The KKK-affiliated, Indiana-based hate group that rallied in Dayton last year has applied for a permit to do it again.
Last year, nine members of the Honorable Sacred Knights of Indiana rallied in downtown Dayton. They were armed and wore masks. They were met downtown by hundreds of police officers and counter-protestors. That event ended peacefully.
However, officials are concerned that the timing of this year’s rally could signal far greater trouble as the group’s application is for September 5, just weeks before Election Day.
“It makes me very nervous,” says Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley. “It has nothing to do with Dayton and everything to do with the national contest. That makes me very concerned about this.”
Whaley says the city is working to discourage the group from coming back to Dayton, including an anti-mask law, modeled on a Georgia law enacted in 1951 to combat the Ku Klux Klan.
We’ll have more on this story as it develops.