CLEMSON, S.C. (WSPA) – The Ku Klux Klan distributed recruitment flyers around Clemson University and Oconee County last Friday evening.
“It was very unsettling at first,” Clemson student and director of the university’s Council of Diversity Affairs Wanya Pridgen said.
He said he didn’t expect to see something like the flyers on Clemson’s campus. The university police are investigating the flyers that were placed at apartment doors. They say this situation wasn’t isolated. Flyers were placed across Oconee County.
KKK members say they weren’t targeting the campus. Rob Locklear handles a good deal of the recruitment phone calls. He says the group puts flyers where they know there are a lot of people.
“By going out and distributing our literature we’re letting people know we are very much still relevant,” Locklear said. “We are very much still here.”
Locklear says the KKK is not a hate group but a separatist one and says they don’t condone violence.
“We’re simply hated because of what history has made us out to be,” Locklear said.
However, members of Clemson’s community say the flyers could end up in the wrong hands
“I do believe it can disrupt those with the minds that have the activity of being mean,” said Rosa Grayden, Clemson’s NAACP student chapter advisor.
She says the group has no place on Clemson’s campus.
“The KKK wants to bring in such divisive ways when we’re trying to unite as Clemson University,” Grayden said.
Clemson University police say they had two other racial incidents on campus over the past week with people using racial slurs. However, since they were reported so quickly, authorities were able to find the people behind it and stop them.
