The KKK's Candy Campaign Is Only Its Latest Food Stunt

When members of the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan dropped off baggies full of candy and anti-immigration propaganda on South Carolina driveways last weekend, many saw it as a desperate push for attention an a time when the KKK's relevance has arguably reached its nadir.

Bad jokes about strangers with candy aside, it's hardly the first time that the KKK has pulled a publicity stunt with food.

KKK sects have been doing this kind of thing for years, and candy's only the latest tactic. During Christmas last year, residents of a Chicago suburb woke up to bags full of candy canes and fliers from the Traditionalist American Knights that read, "You can sleep tonight knowing the Klan is awake." (They probably did not.)

The Loyal White Knights did it in North Carolina, too, sending Dum Dum lollipops with an entreaty to join a KKK-backed neighborhood watch. In two Texas towns, it was peppermint candies with fliers that argued, "The majority of hate crimes in America are committed by blacks against whites."

In Springfield, FL, the Loyal White Knights dropped off baggies with Tootsie Rolls and invitations to join the Klan at about 30 homes. As with the recent incident in South Carolina, the homes belonged to families of many ethnicities. "I mean, we can't tell who lives in a house, whether they're black, white, Mexican, gay—we can't tell that," said Robert Jones, the Imperial Klaliff of the group, in an interview with FOX Carolina last week. "And if you were to look at somebody's house like that, that means you'd be pretty much a racist."

Pretending that it's an issues-based organization instead of a violent hate group is one of the Klan's go-to tactics, ever since its heyday in the 1920s. "They would say, 'We don't hate the Catholic, we just hate the Catholic's involvement in politics,'" says Rory McVeigh, a sociology professor at the University of Notre Dame and an expert on the history of the KKK.

The Klan used food then, too, to create a spectacle at a time when newspapers and their readers hungered for sensational tales of the group's night rides and marches. To demonstrate their goodwill and offset their reputation for brutality, Klan members brought care packages of food and gifts to poor families during the holidays, even ditching their hoods for Santa Claus costumes. Klan newspapers celebrated the deliveries of milk to orphaned babies and even turkeys to poor black families.

"They were delivering food as a way of illustrating they have a higher purpose and that they're not just driven by hatred of minority groups," says McVeigh. "Its publicity of its charitable events was a way of broadening its appeal and also keeping the government from cracking down. It was really emphasizing its patriotism."

But today's Klan has nothing near the strength it enjoyed nearly a century ago, when more Americans were openly racist and the group had a foothold in mainstream politics. The Southern Poverty Law Center estimates that there are currently no more than 8,000 Klan members in the US, where they've splintered into dozens of different groups and compete for relevance with other extremist organizations.

Jones admitted to VICE News yesterday that the candy was intended to help soften the Klan's image. "It's one of our recruitment techniques, and it's also to let everyone know that the Klan is still out there and still active," he said. It's all part of a national campaign to turn the current debate over immigration into a KKK membership booster.

"One thing that's consistent over time is that the leaders of the Ku Klux Klan are very opportunistic," McVeigh notes. "The candy is just a way of ensuring they get some attention."

But a Tootsie Roll here and a Dum Dum there are a far cry from turkeys and milk that could've gone a long way to sway the minds of a more sympathetic public 90 years ago. Candy, like the KKK itself, is just pathetic.