WSET.com - ABC13Part 2: Resurgence of the KKK

Reporter:  David Tate

Henry Co., VA - According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, hate groups in America have nearly doubled- to more than 1,000- over the past decade.

It is all a part of a massive surge in radical-right wing groups that are known as "Patriot Groups," accounting for more than 60 percent of the hate group growth over the past decade.

While some would argue the KKK is not a patriot group, it is at least the shape that group is looking to reform its image in and several factions are making southside Virginia their epicenter.

"We're not going anywhere,"said Stan Martin of the Rebel Brigade Knits of the KKK. "We just don't come out and try to create problems."

One day last month, Patrick County found itself in the middle of a hundred-strong Klan rally with Alabama Klansman Bradley Jenkins giving a rousing speech.

"I was a Klansman the day I was born and I'll be a Klansman until they put me into the ground. Can I hear an AMEN?"

And the message they brought was loud and clear.

"I want peace, but I want peace for my race!"

At race weekend in Martinsville last month, while you would have expected authorities to welcome all visitors, this year it wasn't the case.

"I don't condone hate groups in any form or fashion. I don't agree with their mentality and no, I don't want them in my jurisdiction," said Sheriff Lane Perry.

While many of Perry's men are pulling security at the race, he's in Henry County, keeping an eye on another gathering of the Klan.

"What we're finding out is that it's not really local people but people from North Carolina and other states coming up here because they have a very isolated area that's out of the way," said Perry.

Out of the way, a few miles from a place called Pleasant Grove in Henry County. Behind a confederate flag there is a meeting place for Klan members from all over the south.

Reporter David Tate was invited inside to watch a cross lighting, that was eventually canceled.While in this compound he  met a number of members.

Most were from out of town and from all walks of life: a tattoo artist, a 72-year old grandmother, a man who says he lost his leg due to an infection caught in Afghanistan, and a long-serving mayor in Southwestern Virginia.

Stan Martin is from Henry County and leads the Rebel Brigade Knights of the KKK.

"We're growing in numbers... you wouldn't believe. People are being tired of being pushed to the side," said Martin.

His group, and affiliated Klans, are part of this resurgence, historically the fourth since the Klan was founded in 1865.

A resurgence, several members say is still based on separatism, but no longer on hate and terror.

"When push comes to shove, we're going to be there. Numbers don't intimidate us. By the same token, we are law abiding citizens and if anybody is not that, we don't want you," said Martin.

Their enemy seems to be the government.

"Our biggest enemy is the powers that be. The people sitting in Washington. That is our enemy," said Dennis LeBonte, a Klansman from Powhatan.

They say they are the white people's NAACP that wants to see an end to illegal immigration and gay rights while putting God back in the schools.

Bishop E.M. Mitchell, who heads up Roanoke's chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, doesn't' believe the Klan can change.

"They can only be different when they realize that we are all made from the same God. That all men are the same. He does not deal with color; black or white or whatever, and until that gets in their (the KKK) heart they'll stay where they are," Mitchell said.

Virginia Tech's Director of Social Justice, Dr. Wornie Reed, agrees.

"They can't be the Klan unless they hold some of the principles that the Klan has always held and the Klan has always held principles that were kind of anti-democratic... that is anti-democratic for anybody other than whites," said Reed.

"They've gotta go farther than that. We either going to live in this world together or we're going to die in it together," added Mitchell.