“The KKK is simply not welcome in Covington,” said Mayor Joe Meyer to an audience of Eastside neighborhood residents on Tuesday.
Those residents had come to the week’s city commission meeting to share their concerns about the distribution of Klan literature in their neighborhood in July. The flyers bore the image of a hooded Klansman, pointing at the reader.
“You can sleep sound tonight,” the flyer’s text read. “The Klan is awake!”
LINK nky has also received reports of similar leaflet distributions in Florence.
The Eastside + neighborhood association had met to discuss the matter in August. Neighborhood residents, police officers, candidates for public office and other community leaders all attended the meeting, where in the end the association decided to bring their concerns to the city publicly.
The flyers bore the name of the Trinity White Knights branch of the Ku Klux Klan. They sported a phone number with a (606) area code, asking readers to report “crime and drug dealers.” Ella Blackwell, one of the first Eastside residents to report the leaflets, actually called the number on the flyer, and it went to someone in Maysville.
Covington Community Liaison Officer Rachel White discussed the police’s investigation into the Trinity White Knights at the August meeting. The Trinity White Knights is a Klan splinter group has been around for about 10 to 15 years, White said, and they sporadically distribute flyers throughout different communities every few years before disappearing again. White said the last major distribution took place around 2015. Identical flyers have appeared in Ohio and West Virginia.
White said they use the flyers as a recruiting tactic, and there are often long periods between distributions. Although the group has occasionally held protests and demonstrations, there didn’t seem to be a threat of violence in this case.
Even if the Klan didn’t stick around, many in the neighborhood felt it was important for the public to be aware of the incidents and for the city to reaffirm its commitment to diversity and the safety of all Covingtonians, regardless of their race or background.
“We want the community to be aware when these things happen,” said Eastside + President Melissa Kelley. “We believe the community should respond publicly every time to targeted groups with a message that we are all with them, that they are valued citizens, and Covington will have their back.”
Reyna Van Gilder, the current chair of the Covington Neighborhood Collaborative, echoed these sentiments.
“An incursion on one of our neighborhoods is an incursion on all Covington neighborhoods,” Van Gilder said.
The mayor and commissioners thanked the residents for coming out to speak and shine a light on the issue. Meyer said that they were informed of the issue shortly after it occurred and that the city was considering ways to detect and respond more quickly in the future.
“We have used cameras and other techniques to try to identify those who are distributing flyers so that we can tell them in a more personal way that that attitude, those values, are not welcome in our city,” Meyer said.
“The Klan has a history of demonstrating their actions and trying to make people fearful,” said Commissioner Ron Washington. “Well, they don’t know Covington very well.”
The commission did not belabor the issue, and Kelley said that the association would continue communicating with the city moving forward.
“What I really want is more structure to this,” said Kelley, “a protocol.”
Leaflets with phone numbers were one thing, Susan Strating, the association’s secretary, told LINK nky, but what happened if there were credible threats?
Thus, police and city protocols needed to consider the possibilities in case something like this happened in the future.
“Contacting law enforcement is the first thing that comes to your mind,” Kelley said, “but the harder problem is the reassurance and letting people know that it’s going to be okay, that everybody knows about it.”