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- <text id=89TT2712>
- <title>
- Oct. 16, 1989: American Notes:North Carolina
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1989
- Oct. 16, 1989 The Ivory Trail
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- NATION, Page 37
- American Notes
- NORTH CAROLINA
- A Klan Kleanup
- </hdr><body>
- <p> What can a hate group do to clean up its dirty image? The
- Reidsville klavern of North Carolina's Ku Klux Klan thought it
- had come up with a tidy answer: it offered to join the state's
- Adopt-a-Highway program, under which 5,000 civic and social
- organizations have agreed to keep 10,000 miles of state
- highways clear of litter. At least four times a year, the
- Klansmen would exchange their white robes for orange vests and
- pick up trash along three miles of U.S. 158, east of Reidsville.
- In return, a sign noting their good deeds would be erected along
- the highway.
- </p>
- <p> It was an offer that North Carolina's department of
- transportation found too good to accept. "The Klan is atypical
- of the groups that have been involved with the program,"
- explained James Sughrue, a DOT official. No other volunteers,
- except a cub-scout pack considered too young to be on the roads,
- had been turned down for the highway-cleanup project. Rockey
- Chapman, head of the klavern, admitted he wanted "that sign to
- advertise my group." He asked the state branch of the American
- Civil Liberties Union to sue for a reversal of the rejection.
- The A.C.L.U. was expected to do so on the ground that the KKK
- was the victim of discrimination based on its "political
- philosophy."
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
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