Queen of the Ku Klux Klan

RACHEL PENDERGRAFT WAS PRESENTED with her first set of hooded robes even before she could walk.

Her earliest memories are of midnight ceremonies, of cross burnings, and oaths sworn in allegiance to the Ku Klux Klan.

Bought up in the very bosom of the Klan, Rachel is widely regarded as the most powerful female member of the KKK in America today. Hailed as a ‘Grand Dragon’, she is the only woman to sit on the Grand Council of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. With her smooth talk, good looks and designer wardrobe, Rachel Pendergraft is the new face of America’s most feared secret society.

The door swings open to room 117 at a run-down motel somewhere in east Tennessee. Rachel Pendergraft stands in the frame, grinning widely, as if she understands the importance of first impressions. She is buxom, blonde, and fair-skinned, with large hazel eyes and thick fuchsia lipgloss. Dressed in a tailored navy suit, with a cream blouse, dangly gold earrings, and sensible shoes, Rachel Pendergraft is the opposite of what you might expect.

The motel room is cluttered with vanity cases, Italian outfits and children’s clothes. Rachel’s daughters stare into a TV screen, giggling at cartoons. Charity, aged three, and Shelby, who is almost two, have long golden locks and alabaster complexions. Like their mother, they are dressed in their Sunday best. At first it seems like any other motel room in America’s Deep South: flowery wallpaper, cable TV, and vinyl-covered chairs. But look again. Hanging in one corner are two sets of white silky robes. Hooded and with face-veils, the full-length gowns bear the black stripes of high rank.

Stacked beside the hooded gowns are other clues: boxes filled with T-shirts and badges, banners and bumper-stickers, bearing the inimitable initials ‘KKK’.

But the Ku Klux Klan has re-thought its dogma, sharpened its image, become eco-friendly, and is learning to play the media game.

Perhaps the biggest change of all is their new focus on welcoming women to the society’s leadership. Gone is the foul-mouthed, grubby Klan of the past; gone too are the calls to take up arms. The Klan has a new message: Merchandising, Media, Massive Power.

The KKK no longer organizes lynchings, it holds coffee mornings instead.

‘When we were kids we used to go to Klan picnics and barbecues,’ explains Rachel, in her southern lilt. ‘Everyone at school knew that I was in the Klan and that my dad was a member. I didn’t have any black friends when I was a kid – but I did know a Mexican girl once. We weren’t close though. She understood that I belonged to the Ku Klux Klan.’

Rachel pauses as Charity squirms up onto her lap.

‘I’m really dedicated to the Klan,’ she says, ‘I’m committed because I care about the future of my children. I love my people because they’re white, I love my kids because they’re white – and I’ll love my grandchildren ’cos they’ll be white.’

‘You must understand,’ she bursts out energetically, ‘we don’t hate black people, we just love white people!’

This sound bite is the all too familiar new face of the Klan.

It rolls off the tongue smooth as silk. No neo-Klan interview would be complete without it.

‘We haven’t changed our attitudes,’ Rachel confides, as she inspects her long, manicured nails, ‘but we’re perfecting our image, making it sharper, and working on our professionalism.’

Rachel Pendergraft and her father, the veteran Klansman Thom Robb, run the largest and oldest Klan group in the United States. Known as the Knights of the KKK, the faction realizes that the only way the society can become a national force again is by changing its spots. The group’s radical programme of change has been greeted with rage from the die-hard Klan fringe. Indeed, the Knights, or ‘4K’ as they’re commonly known, lost about half their members when the reforms began.

Undeterred by the defection of Klansmen, Rachel and her father have encouraged their members to disrobe at public functions, to tone down their anti-ethnic rhetoric, and to embrace women members as well.

Marc Caplan of the Anti Defamation League in New York, feels that although the restructuring might be unpopular in the short term, it’s well thought out.

‘Women were always the weak link in the hate movement,’ he says. ‘The women, who were traditionally forbidden to attend male Klan meetings, held the men back. When, in recent years, they became fully integrated, everything changed. Women have the daunting role of indoctrinating children with Klan belief: and kids are the future of the Ku Klux Klan. The KKK is a brand name like Coca Cola, everyone has heard of it,’ cautions Caplan, ‘but unlike Coke it’s not a registered trademark. Anyone can call themselves “Ku Klux Klan” and that’s very damaging to the KKK’s image.’

Back in Tennessee, Rachel is working on drawing in other bright young women like herself into the society.

‘We have a lot of single women in all age groups,’ she says, ‘some are lawyers, others are businesswomen, students and office workers. Women make up about forty-five per cent of the Klan. When I was single, I converted my husband, Scott, who’s a professional screen printer. He wasn’t a KKK member when we met, just a nice young guy with the same white Christian values as me.’

Rachel and Scott are bringing up their children according to the code of the KKK. But, Rachel insists, she isn’t weaning them on Fascist propaganda.

