Words From The Wise: Giving The Klan What For
I’ve been trying to remember the details of this story for a while now, but I couldn’t.
Worst of all, I thought it had happened in the American Pacific Northwest, so googling various communities and the Klan didn’t help.
Then I finally remembered that I had actually blogged about this particular cool thing on my old Blogger blog back in 03, so all I had to do was search my own blog for ‘Klan’ and there it was.
The story is from Tolerance.org, from the page “10 Ways to Fight Hate“
And I quote:
Project Lemonade
Bill and Lindy Seltzer, a Jewish couple in Springfield, Ill., were frustrated that the First Amendment gave neo-Nazis the right to march in public rallies. So they devised a way to turn hate’s sourness into something sweet. Project Lemonade, now used in dozens of communities across the country, raises money for tolerance causes by collecting pledges for every minute of a hate-group event.
The Seltzers organized their first Project Lemonade during a 1994 Ku Klux Klan rally in Springfield. Using school equipment, they copied and mailed thousands of pledge fliers. Then they held a press conference to announce the unique event. They raised $10,000. When People magazine picked up the story, the idea spread nationwide.
The Seltzers created a kit for other communities that included practical advice: “Schedule an organizational meeting with community leaders, arrange for a local telephone number and answering machine, recruit volunteers, raise seed money, carry a supply of cover letters and pass them out. Involve the police. Invite the media. Schedule press conferences. Try to be interviewed for radio and TV talk shows. Keep Project Lemonade in the media as much as possible.”
Lindy also warned would-be organizers to expect hate calls. “Ignore them. Stay positive and respectful. Encourage people to stay away from the Klan rally; they are looking for a fight. The Klan will leave, and the community will have the last say. It will be a positive one.”
In Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, for example, the $28,000 raised during one white-supremacist rally supported human rights causes. In Boyertown, Pa., Project Lemonade so irritated the Klan that the hate group threatened to sue organizers for raising money “on our name.” Money raised there went for library books on black history.
Unquote.
Irrational hatred and prejudice lose. We all win.
Happy Black History Month. What the hell, happy every month.