robes and costumes and pile into a green police
bus. Foster and Imperial Wizard Jeff Berry ride in a police wagon. The
caravan makes its way Downtown, and the vehicles pull into the main yard
of the old County Jail.
The Klansmen follow police and deputies through hallways and stairs
of the old jail, across the Bridge of Sighs into the County Courthouse
and through a warren of halls. They stop near the sheriff’s office to put
on their robes.
Then they go down a series of stairs and through a tunnel that runs
below Forbes Avenue, and surface in the City-County Building.
The roar and rumble of anger flashes off the brick and stone walls inside
the canyon of Grant Street as the first Klansman steps outside. The hooded
and robed specter walks up to the city-supplied lectern and begins to speak.
Nothing comes out. But he is booed and jeered from across the street
nonetheless.
He fiddles with dials and knobs below the lectern and tries again.
Silence, still.
The Ku Klux Klutz walks back into the building to fetch Foster, who
promptly accuses ZOG - that’s Klanspeak for "Zionist Occupation Government"
- of tampering with the volume.
Thirty hooded Klansmen roll out the front door of the building, along
with three in helmets and storm-trooper uniforms with swastika armbands,
and six young men dressed in a combination of jeans, combat boots and an
occasional bandanna over the face. One is wearing a hockey mask.
Henry Clement, neo-Nazi from New Jersey, waves a red, white and black
flag bearing a swastika. He’s wearing a German-style army helmet, black
outfit, combat boots and a ski mask.
Klansmen raise their left arms - some opt for their right - in a salute.
"White Power!" they shout.
The crowd surges forward, and the security fence 135 feet away begins
to rock. It holds, to everyone’s relief, as blacks and whites taunt the
Klan to come closer and take off their hoods.
"You know what?" Murphy says as he looks down from a low roof at One
Oxford Centre, a tight smile on his face. "I’m glad we did everything we’ve
done. I am so glad."
Gesturing toward the police commanders standing behind the row of riot-equipped
police, Murphy says, "This is exactly what they said to us - you need a
strong fence."
Murphy ignores the light rain that darkens his suit as the Klan’s rants
drag on. Around him, some officers document the scene with still and video
cameras. Others peer through binoculars, then radio colleagues on the ground,
directing them to scattered rock-throwers and troublemakers.
Among the items being thrown - apparently for symbolism - are soda crackers.
"Keep an eye on the guy in the red cap."
"It’s the guy in the white suit. He’s two-thirds of the way along the
fence. If the deputies walk forward, they’ll run right into him."
In the ensuing hour, dozens of stones will fly. An orange makes its
way to the first step. McNeilly is hit by a flying dinner - a container
of stir-fried rice.
Foster steps to the microphone: "We are the American Knights of the
Ku Klux Klan - mad, bad and dangerous to know." Imperial Wizard Jeffrey
Berry of Indiana, a self-styled minister, offers a prayer: "We pray that
no violence will break out, but if it does, let it be."
Brad Thompson, grand dragon of the state of Indiana and second-in-command
of the American Knights, breaks into a slur-laced invective against blacks,
Jews, gays and foreigners. The crowd is now in a lather.
"You people hate what you do not understand," Thompson tells them. "I
hate what I do understand. That is the difference between you and me."
Then, as if it were simply part of a nightclub act, Thompson steps back
and speaks, almost as an aside, to the furious protesters.
"We get pretty emotional up here, people. Relax."
The security fence is still shaking. Police are ordered to take out
pepper-spray canisters. At Oxford Centre, police officers monitoring the
crowd try to figure out which way the spray will drift if it’s used.
Abruptly, the crowd eases up. The spray won’t be used as police and
sheriff’s deputies inside the fence calm the crowd.
Steve Bowers - his real name is Stephen Nastasi, son of a Philadelphia
store owner - is introduced. He is the hydra, or second-ranking Klan officer
in Pennsylvania, and head of the neo-Nazi Adolf Hitler Free Corps.
"I’m an American Nazi and I hate everybody," Bowers shouts.
The strangely attired Clement is introduced. He is the second-ranking
Nazi in the Adolf Hitler Free Corps, and he promises the crowd a race war.
"I am here because I hate your guts. I’m here because I worship your
death," Clement rasps. "We are eager to participate in this holy race war.
This is the beginning of the apocalypse."
More stones fly. A rock glances off the upper stairs of the building.
Foster steps to the microphone: "The (deleted) who threw this can meet
us out back."
At this point, county police with gas masks on their faces form a wedge
and force their way to the fence closest to the speakers. They arrest one
man for throwing stones, and the crowd cheers.
Foster announces there is something wrong with the microphone and suggests
that Jewish agents in the city are tampering with the sound system.
Of an estimated 100 or more hurled objects, one finally finds its mark.
A black-robed Klan "nighthawk," or security officer, is hit in the shoulder.
He adjusts his hood and the speakers go on.
With their permit expiring at 3 p.m., Foster closes the proceedings.
"Let’s pack it up. We’re out of here," he says.
It ends like comic opera. Clement, the jumpy storm trooper in a ski
mask, rushes to the microphone.
"Hail Jefferson Davis!" he shouts. "Hail Nathan Bedford Forest," who
founded the Klan in 1865.A pair of robed nighthawks grabs the still-shouting
Clement by the arms and pulls him back inside.
It’s over
Across the street, police begin to hustle people out of the fenced-in
area.
"The rally is over. The permit has expired. Please leave the area,"
a county officer says through a bullhorn.
Costa and city police Sgt. David Allman breathe sighs of relief.
"I had a bad feeling about today. It could have been ugly," says Allman,
who has been relaying orders from headquarters to his troops on the ground.
"The Klan stands for nothing but hatred and evil."
Costa, outfitted in full riot gear, praises his officers and the demonstrators
who mostly have kept their emotions under control.
Murphy comes down from his perch and points to the rocks thrown by the
crowd. The projectiles sit at the feet of the statue of the late mayor
Richard S. Caliguiri. The statue was wrapped in black plastic while Klansmen
spoke.
Much court wrangling during the past week had been over the distance
city police sought to put between pro- and anti-Klan forces. The final
settlement reduced the buffer from 200 feet to 135."Is the police photographer
here?" Murphy asks. "We ought to get pictures of these stones so if they
come back, we can go into court and show why we want 200 feet."
Moments later, he walks to the steps where a swastika had flown earlier
in the day. With an aide, he carefully pulls away the black wrap from the
Caliguiri statue.
Grant Street is quiet and empty once again.
