Justice delayed is justice denied

...but it is still nice to see someone get his just desserts. I have always been fascinated in a satisfied sort of way every time some white supremacist or ex-Klansman from the Civil Rights Movement-era South finally is held to answer for a horrific crime that he committed so many years ago. It is a tragedy that these thugs got to live free for so many years before finally being convicted, but it is good to see past wrongs finally being made right.

Tragically, plenty of my students apparently think that the Klan is alive and well, and is probably still holding parades through Washington D.C. like they did back in the 1920s. Every year, I inevitably get the questions about the Ku Klux Klan, and do they really still rule the South and everywhere else? I tell my students that the Klan used to be pretty powerful - especially about 80 or 90 years ago, but nowadays, it basically consists of a few yahoos holding a meeting in their swamp shack.

What I want to tell my black students who still fear the Klan is that statistically, they have an astronomically bigger chance of being killed by a fellow black than from a hooded night rider or from a Doc Marten-wearing, shaved-headed scumball for that matter.

I do tell my students about a former Klansman who is a current member of the U.S. Senate and was at one time the Senate Majority Leader: The Democrat, yes I said Democrat, Robert Byrd of West Virginia. Imagine the indignant uproar from the Democrats were Byrd a Republican.

Good Day to You, Sir