The KKK Meeting

I was naive when I moved down to Homestead, Florida. Coming from a white suburb on Long Island, the closest I got to a relationship with anyone of color was going for Chinese food at Long's Chinese in Jericho.  So moving to Homestead, I did not realize that as you pass south Miami, you are instantly back in the DEEP SOUTH. I was in an enclave of North-East Jews who moved to Naranja Lakes, a condo built by the mob to fall apart at the first big hurricane. Thank you,  Andrew.
 

Cruising with Mark and Lew, on Krome Avenue, out in the Redlands, about ten miles from the Everglades, stoned as usual, avocado groves, lime groves, big single story ranch homes scattered around, farm homes. Churches, of course. lots of churches. There was one Synagogue in Homestead that was revived due to the Naranja influx of NY Jews, but that was about it.

On one church, the South Dade Southern Baptist Church, a big white banner covered the top, "UKA Meeting - All White Public Only Invited", with details underneath. What the hell? Who is the UKA? What the heck does, "All White Public Only" mean? Welcome to Homestead. Mark told me that he thinks it was a KKK meeting. No way! In 1972? With all us Jews living nearby? I sure as hell was not in New York anymore.

The three of us were really thinking about going. We all had long hair, but only two of us were Jewish and we "passed for white", as far as we knew. The next day, before the meeting, we met in school. There was an English teacher who was black and we went up and asked him if he was going to the meeting. He looked at us and then laughed knowing we were kidding, I think. He told us, "No, but if we go, be sure to tell me how it was."  I don't think he figured we would actually do it. But we were stoned, daring and just a little nuts.

 

That night, Mark picked Lew and me up, we smoked our official.....and for this, quite  necessary.....joint and drove to the location of the meeting, still not really comprehending where we were going. This was interesting and FUN! As we drive up, there is a parking lot with an "attendant", a big fat guy in a para-military outfit holding a rifle. Shit just got real. Fast.  About that time, we all had to pee.... The attendant shined a flashlight in the car, we figured to look for - guns? - Black people? - weed? Whatever it was, we were okay and he waved us in to the parking lot. There were quite a few cars.  What the hell were we getting into? 

So, we got out of the car and walked towards the canal where everyone was gathering. We walked past the 30 foot tall cross on our left, ready for burning. Lew looked at me like, "are we nuts?" but we all kept walking to the meeting. Directly in front of us was an old movie screen on a tripod, it looked like it was borrowed from a school (and probably was) and a projector. To the left of the crowd were the men in their white sheets. This was the real thing.

The three of us realized that we were at a REAL KKK meeting, two of us Jewish, all of us hippies. Being stoned actually helped to not be too agitated by the situation. Whoa, weirdos in sheets, man. But I remember too much to have been that stoned, and we all straightened up pretty quickly once we were there.

We moved towards the front, near the movie screen set up on a tripod by the canal. The costumed Klansman were off to the left, not paying attention to anyone in the crowd of mostly older, WHITE (duh) men and a few women, nobody that any of us could recognized, but we were mostly trying to just look ahead and not at anyone. Okay, we were a little nervous. But so far, everyone thought that we were just white just like them. So far, we passed...

One of the nondescript rednecks (they all look alike to me!) started to talk about the "New Klan". He had a very special announcement: They now wanted to be called the United Klans of America because they now allow Catholics in the Klan. It was in order to increase membership. Yes, folks, that was it. Now, it was okay to be Catholic and in the Klan, because, hey, they were all Christians and White. We looked at each other, thinking "What? Huh? Who?

Not knowing the background of the KKK, we didn't know that only Protestants were allowed in the klan before this. Wow, we learned something. Cool! The Klansman went on to talk about the basic Klan philosophy. This was the real eye opener. Get ready, this is kinda like Scientology weird.

The Klan Reason for Being, According to the Klan Grand Wazoo: "You see, the Negro is not a smart enough creature to understand that the Communist Jews are using them for the Jewish Conspiracy to take over the World"

Huh? I looked at Lew and asked him (as quietly as I could!) if he was in the conspiracy and why wasn't I told yet?  I looked at Mark and Lew and we all had a look that was the same: Are these people morons? The projector started with a movie to show everybody. Oh, yay.

