Why Are They Still Here?

As appeared in The Bay State Banner’s Letters To The Editor, on August 20, 2025

Life turned towards the surreal this summer whenever we heard of black church burnings and Ku Klux Klan rallies. That in 2015 the Klan could stage a rally — as it did one Saturday Last month — just sounds absurd.

The Klan’s history is one of sponsored violence against innocent citizens — primarily black people. To further its white supremacist ideology, the Klan has sought to provoke fear among civilians with intimidation tactics particularly vile in nature — lunching, tar-and-featherings and rape, along with the requisite church burnings and bombings.

The department of homeland security defines terrorism as any act of violence intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population. The Klan has always traded in terror, and so, by today’s standards, should be labeled a terrorist organization.

Perhaps the government can permit itself to do what it should have done a long time ago — that is put the Klan out of its misery and retire it to the dust where it belongs. Instead, on any given Saturday we might find the Ku Klux Klan still crusading on behalf of hate and bigotry.

‍ — David H. Roane

Arlington