It’s Not Like We Don’t Know: The Klan, Guns, and Violence in North Carolina

Neo-Confederates rally in Pittsboro, North Carolina on October 19th, 2019. Earlier they had erected a large Confederate flag across the street from Horton Middle School, named for a formerly enslaved black poet. Photo by author.

Hillsborough, North Carolina

Late this summer, the Loyal White Knights showed up in Hillsborough, apparently to the town’s surprise.

Some were dressed in the recognizable sad sheets of the Klan, including a few in green and purple robes denoting their higher rank. Others were dressed in army fatigues; still others in MAGA hats; some were wearing Disneyland tees and mom jeans.

Klan in downtown Hillsborough, North Carolina, August 2019. Photo used with permission from Daniel Hosterman.

These same usual suspects — there seem to be only 15 or so active members of the North Carolina-based Loyal White Knights — have been showing up throughout Virginia and the Carolinas since 2011, including at Unite the Right in Charlottesville. Leading his Klavern in Hillsborough was Imperial Wizard Christopher Barker, who has openly praised Dylann Roof as a martyr and has threatened to burn a Latina journalist on air during a Univision interview. He paced the sidewalk while some of his Klavern held a large professionally printed banner encouraging people to join their cause by calling their “Klan hotline.”

Hillsborough residents instinctually rallied. They did a particularly good job…