On the Screen, the image of Malcolm X, and the sounds we heard were about killing whitey revolution, his mouth not quite fitting the sounds. Then, they showed Jerry Rubin and Abbey Hoffman, two Jewish Commies at the time, and the words and their mouths didn't match what they were saying on the screen, either.... Mark turned to me and said, "that's dubbed, I can tell easy". But the words heard were "communists" and "overthrow".

The movie then showed the  1967 Newark riots. By then the three of us were starting to get a little uneasy. On the screen, it showed two EMTs picking up a black man and putting him on a stretcher. From my right we all heard the man next to us say, "I wouldn't lift a hand fer one oh them niggers, I'd let him die".

At that point, I turned and looked at him. He looked back at me with a look that was, well, interesting. He turned and looked at Abbie Hoffman, a long-haired Jewish guy, and turned back and looked at me. You could see his very slow wheels of his brain start to register: "Hey, you look kinda like them Commies on the screen", you could actually see him thinking this as he looked at me and the screen and me and the screen.

We were not stupid. Crazy, but so far, no one said a word to us, left us alone and we had no reason to ruin their party. Now, though, it seemed that everyone around us was looking at us.  It was a good time to leave. We turn and walk back the same path, the sound of the movie still glaring behind us, probably with a bunch of glaring future klansmen. We walked past the still unburned cross, which I started to think was going to have someone tied to it when it burned.

We walked briskly....no, fast, back to the car, got in and started to leave. The para-military attendant was still there, smoking a cigarette. As Mark drove away, we rolled down the windows and yelled, "THE KLAN SUCKS!!!" and drove off, flipping the guy the finger. Great teen bravado.

When Mark, Lew and I left the  meeting, our adrenaline was peaking.  HOLY SHIT!  WE WENT TO A KLU KLUX KLAN MEETING!  What a rush!  We were 16 year old long hair stoned hippies, two of us Jewish, and it was sinking in to us the unbelievable chutzpah we had to go to that meeting.. We had a big fatty of some Jamaican tops or what ever was being dropped in the Everglades at that time of year. Having the munchies, we went to the local 7-11 and got those wonderful red hot sausages floating in vinegar in the jar up front.  I loved those....!

I saw the  teacher the next day.  I told him that we went to the KKK meeting and he was in a mild shock.  He smiled, "Really? What did they say?"  I told him what we saw and heard, the "conspiracy" by the Jews to brainwash 'the poor dumb Negro, who isn't a smart enough CREATURE to know that they are being manipulated' as the idiot in the pointy hat said in the dark by the canal that night.  He said, "Are you kidding me?", as if we could make that up.  He just shook his head, maybe he thought we were crazy, but I do believe he appreciated that we infiltrated and saw just what those truly stupid Klansman believed.  Oh, we told him that Catholics were now okay.  That gave him a good laugh.  

The feeling of everyone staring at us will never go away.  What I learned that day has never left me. I know exactly the 'key words', the  subtle racism.  Having run into that ignorance myself, I know what it feels like. 

To actually think that the 14 million Jews in the World are involved in some sort of conspiracy to brainwash black people to over throw the World is....well....gee, you think we really are pretty bad ass, don't you, KKK?  Sadly, the lies stuck.  They grew.  Even though Jewish people were the first to defend civil rights for people of all colors, dying for civil rights, legal advisors for the NAACP when no one else would do it, the lies grew. Not among the white, ignorant and hateful KKK.  The lies grew among black people.  The people who are almost as oppressed as Jews have been throughout history, now were believing the Klan lie.  

In 1982, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan said, in a speech widely televised, that the Jews were manipulating the black people into taking over the World. The same garbage that I heard at the KKK meeting.  One of the most powerful black leaders of his time agreeing with David Duke the KKK man who ran for office. 

Peace