WATCH: Armed KKK Members Hold Rally to Save Confederate Statue, Police Arrest Counter-Protesters

The Civil War Ended in 1865

Ku Klux Klan Members protesting a Virginia city’s decision to remove a statue honoring Confederate General Robert E. Lee began their event tensely this afternoon, easily outnumbered by counter-protesters.

“The Loyal White Knights” chapter of the KKK, headquartered in North Carolina near Virginia, reportedly planned the event over a month in advance, with a member of the group telling The Washington Times that “most” of those at the rally would have their guns.

“Our approach all the way through, from our police chief on down, has been to urge people not to take this totally discredited fringe organization’s putrid bait at all,” the city’s Mayor Michael Signer said in a statement. “The only thing they seem to want is division and confrontation and a twisted kind of celebrity.”

“The most successful defiance will be to refuse to take their bait and continue to tell our story,” he continued. “Then their memory of Charlottesville will be of a community that repudiated them by not getting drawn into their pathetic drama.”  

Despite this, the KKK’s event began late, partially due to the massive number of counter-protesters blocking their entry to the former Lee Park, now Emancipation Park. This included arrests of some counter-protesters:

Additional video, filmed live, can be seen below – though NCRM cautions some language may be found offensive:

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