KKK Flyers Protest Pride Celebrations at Virginia Elementary School
A series of flyers bearing the name and phone numbers of the KKK group that participated in the 2017 Unite the Right were discovered in neighborhoods throughout Charlottesville, Virginia.
The flyers were discovered early on the morning of Sunday, June 18, in the Fry’s Spring and Johnson Village neighborhoods. The flyers protested an unauthorized video showing a Pride celebration at the local Johnson Elementary School where students can be seen reading from the book ABC Pride by Louis Stowell. The video was first revealed at the start of Pride month by local conservative radio host Rob Schilling and later went viral on right-wing media including Fox News Channel commentator Jesse Watters.
Copies of flyers obtained by The Daily Progress contained offensive and anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric.
“Pride goeth before destruction,” one of the flyers ominously quoted the Bible.
The fliers claim to be the work of a North Carolina KKK group known as the Loyal White Knights of the KKK. The group participated in the 2017 Unite the Rally and is currently being sued by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The numbers listed on the flyers sent callers to voice mail and an unmonitored conference call.
“The Charlottesville City Schools is aware of the unauthorized video featured on conservative news sites showing students at Johnson Elementary School reading an alphabet book about LGBTQ acceptance,” the school district said in a statement. “This was a student-led activity that was one part of the school’s monthly school-wide morning meeting celebrating the end of the school year.”
The statement continued noting that the school holds a morning program once monthly. These gatherings are usually organized by teachers.
“For the June meeting, fourth-grade students took the lead to coordinate the program,” the Charlottesville City Schools statement continued. “As one part of the summer celebration, they decided to read an alphabet book about LGBTQ acceptance, which included words like ‘belonging,’ ‘gender,’ and ‘kindness.’”
The city’s mayor and chief of police said the matter is under investigation.
“These kinds of things are being done by people who think they are being cute. In fact, they’re just being offensive,” Charlottesville Mayor Lloyd Snook told the Daily Progress. “They’re probably not violating a law except perhaps littering, but it’s just one of those things where we have to sit there and ball it up and throw it in the garbage and move on.”
Charlottesville Police Chief Michael Kochis is investigating whether any laws broken by stepping onto somebody’s to distribute the flyers.
“It made me really angry to see the flyers,” resident Lori Pinkey, who found one of the flyers outside her house on Sunday, told the Daily Progress. “These creeps were going around and throwing these flyers in our yards while we were sleeping.”
In the video, a small group of young children are seen addressing a larger group of fellow students. One girl is seen explaining the meaning of LGBTQ+ to the assembled students.
“It stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer,” the young girl says in the video. “Cool!”
She then hands the microphone to another student who reads from the book ABC Pride by Louis Stowell.
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Despite the controversy, the Charlottesville City Schools made clear they supported the students, teachers, and schools in the matter.
“The goal of these morning meetings is to build a stronger and more inclusive learning environment, where all students feel safe, welcomed, and respected,” the district’s statement concluded. “Our school division fully supports the Johnson Elementary School leadership in providing time for our students to connect and learn from each other.”