‘I don’t say “nigger” around the house,’ she says grinning again, ‘I try not to put down non-whites when I’m with the kids. And when I go on a Klan trip I tell Charity and Shelby that I’m going to speak out for other little white children just like them.

‘It’s so important to instill in one’s kids racial pride when they’re as young as possible,’ she continues. ‘White kids in the US have been given a guilt trip for long enough, just ’cos they’re white. We’re developing a Youth Corps programme for American youngsters between twelve and seventeen. This is a special area that we’ve got to concentrate on.’

Rachel and her father recently bought a hundred acres of land in the Ozark Mountains. The site, which is to house the new national office, will accommodate a Youth Klan Training Camp, as well as a KKK two-year leadership school.

‘We’re working on nurturing leaders,’ says Rachel, as Charity plays on her lap with her Barbie doll, dressed in its designer Ku Klux Klan robes. ‘We’re like any business. If you have a message you need well turned out people to appeal to the masses.’

And it’s the masses that Rachel and the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan are working on. Shying away from the militant image of the old days, the Knights have set their sights on national leadership.

‘I think we’re going to see our organization becoming a major political force in this country,’ says Rachel earnestly. ‘The Klan has a sensible, sane approach to the turmoils of America, and women have a central part to play in the new Ku Klux Klan.’

Rachel Pendergraft stops midstream.

She glances at Charity and Shelby as a lump gathers in her throat. Then, ever so softly, she whispers in a faltering voice:

‘I see with all sincerity that the Klan will sit in the White House. I mean it sincerely. I believe a Klansman will lead the nation within the next twenty-five years. I could never see a black man in the White House, he wouldn’t belong there. The White House is white. It was built for a white leader!’

The rise of women in the Klan during the ’twenties is thought to have begun after they were given the power to vote, in 1920. When the Ku Klux Klan was at its height, there were an estimated three million Klanswomen in the United States. Known as Kleagles, the women developed their own Klan groups, which were set quite apart from those of the men. Ironically, when suffrage was granted, women began to focus on their own differences.

The roots of Ku Klux Klan go back to 1865, and the end of the American Civil War. Donning ominous white hooded robes, the original Klansmen hoped that their gowns would give them a supernatural aura. Taking its name from the Greek kuklos, meaning a ‘circle’, the Ku Klux Klan first came to life in a small wooden shack in Pulaski, a remote town in east Tennessee. In homage to the founders of their order, the Knights of the KKK return to Pulaski once a year. They return to honour their ancestors and to preach their reworked message.

On a stormy day in mid-December, Rachel Pendergraft leaves her motel room. Bundling her daughters aboard their rusting olive-green van, she joins the Klan convoy heading for Pulaski and the Homecoming.

Advertisements in the local press announce: Hey Kids! Come see Santa Klaus * Souvenirs * Krafts * Kountry Music * Klowns * Bagpipers * Have your picture taken with a robed Klansman.

As the rain pours down, the convoy reaches the centre of Pulaski. Ashamed of the town’s sordid legacy, the people of Pulaski have stayed at home. The mayor has no power to refuse the Klan its right to demonstrate.

‘Until a couple of years ago,’ he says wearily, ‘they used to yell “Nigger Out! Nigger Out!” and do Nazi salutes as they marched. They wanted to change the street names to things like “Ku Klux Klan Boulevard” and “KKK Hill”. But worst of all is hearing people from other communities referring to Pulaski as “The Klantown”.’

Once at the main square, Rachel and her associates set up stalls and Ku Klux Klan bunting. As Klansmen appear from the woodwork, the new face of the Klan is put on view. Merchandising and public donations form the basis of the Klan’s funds.

‘We have hot-dogs, nachos, T-shirts and baseball caps,’ says Rachel, unloading a stack of brown boxes. The merchandise is aimed to present the friendly face of the new Klan.

‘Klan Kitsch’, as it’s known by non-Klansmen, comprises of KKK ball-point pens, badges which read ‘Klan Kids Kare’; T-shirts with slogans such as ‘Racial Purity is America’s Security’; KKK Barbie dolls, and ceramic hooded Klansmen with eyes that glow red in the dark.

The current issue of The White Patriot newspaper, a monthly publication written and edited by Rachel Pendergraft, is passed around. Inside, along with articles telling Klansmen not to kill ‘Negroes’ or to pedal drugs, is a section enticing you to become ‘a friend of the Knights of the KKK’. For this, you have to remit a small fee and sign a form declaring ‘I am an Aryan and not of racially-mixed descent. I am not married to a non-white, nor do I date non-whites’.

On the right side of the square, a batch of hot-dogs are being cooked up by a grey-haired Klanswomen. Like many present, she’s dressed in the new politically-correct uniform of the Klan: black tie and white shirt, its front peppered with badges. She sports a KKK baseball cap as well, embroidered with a robed klanswoman and the slogan ‘girls in the hood’.

