For Denise Williams, the 70-year-old head of Springfield\u2019s NAACP chapter, the past few weeks have been particularly challenging. Last month, flyers advocating for mass deportations of immigrants were distributed by the Trinity White Knights, a group with ties to the Ku Klux Klan, in predominantly Black neighborhoods in south Springfield. \u201cI\u2019m telling people: do nothing \u2013 don\u2019t approach them. But it\u2019s not easy for people to see this,\u201d she said. \u201cI think that is what a lot of folks cannot understand \u2013 why do we have so much hate?\u201d<\/p>\n
Approximately 22% of Springfield\u2019s residents are African American, according to the US Census Bureau. \u201cPeople are mad. African Americans here don\u2019t understand how this is allowed. We just have to take this for a minute. I know it\u2019s hard.\u201d The Trinity White Knights, based in Kentucky, had also been spotted distributing flyers in Covington, a Cincinnati suburb, in July, which included a PO box address in Maysville, Kentucky, and a phone number.<\/p>\n
Since Donald Trump made a baseless claim during a televised debate on September 10 that immigrants in Springfield were eating people\u2019s pets, there has been a noticeable rise in far-right extremism in the area. Recently, several members of Blood Tribe, a neo-Nazi group established in 2020, were observed standing in front of the Springfield mayor’s house with swastika flags. That same weekend, individuals were seen outside the city hall offices holding signs that read \u201cHaitians Have No Home Here\u201d in both English and Haitian Creole.<\/p>\n
In another alarming incident, a volunteer with the Clark County Democratic Party faced verbal threats from Proud Boys members last month, as reported by the Dayton Daily News. The Proud Boys, associated with far-right movements, have re-emerged in recent months as supporters of Trump. This follows a public gathering by Israel United in Christ, labeled as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which took place in south Springfield on September 21. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey feel emboldened by the former president. They feel like it\u2019s OK to do this,\u201d said Williams. “He gives them the green light. By him saying hateful things and falsehoods, they feel comfortable in speaking the way they are speaking [and] coming in here doing what they are doing.\u201d<\/p>\n
The surge in hate group activities has not been limited to Springfield. In Charleroi, Pennsylvania, a flyer attributed to the Trinity White Knights was recently shared on Facebook, warning against “3rd world immigrants” allegedly destroying cities. Charleroi\u2019s borough manager, Joe Manning, noted that there are around 700 Haitian immigrants in the town, many of whom have been there for years without being noticed until Trump criticized their presence. <\/p>\n
Manning remarked, \u201cWe\u2019re a pretty small community here in western Pennsylvania, and to be identified by name [by Trump], that sort of set off this whole firestorm.\u201d He expressed belief that the increase in KKK-linked flyers was directly connected to Trump\u2019s comments. <\/p>\n
Further instances of hate were evident in Wyoming, where graffiti supporting the white supremacist group Patriot Front was found, and a banner promoting the group was removed in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, shortly after Trump\u2019s debate remarks. A recent event at the University of South Carolina featuring Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes drew around 150 attendees.<\/p>\n
\u201cSpringfield is not happening in isolation. We have tracked four other incidents, such as targeting the Haitian community in Alabama,\u201d noted Rachel Carroll Rivas from the Southern Poverty Law Center. \u201cWe\u2019ve also seen the sharing and pushing of racist and antisemitic great replacement theory in various campaign and hate group messaging recently.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Williams, the increase in KKK and other hate group activities in Springfield has taken a personal toll. She reported receiving threatening text messages from someone claiming to represent Blood Tribe and has heightened her personal security. After the group was seen at the mayor\u2019s home, the local police chief dispatched security to her residence. \u201cI\u2019m looking over my shoulder,\u201d she said. \u201cYou would think that this would be over \u2013 I don\u2019t get it, in 2024.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For Denise Williams, the 70-year-old head of Springfield\u2019s NAACP chapter, the past few weeks have been particularly challenging. Last month, flyers advocating for mass deportations of immigrants were distributed by the Trinity White Knights, a group with ties to the Ku Klux Klan, in predominantly Black neighborhoods in south Springfield. \u201cI\u2019m telling people: do nothing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5320,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5319","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-restaurant-news-uk"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/restaurantnews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5319"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/restaurantnews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/restaurantnews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restaurantnews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restaurantnews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/restaurantnews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5319\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restaurantnews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/restaurantnews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restaurantnews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restaurantnews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}