Ku Klux Klan To Defy Indians, Meet Again

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28491, 22 January 1958, Page 11

Ku Klux Klan To Defy Indians, Meet Again

(Rec. 8 p.m.) MAXTON (North Carolina). January 20. Last Saturday’s Ku Klux Klan versus the Indians’ affray hag' now developed into a “who-indicts-whom” legal battle. On Saturday 300 Indians living in the Maxton area swooped on a meeting of 35 hooded Ku Klux Klansmen and routed them after much firing into the air and yelling of war whoops. Several Klansmen were injured, none seriously.

Today Sheriff Malcolm McLeod asked a Grand Jury to indict the Klan Wizard James Cole, the organiser qf the meeting, on a charge of inciting a riot Mr Cole, a 33-year-old Free Will Baptist Minister, said the Klan would seek Federal indictments on Sheriff McLeod, charging that civil rights of peaceable assembly had been denied the robed men. Earlier Mr Cole had said that the Klan, being a Christian organisation, should turn the other cheek. The sheriff told the Grand Jury that he had twice warned Mr Cole that the Klan’s previous antiIndian demonstrations had caused strong feeling among the Indians and that the police could not be responsible for the safety of the

Klansmen if they insisted on holding their planned meeting. Mr Cole is reported to have said he could not understand how anyone could have the audacity to threaten an indictment against him. “We leased the location and were set to hold a peacable meeting when the Indians came on our lot, shot us up, banged on our cars, and stole our equipment,” he said.

However* the Klan not only disregarded the warning but, according to today’s “New York Post,” was planning another rally for next' Saturday. Mr Cole told aSreporter, from his home in Marlon South Carolina: “The Ku Klux Klan never backs down.” The next meeting would be in Surfington, about 150 miles north of Maxton. f Sheriff McLeod’s only comment was: “if he comes to North Carolina he will bearrestecL The law can’t touch him in South. Carolina (where Cole lives) but if he comes here we will get him.” Meanwhile the "Indians aye discussing what to do with a sft Klan banner which they captured on Saturday night. There are two suggestions—that it should be

buried, as a sign that the Ku Klux Klan is dead, and a cross burnied on its grave, or that it should be hung over a main highway.