Residents all over South Salem called the strange brochures in to police.
(SALEM) - Pro Ku Klux Klan material started showing up in South Salem driveways early Wednesday morning around 1:30 AM. Salem Police Lt. John Hoffmeister says about 75 brochures were recovered by officers.
"It's the usual rhetoric; Christian white pride, strong religious overtones."
Ironically, the envelopes were weighted down with kitty litter, and startling similarities were noted with the materials often found in these surroundings.
It looks like the cat litter was placed in the standard sized business envelopes to allow them to be thrown like newspapers.
Proof again, that even politically active racists, often have a hard time thinking out of the box.
Hoffmeister says the only crime that was committed was littering, as such material is legal under freedom of speech provisions, "There was no hate crime, slander, threats, or any of those types of things that we look for."
Not welcome in SalemHe says the first envelopes were found in the Salem Heights area, then calls started coming in from other South Salem neighborhoods west of Commercial Street and south of Rural.
The brochures contained a reference to a church pastor, though he denies any connection to it according to local media reports.
Though infrequent cases of racial tolerance are noted by local law enforcement, hate crimes are not one of Salem's biggest problems. While these brochures did not entice violence according to Hoffmeister, they still are nothing but a direct form of racism.
As far back as the Civil War, Salem, Oregon was noted as a place that took strong pride in the United States. A group of Confederate sympathizers tried to crash a 4th of July celebration at the height of the conflict in an area that is now known as Riverfront Park. They were chased- along with their rebel flags, all the way back to Dallas according to local Historian Sue Bell.
Actual Confederate battle flagAnother interesting item to note is that what people commonly know to be the Confederate flag is not in fact, the flag of the Confederacy. The "stars and bars" are a battle flag that was used to represent the southern secessionist battle effort.
Actual Confederate flagThere were, in fact, three flags considered as official flags of the Confederacy. The first shown at left, is the most widely recognized and was also flown as a battle flag by different rebel units.
Those are the states that broke away from the United States in order to maintain a lifestyle that involved the ownership of other human beings. The Confederates not only owned black people, but their descendants tried and still do in many cases, to make the lives of African/Americans a living Hell. It is a disgraceful and sad period in our brief history as a country.
If you would like to learn more about Civil War history and the different flags that represented the Confederacy, visit this site: www.civilwarhome.com
I don't know about you, but I feel the sudden need to put on a Neil Young CD.
75 KKK Brochures Recovered in South SalemSalem-News.com