Ku Klux Klan recruitment fliers found in Berwick

A Ku Klux Klan group distributed recruitment fliers in Berwick on Christmas Eve to spread its message, which the group says is not about hate. But others say that’s exactly what the group is spreading.

Berwick Police Chief James Richard said he found out the fliers, which bear the name of Patriotic Brigade Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, were distributed on River Road, either Sunday morning or Saturday night, in bags in people’s driveways.

Neither Berwick police nor Town Hall received any calls from people regarding the fliers, Richard said.

Richard said he hopes that no one in Berwick supports any “hate group,” such as the Klan.

Southern Poverty Law Center Communications Associate Rebecca Sturtevant said the center identified eight Klan groups in Louisiana in 2015. The only chapter in south Louisiana is the United White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan located in Lake Charles.

St. Mary NAACP President Alfreida Edwards said the Ku Klux Klan “is the opposite of what the NAACP is,” but the Klan has the legal right to recruit for its organization.

On Sunday, The Daily Review received an email from a woman who said she lives in Berwick. She said she found a KKK flier in her driveway that morning. The email’s author, who identified herself as Marie Lee, said her husband would call. The Daily Review then received a call from a phone number with a blocked caller ID, and the caller identified himself as Jim Foret of Berwick.

Foret said he was “real excited that the Klan is around where I live.” He said he’s “glad to know that there’s somebody out there looking out for the white people.”

Foret said he wished the Klan would have “let us know they were around” a little sooner because he was “thinking highly of joining.”

The Daily Review also got an email from James Dawson, the national director for the Patriotic Brigade Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, saying that the fliers were distributed Saturday evening in the Morgan City area as part of a national flier drive.

Dawson said the flier drive was in celebration of and honoring the Klan’s Dec. 24 birthday and said that neighborhoods that receive fliers are picked at random. The group avoids predominantly black neighborhoods, Dawson said.

The fliers are a way of recruiting members and to “get our message out on White Christian Revival,” Dawson said.

“We are simply a Civil Rights Organization for white Americans,” Dawson said.

Members of the Klan don’t hate anyone, Dawson said.

When asked, Richard said he wasn’t aware of a Jim Foret living in Berwick. Richard checked the police department database and didn’t see a James or Jim Foret listed, and Town Hall also does not show him as having services in the town, he said.

The Daily Review didn’t see a Jim Foret or a Marie Lee listed in the phone book as living in Berwick or anywhere in the Tri-City area.

The Klan recruitment effort “is just something that awakens people to the fact that this organization is still up and running,” Edwards said. “And, right now, they’re looking for new members.”

The NAACP’s mission is to “fight injustice” and get justice for all people, Edwards said.

Edwards and the NAACP recognizes everyone’s right to live free and not be harassed, regardless of race, sexual orientation or religion, she said.

Edwards hopes that “people wanting to do what’s right” will counteract those who “want to do things that will hurt other people,” she said.