KKK Banner Rises Over ‘Sweet’ Georgia Town

Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky

By Daniella Cheslow March 13, 2017

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Protesters against a KKK sign in Dahlonega, Georgia in February 2016 Image by Facebook

With the rise in American hate groups, the Washington Post reports on one Georgia town’s struggle with a massive Ku Klux Klan banner that appeared on the side of a building on Main Street one morning last month.

Dahlonega, a charming former gold mining spot an hour north of Atlanta, rallied against the sign, the Post reports: “The mayor got dressed and headed for the square. The reverend called the sheriff.”

Locals showed up to protest the sign; they were menaced by pickup trucks circling the square and revving their engines. Eventually, municipal workers climbed into a cherry picker to loosen the 21 screws anchoring the sign to the building.

The next day, the Post reports, a Unitarian church announced a “unity march” and drew in a local fiddler, a member of the Indigo Girls band and concerned residents. Then more pickup trucks flying Confederate flags and Make America Great Again banners arrived. A regional radio station picked up the story, and listeners mused that the banner might be “fake news,” a plot driven by liberals.

In the meantime, the perpetrator was found: an 84-year-old local woman who owned the building and who had been trying to get approval to build a hotel in the town square.

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