Missouri lets KKK adopt a highway (trash cleaning up trash)

[donsu]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=558&ncid=701&e=10&u=/ap/20050110/ap_on_go_su_co/scotus_klan_highways


Court Won't Block KKK From Highway Cleanup

Missouri lost a Supreme Court appeal Monday over its decision to bar a Ku Klux Klan group from a highway litter cleanup program.

The court's rejection, made without comment, means that the KKK chapter must be allowed into Missouri's Adopt-A-Highway program, which is designed to save money by using volunteers for garbage pickup. Volunteer groups are publicly thanked with signs along the highway acknowledging their help.

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The dispute involves a half-mile stretch of Missouri 21 near Potosi, a town of fewer than 3,000 in the eastern part of the state.

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Robert Herman of St. Louis, the attorney for the KKK, said that the group wants to do its part in community service and to express "solidarity with the community."

(pardon me while I throw up)

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will they pick up trash with their robes on?
if not, can we not photograph them so as to know who the racists are?

so, driving down Rt. 21 we will see a sign thanking the KKK for keeping it clean.

"clean" is not a word that can be associated with the KKK. they have dirty minds and bloody hands.

[aden_nak]

1. Oh, can we get mile markers?

I'm up for a road trip. Normally, I am against littering, but I think I'll make an exception and leave a special present for our Boys In White.

[fnottr]

2. as fucked up as this sounds

I think that was the right desicion. As much as I despise them, they have the right to free association. Now that's not to say I don't think some enterprising person shouldn't snap some candid pictures of them as they clean the highway and forward them around the community. Maybe post them on light poles in East St. Louis or other heavily Black areas around Eastern Missouri. You know....as a public service.

[stlchic]

4. The stretch of highway they first tried was on my way home...

and the initial big problem was people constantly vandalizing the sign and removing it. I think they had to replace it about 5 or 6 times.

Then there was a huge debate in South County about whether or not to let them have their trash clean up there, and eventually it was decided, I don't recall by which group or process, and it was allowed. (But there was still the problem with the vandalized sign.)

Some clever people at MoDot responded by designating that stretch of 55 South as "Rosa Parks Memorial Freeway" with a very large and hard to miss sign. That was sweet.

[fnottr]

5. That's kinda funny

See, I think that's the best way to respond to it, private citizens getting pissed off and yelling loudly. That way they can't claim 'the big librul govr'ment is tryin' to shut us up."

[RaleighNCDUer]

3. Of course.

The KKK is just another social organization, like Kiwanis and Boy Scouts. They have a right to clean up litter.:eyes:

[catmandu57]

6. They've been back and forth over this

In and out of court, at one time the state was forced to let them put up their sign saying they cleaned the hyway, but, they didn't pick up the trash just wanted their name on the signs.
So they took away the road detail from them, then back to court, they (the klan) won so back up went the signs, people stole the signs, and trashed that section of road.
I had forgot about it, so now we're back to having to put up signs for them and it'll be the same damn thing, the roadside won't be maintained, and people will deliberatly trash it.