KKK Rally At Ole Miss: Klan Outnumbered By Protesters (PHOTOS, VIDEOS)

The KKK gathered at Ole Miss today to protest the University chancellor's decision to remove "From Dixie with Love" from the school band's song list. The song had drawn controversy because some fans chanted "the South will rise again" when it was played at Ole Miss football games.

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According to the AP, around twelve members of the Mississippi White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan waved flags and issued Nazi-style salutes. The AP estimated that 250 people showed up to protest the Klan's presence.

Kevin Cozart, a senior at the University and the coordinator for operations at the Sarah Isom Center for Women and Gender studies, sent in some photos along with a report from the scene:

Under an overcast sky and greeted with a wall of boos and calls to leave, a few members of the Mississippi Chapter of the Ku Klux Klan rallied on the campus of the University of Mississippi this morning... for less than ten minutes. Little could be heard of any message they attempted to convey. Dressed in the highly recognizable robes, the ten Klansmen that showed up simply stood and waved their banners of hate and ignorance from the portico of Fulton Chapel, a fitting place since it is the home of the Theatre Department's productions. The sizable crowd that had gathered to see them was extremely hostile regardless of color, race, creed or university affiliation. After all of the fanfare, bravado and planning (including the use of bomb sniffing dog around the area), the brief appearance by the Klansmen is the very definition of anticlimactic.

The real story of the day was the students, faculty, staff and alumni who gathered peacefully and read the University's creed in unison repeatedly a few hundred feet from where the Klan had gathered. Organized by One Mississippi, a student group working towards greater social integration at Ole Miss, protesters wore shirts that said "TURN YOUR BACK ON HATE... (I live by the UM Creed)" and stickers with one simple word: "Unity." Before and after the rally, they talked to fans in town for the game about their message and plan to make their way through the 10-acre, park-like Grove, passing out copies of the UM creed to fans.

Today, the members of the real Ole Miss family were not afraid to show their faces. They were not afraid of the Klansmen. They stood with their backs to them. They stood together to say with one voice that Ole Miss "believe(s) in respect for the dignity of each person." They stood as the leaders of a new Mississippi, a Mississippi that her citizens and a nation can be proud of.

Were you at the rally today? Send your photos to [e-mail] or upload them here.

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Comments

[SolarArray]

01:16 PM on 11/25/2009

These clowns are obviously cowards or they'd get rid of their masks. Keep the dresses, though, as they make look as idiotic as possible and you do stand out in a crowd.

[USAFVET76]

01:41 AM on 11/25/2009

A racists convention and no one informed Rev Wright, Jesse Jackson, Emil Jones, or Al Sharpton. They must not have gotten the memo or else you'd know they'd be there. Nothing like a potential racists issue to have these comedy racists responding.

[TrooAmerican]

11:52 PM on 11/24/2009

I think Anti Klan persons should form a specific group with some badazz lookin scary black armored outfits and scary lookin flags to show up and intimidate those losers.

I also think the NAACP should sue to allow black Klansmen.
that would be awesome. have like 100 black klansmen show up and surround these guys and confuse the heck out of em while makin em pee on their robes.

[scrzbill]

06:43 PM on 11/24/2009

Great robes, perfect for Halloween in San Francisco.

[squatch]

02:36 PM on 11/24/2009

as if there was any more evidence needed as to why mississippi is at or near the bottom of every measurable health, social, and educational statistic in existence

[sdmomof4]

10:23 AM on 11/24/2009

12? 12 Klan showed up? Wow, was there a gun show that day or were the parole officers making their checks that day?

[Indianademocrat]

05:46 AM on 11/24/2009

C'Mon KKK put your robes on and march again! I am glad to see the KKK in their robes again. I have seen more of them since November 2008 than I had seen in years. I recognize them because I live in an area where they were the strongest in the whole country and I would rather they show themselves this way with robes and all. You've seen them too, they have attended the all too religious 9-12 rallies, and the tea parties, and the other names they have tried to hide behind. The politicians organizing these "grassroots" organizations are doing everything they can to keep the robes in the closets because they are a little smarter than your average KKK member. They would be members in a heartbeat if they could still be lobbyists and or elected. They have found that it is politically correct to call our President a socialist, a marxist, a communist, a muslim, a Kenyan, an apologist, their word for pu@#$, un-American, all in an effort to get the KKK lighting their torches literally. They just don't want them wearing their robes or else the rest of us dumb ass people might catch on that all of it is racism.

