BY JULIE BINGHAM
CHICAGO - Chants of "Ignorance not welcome" and "Hey hey, ho ho, KKK has got to go," filled the air as 300 people protested a Klu Klux Klan rally near here in Wheaton, Illinois, June 3. About 100 people turned up to hear the Klan's grand wizard, Thomas Robb.
Although 150 cops from the Wheaton and Illinois State police departments and the DuPage County Sheriff's department were on hand, they did not separate anti-Klan and pro-Klan demonstrators. The protesters along with Klan supporters passed through a metal detector to get to the rally site. Scuffles broke out in the crowd as people waited over an hour for the Klan members to get their sound system working. The police escorted some 15 anti-Klan protesters off the property.
At the rally, the mostly young antiracist demonstrators bought 20 copies of the socialist newsweekly, the Militant, and 4 copies of the Pathfinder pamphlet, Fascism: What It Is and How To Fight It.
Later that day, about 250 antiracist protesters countered 50 Klan supporters in nearby Rolling Meadows. The cops there kept the two groups separated. Six recent graduates of Palatine High School said they came to see if the protest would make a difference. "You can't let people come in your backyard, threaten you, and get away with it," one of them explained.