Rachel turns on a recording of the German Nazi Youth song Tomorrow Belongs to Me. Her smile turns to a look of disappointment as her father whispers something in her ear. Unfortunately, he tells her, the Klan bagpiper won’t be attending, on account of the fact he lost a finger in a fight the night before.

Standing over a stall selling hooded KKK Barbie dolls is Anastasia Robb, Rachel’s sister-in-law.

‘I made the Barbie robes myself,’ she winces. Aged just nineteen, Anastasia, who has been married to Rachel’s brother for a year, is a new recruit and already a diehard Klanswoman.

‘The Klan’s the main part of my life now,’ she says resolutely, ‘I’ve never had any close minority friends. I always knew that I wanted to marry an Aryan man and have Aryan children. When I became a member of the Klan my family was apprehensive at first. They had mixed feelings. Although they’re not members, they’re supportive.’

Anastasia, an intelligent, blonde all-American girl, is glad she joined the Klan when she did.

‘Women are important members of the KKK,’ she explains, ‘as the Klan becomes more liberal it’s attracting more and more women who see its message as the future they want for their children.

‘It’s important for kids to be involved. They should come to rallies. The media steers them in the wrong direction and gives them stereotypes. Children come here and learn what the Klan is all about. They learn about our white Christian heritage.’

Rank and file members of the Klan continue to arrive from across the country, pouring into Pulaski’s main square. Although attendance is hindered by the terrible weather, dozens have travelled thousands of miles to come home to the birthplace of the KKK. Shelley Watts, fifteen, whose family has made the three-day drive from Utah, has come with her parents and five sisters.

‘We’re Mormons,’ she says. ‘The Mormon Church doesn’t like us being members of the Klan, but the KKK is a very important part of our family. I want to stick up for the white race, and when I have children I’ll bring them up to be members of the Ku Klux Klan.’

As the Klan’s Homecoming gets underway, anti-Klan groups monitor the proceedings from a distance. Pat Kelly of Neighbours Network looks on through binoculars from the far end of the square.

‘Much of the hard day to day work is done by the women’, he says, ‘they tend to get on with running the organization while the men sit about talking. But don’t be deceived, the women don’t have an equal voice with the men. The Klan claims that it puts women on a pedestal, but that’s far from the truth. What we’re seeing increasingly is the attitude that “my skin colour is my nation”. This may be one of the new “female” effects on the Klan. We’re also seeing a severe drop in the average age of a Klan member: most are in their late teens or early twenties.’

Back at the T-shirt stall, Cheri, a middle-aged lady from New Orleans, is trying to find a KKK sweatshirt in her size. ‘I’m the new kid on the block,’ she says through a southern drawl. ‘Although I always wanted to join up, I’ve never had the courage to become a member until now. I’m super-patriotic: I care what happens to America! I saw a Klan advertisement on cable TV. Now I’m a member and I’m going to recruit all my friends!’

Thom Robb, Rachel’s father, saunters about ensuring that everyone is buying enough hot-dogs. Short and rather mousey, in a dark suit and shabby raincoat, he has struggled hard to bring the Ku Klux Klan up to date. In the past he called for the execution of gays and the shooting of illegal immigrants, but now, like his daughter, he’s careful to be PC.

Robb rose to power when his predecessor was thrown in jail for trying to overthrow the government of Dominica. As leader of the Knights, he ditched the designation ‘Imperial Wizard’, preferring ‘National Director’, and has striven to clamber aboard the political bandwagon.

‘We de-robed on our marches,’ he explains in his articulate manner, ‘because we wanted to identify with the American voters. We still wear robes at our private cross lightings because they’re part of tradition, in the same way that a judge wears a powdered wig to court.

‘My two sons and Rachel are very much involved in the Klan,’ he says. ‘Women have an important part to play in the KKK. We all have the same thing to lose – our white heritage. Remember that the majority of American voters are women. We must therefore appeal to women and appoint them to high levels of leadership.’

The de-robing of Klansmen was seen by KKK-watchers as an insane move. An undercover police officer, ensuring orderly behaviour, notes that the robes were always popular with the Klansmen.

‘Once you go public you lose the allure,’ he says, ‘you forfeit the mystique, and lose the people who are attracted by that. Stephen King said that you should never open the closet door all the way, or you’ll see the zipper up the monster’s back.’

When the hot-dogs are all gone, the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan prepare to march around Pulaski. Rachel gathers the children together, hands out KKK banners, and helps arrange the Klansmen ten feet apart. Orders are given that they are to march in silence. There are not be no racist slogans.

In absolute silence, the men, women, and children of the Klan march around the deserted streets of Pulaski. Some of the young generation clutch Klan flags and others balloons. At the head of the entourage is Rachel Pendergraft.

Walking on her right is the KKK Santa Klaus.

As the Klan marchers reach the house where their organization was born, they pause. Rachel’s face swiftly loses its characteristic, yet often forced, smile. With cold eyes, and an expression that could break glass, she raises her arm in a Nazi salute.

Beside her, Santa Klaus does the same.