FACING DOWN THE KLAN

A LUTA CONTINUA

New Orleans 1981

Kweli Tutashinda

Incredible. We nearly had a pitched battled at the one at the end of Canal Street. Our Police Brutality committee under the leadership of Kalamu Salaam and others, including myself, was walking around the “white supremacy statute”-(our name for it), and David Duke, Klan leader disguised as leader of the National ASSOCIATION FOR the Advancement of White People-NAAWP MARCHING AROUND IT THE Opposite direction. Both groups clandestinely armed to the teeth, it was eventually broken up by the police, who we knew were Klan sympathizers. Eye opening moment in ’81 not ’51!

New Orleans Removes Four Confederate Monuments

Back in the United States, New Orleans has removed four
Confederate monuments, including one whose original
inscription celebrated “white supremacy in the South.”
The government workers who removed the statues wore
masks and bulletproof…

DEMOCRACYNOW.ORG/2017/4/25/HEAD…

Comments

Ramona Mann: Wow Kweli, you experienced this? Wow,
the belly of the beast…like Daniel in the lion’s den.

Kweli Tutashinda: Yep. It was intense. The hate in their
eyes was real. We felt the police were, at that time, far worse.

Kalamu Salaam: That was a major moment in our struggle.
The night before, in Algiers, a separate part of the city on the
west bank of the Mississippi river, there had been a klan rally
at which someone shot at the police. When no one was
charged or arrested, we were sure that our rally scheduled
for the next day would be targeted.

Early in the morning on the rally day, we had vehicles with
weapons in the trunks parked at strategic locations near the
statue. The scene Kweli describes actually happened hours
before the rally when our advance forces were scouting the
rally site. David Duke and the klan had announced that they
would hold a rally at the statue site, which at the time was
located at the foot of Canal Street and the Mississippi River,
in the major business district of New Orleans.

This showdown was the culmination of months of ongoing
struggles against the forces of white supremacy, which
included members of the police department. The federal
government had sent the FBI to the city in an attempt to
diffuse the situation. FBI agents interrogated some of us
and attempted to persuade us to call off the rally by
suggesting it would be a blood bath and that we would
be responsible for the deaths of people who attended the
rally. But we were determined.

The confrontation was scheduled for noon. Duke and
the klan forces backed down and came to the rally site
around 8:00am that morning. Our advance forces arrived
around the same time. There was shouting and shoving,
but Duke and company, accompanied by police who were
protecting them, left when we arrived. At 12noon, the
scheduled time, Duke & Company were long gone and
failed to show up after weeks of announcing that they
would be holding their noon rally on Canal Street.

This was not an easy event to pull off. There was
dissention about tactics, some members thought we
should call it off when the FBI confronted us. After
the shooting the night before, a few people were
certain that it would be foolish and too dangerous
to hold the rally. However, the core of our forces
were determined and ultimately prevailed.

Although the noon rally went off without any trouble,

we had to step out and step up on faith in ourselves.

At the rally our organization and numerous others

from the city proudly stood and confronted the klan.

Some of us thought this was one of the major events

of our times and not only organized to oppose the

klan, we also had our children with us. At noon that

particular Sunday, in the face of political, police and

klan opposition, the black community stood strong.

All across the country, people had been demonstrating
and confronting manifestations of white supremacy.
New Orleans was not the only site. Most of these
struggles have gone unrecorded and are seldom
acknowledged by the mainstream. In the 21st century,
social media makes it possible for us to easily and
widely share information—that’s a good development
in our long history of struggle. Whether widely known
or relatively obscure, we should never forget that it is
only through struggle that progress is won.

As Frantz Fanon has noted: “Each generation must,
out of relative obscurity, discover its mission,
fulfill it, or betray it.”

—Kalamu ya Salaam

Kweli Tutashinda: Wow, thank you, Kalamu! This history
should be known. Your memory of these details are impressive
and very informative, even for me and I was there. There has
never been a forum that I know of that has reflected on this
particular struggles struggle-maybe there in NO, but I doubt
any has commented on your outstanding leadership during
that campaign. It was a tireless effort by us all and your
leadership/spokespersonship was pivotal. I got my first real
public speaking experience other than college when I was
allowed to introduce Rev. Ben Chavis at one of our large
rallies. He had just gotten out of prison with Wilmington 10
and risked his parole being with us. Omari Obedele and
Acklyn Lynch joined us on the picket line when we boycotted
every Saturday for a year. Thanks for this history.