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Ku Klux Klansmen and other white supremacists get arrested after throwing rocks and bottles at civil rights marchers in Georgia.
1987 (Jan 17)
Ku Klux Klansmen and other white supremacists threw rocks and bottles at a group of ninety civil rights marchers in Forsyth County, Georgia. The four hundred counter-demonstrators also shouted racial slurs at the protestors, who had gathered on a state road about two miles outside the city of Cumming. There were no serious injuries, but eight of the supremacists were arrested on charges including disorderly conduct, trespassing, and carrying a concealed weapon. The aborted march was led by Dean Carter, a white martial arts instructor from Hall County, Georgia, and veteran civil rights leader Hosea Williams. Most of the marchers were Blacks from Atlanta, thirty miles south of Forysth County. Williams, an Atlanta city councilman, commented: “In thirty years in the civil rights movement, I've never seen it worse than this," as he responded to the violence. He also added, “in 1987, who would believe this kind of racial violence in America?” The march had been planned after the cancellation of a previous "brotherhood walk" that Carter had organized, partially to honor the memory of assassinated civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. The event was canceled after the organizers were threatened.
References:
- • Hornsby, Alton. Chronology of African-American History: Significant Events and People from 1619 to the Present. Detroit: Gale Research, 1995.