Terrorism – Parallel to the Southern American terror of the Ku Klux Klan and the Civil Rights Movement.

Posted on by Opher

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The aim of the terrorists is to impose their narrow view on the population, create fear and vent their hatred.

Back in the 1960s the black population of the Southern parts of the United States were subjugated through terror. There were beatings, shootings and killing.

At night men in robes and hoods would ride through a community and place a burning cross in front of any house that had someone who was getting uppity. It was a chilling warning. If unheeded fire-bombing, shooting and murder would result.

The people were terrified.

But after a while brave members of the community began to raise their heads and demand justice. Many of these were shot or lynched. More came along to take up the cause until there were too many marching for the terror to work anymore.

I salute the bravery of those early black activists and the white activists who came down from the North to support them.

Here’s to Martin Luther King, Medgar Evans, Michael Schwerner, James Earl Chaney and Andrew Goodman and all the hundreds of others who died in that struggle.

The virulent racists of the South were defeated just as the hate-filled Islamic jihadists will be.

Richie Havens – The Klan – lyrics about the terrorism of the Klu Klux Klan.

Posted on by Opher

ritchie_havens_650Featured Image -- 1991

In this day and age it is easy to think of terrorism as something perpetrated by religious fanatics, brainwashed and packed off with their bombs to blow up innocent people in trains, planes, mosques and buses. That is not always the case.

The Ku Klux Klan were a terrorist organisation with the sole intent of maintaining White Supremacy by instigating terror in the Southern Black population.

They used hoods, burning crosses, pseudo-Christian rhetoric and gibberish and weren’t above threats, beatings, shootings, arson and lynching to make a point. They ruled through terror.

It took a brave man to stand up to the Klan. Their reach was long, forgiveness none and retribution vicious.

Where evil lives it is up to all good people to stand up and oppose it!

The Klan

The countryside was cold and still
There were three crosses upon the hill
Each one wore a burning hood
To hide its rotten heart of wood

And I cried
Father I hear the iron sound
Hoofbeats on the frozen ground

Down from the hills the riders came
Lord, it was a crying shame
To see the blood upon their whips
And hear the snarling of their lips

And I cried
Mother I feel a stabbing pain
Blood flows down like a summer rain

Each one wore a mask of white
To hide his cruel face from sight
and each one sucked a hungery breath
Out of the empty lungs of death

And I cried
Sister raise my bloody head
It’s so lonesome to be dead

He who rides with the Klan
He is a devil and not a man
For underneath that white disguise
I have looked into his eyes

Brother, stand with me
it’s not easy to be free