It doesn’t get as much press as John Kerry’s gaffe but it’s real nonetheless.

THE TRUE BELIEVERS in an all-white America arrived Saturday morning. They came from Florida, Washington, Wisconsin, Idaho, Arkansas and most of the states in the Deep South. At least two crossed the Atlantic to attend. By 1 p.m., the old theater auditorium was packed with a crowd dressed largely in black T-shirts and with more tattoos per square inch of flesh than would be found at a skin artists’ convention.

In the theater’s balcony, arcing over the audience, was Howard’s “Klan Museum,” now officially closed but still displaying artifacts such as KKK emblems and photos of cross-burnings. Nazi flags were draped from two-story-high scaffolding inside the theater. The tower’s bottom bars served as a makeshift closet to hang Klan robes when not in use.

More banners were strung together across the back wall: Old Glory; Old Glory stripped of its stars with the Aryan Nations emblem in their place; the classic swastika flag of Nazi Germany we all know from movies; the rampant lion on the yellow-and-red Scottish flag; the white background, blue box and red cross of the Christian flag; and the absolutely essential Confederate battle flag. Behind the pennants, the light blue wall was adorned with a bigger-than-life-size drawing of Jesus and, discordantly for an Aryan Nations congress, “brotherhood of man” inscriptions of the International Order of Odd Fellows (which wasn’t part of the gathering).

John Suggs on White Supremacy

John Suggs on the Klan and the GOP.

Dave Neiwert on ordinary racists.

Dave Neiwert on Pat Buchanan’s white supremicism.