Residents in the southern Alabama town of Mobile woke up to more than their morning paper on their lawns Monday as they discovered that the local branch of the Ku Klux Klan had left recruitment flyers sarcastically wishing the deceased civil rights leader a happy birthday.
The flyers, along with their sardonic well-wishes, encouraged white citizens to join the local branch of the KKK.
“The blacks have NAACP, the Mexicans have La Raza, the Jews have JDL, and white people have the KKK.”
Residents were outraged and worried about what sort of message the flyers might send to their children.
“I don’t want my children to see something like that. My children are loved and they are safe and that’s what is important to us. To see a message like that is very contrary to what we believe.”
In the year 2016, with so much progress having been made in the way of race relations and equality, we can only imagine how sadly disappointed the reverend would be to see his birthday, the day we reflect on his sacrifices, used in such a terribly hateful way.
