Editorial: An Open Letter To The KKK

This story was written by Editorial Board, Daily Mississippian

Dear Mississippi White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan:

Congratulations. You have caused quite a stir in this newspaper and on the campus of the University of Mississippi for the past few days, a fact with which you are undoubtedly pleased. That ends here.

This newspaper will not serve as a forum for your propaganda or a means whereby you attempt to terrorize this community through your vailed threats.

We want to be clear: we have utmost respect for your right to express your views, but we have no respect whatsoever for those views. You may attempt to defile our beautiful campus by shouting your twisted viewpoints from the top of your lungs. No one will listen.

Your desire to remain invisible is nothing more than a cowardly, desperate and ultimately ineffective scare tactic. Come debate day, whether we are talking with a Klansman will never cross our minds. Frankly, we dont care. You arent hiding because you want to scare us; youre hiding because you are scared of us.

The Klan prides itself on its use of imagery and symbolism; take our indifference, then, as the ultimate symbol of your failure. With each step this university takes away from intolerance and bigotry, the power of the Klan and all it stands for diminishes. The battle was difficult, and many lost their lives and worse in the fight. But the battle is finished, and you have been defeated. Truth always prevails in the end.

Ultimately, it is fitting that your once-mighty Invisible Empire has been brought to its knees by the very weapon that you once used to silence the voice of justice. You cannot intimidate us through fear; we are no longer afraid.

This is our moment. We have worked too hard and come too far for this. We will not allow you to take it from us.

Come Sept. 26, we will show this nation and the world the real Mississippi, not the Mississippi burning of the past, but rather the Mississippi rising into the future a future in which your bigoted ideology has no place.

In the past, you controlled this region, this state and this campus through terror. You will do so no longer.

The Daily Mississippian

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