[USAFVET76]

01:15 AM on 11/24/2009

Is the congregation of Trinity Church a racists group too?
Or Jesse Jackson and PUSH?
And whatever scam organization Not So Sharp, Al Sharpton operates.
Would anyone consider the gangs terrorizing every major urban area terrorist groups?

Compare any of the above to the ignorant KKK.

Which has media access and popularity?
Which one influences their race the most?
Is it the KKK or some of the above that are more responsible for the decline in civil behaviors of people residing in American's cities?

KKK is ignorant and useless.
They have very little impact or support.

Yet, these other people and organizations are given public media exposure and acceptance by millions. And they are just as ignorant and useless as the KKK.

[Whatashame]

02:35 PM on 11/23/2009

Why isn't the KKK call a terrorist organization? Is it because they are in American and are white?

[kapalabhati]

03:24 PM on 11/23/2009

Yup, yup, you betcha! What a bunch of thugs and cowards.

[GoJacks]

04:03 PM on 11/23/2009

Nope...

I'd say it's because they are a radical group, using terror as a political weapon, who organize in small cells; often using religion as a cover for their activities.

Nice try though.

[SFBunkSurf]

01:31 PM on 11/23/2009

I'm so glad that the "America they knew" is changing. As the KKK and the tea baggers and right to lifers and Glenn Beck all sit there and cry crocodile tears for their country, we are moving right past them hopefully. Listen up KKK -- we're not going to sanction your racism any more.

[Bruce Waren]

07:56 AM on 11/24/2009

Why does any athlete go to any Mississippi University? Obviously not for the extra curricular activities. Racism is still happening in the year 2009 and it's happening in Mississippi.

[RebelCPA]

02:08 PM on 11/25/2009

Why do you stereotype Mississippi Bruce? Perhaps the athletes attend schools in Mississippi because that is where they want to go. Did you ever think of that?

[cowpunkrva]

09:39 AM on 12/02/2009

What the hell are you talking about? There were like 5 KKK members and a couple hundred Mississippi students yelling at them? And it's the University of Mississippi not Mississippi University, but I shouldn't be surprised because you clearly know nothing about it.

[jcjnaples]

12:24 PM on 11/24/2009

And these "people" out there who scream whitey this and whitey that every second of the day have no bearing on you do they? Its not time for them to change is it??

[GunnyJ]

09:10 AM on 11/23/2009

This is the year 2009, right?

[Slapmewhenitsover]

05:49 PM on 11/23/2009

Apparently it is a number out of reach for some.

[garcia83]

02:43 AM on 11/24/2009

Considering Bush has taken us back a good fifty years, I find this hardly surprising.

[lmab]

08:54 AM on 11/23/2009

Attendance was low. All the Repuglican senators were forced to stay back and vote "no" on health care.

[seattle music]

02:40 AM on 11/23/2009

Has anyone pointed out to these idgets that Jesus, Mary and Joseph were Jewish?

So were the Apostles.

They're probably named after one of them: James, John, Matthew, all the so-called Biblical names are Jewish names.

[dzagama]

08:46 AM on 11/23/2009

Lol.

If anything was funny about the Na.z.i's, it's that they imagined a huge, global J.e.wish conspiracy, yet didn't imagine C.hrist a part of it.

[dzagama]

08:46 AM on 11/23/2009

Lol.

If anything was funny about the Na.z.i's, it's that they imagined a huge, global J.e.wish c.o.n.s.p.i.r.a.c.y, yet didn't imagine C.hrist a part of it.

[seattle music]

02:36 AM on 11/23/2009

So some stupid guys wore dresses and pointy hats.

Yawn.

[dzagama]

08:47 AM on 11/23/2009

Precisely.

The number of protesters prove that all Southerners aren't racist hicks.

[NOXQZS]

03:23 PM on 11/23/2009

But their dresses colors are simply fabulous!!

[codwix]

01:43 AM on 11/23/2009

lest we forget