KKK material condemned by officials in Charleroi
A flier was being distributed digitally by a private website in the borough.
Charleroi officials were disheartened to learn about racial fliers being digitally circulated in the community over the weekend, and they want whoever shared them to know they won’t be tolerated.
Borough Manager Joe Manning said he first learned of a screenshot of a digital flier originally posted on a Charleroi community Facebook page and shared on social media Friday.
There have not been any hard copies of the flier distributed in town, Manning said.
The flier was created to support Trinity White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. It’s not clear who created the flier or who shared it on the Facebook page.
According to the Anti-Defamation League, a leading anti-hate organization, Trinity White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan is a small Kentucky- based Klan group founded by William Marcus Bader in 2012.
In 2023, the group reemerged after several years of inactivity, gaining media attention after distributing propaganda in Kentucky and Indiana.
TWK was previously active in 2014 and 2015, participating in protests and demonstrations along with other white supremacist groups such as the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement.
The flier, shared by an unknown poster to a private Facebook page has since been removed, but not before it was shared online and sparked a new sense of unease within the community.
The flier is directed to “White Citizens of Charleroi” and encourages them to “take a stand” and join the KKK group.
It also encourages people to “arm themselves” and to “protect their families.”
The flier states, “do not let the government destroy your town. These 3rd world immigrants are destroying every single city they arrive in. The government is pushing these 3rd world immigrants into every single town across America.”
It also clams “white people are the only victims to immigrant brutality.”
Manning said he was “sick to his stomach” when someone showed him the screenshot Friday.
He immediately shared it with borough secretary Roberta Doerfler, who was able to reach out to the Facebook group’s administrator.
“We were assured it had been taken down and told if the administrator can find out who originally shared it they will be banned from the site, but once it’s out there, it’s out there,” Manning said.
He immediately reached out to Charleroi Regional Police Chief Chad Zelinsky.
“I went to Chad as soon as I saw it and he was already aware and told me the police were on it,” Manning said. “But because it was only digital, there is not much that can be done right now.”
Ken Silva, president of the Mon Valley NAACP, said he saw the post over the weekend and was “disturbed.”
“I was very disturbed by it when I saw it over the weekend, and we are trying to figure out what we can do,” Silva said, adding he would like to sit down with borough officials to start an open conversation.
“We need to get together as a group,” Silva said. “Charleroi is in trouble as far as it goes internally with different things in their administration. I have been called numerous times about different decisions they have made when it comes to hiring people. But right now there needs to be solidarity between the borough and the NAACP as a whole and I am very much open to that.”
Silva said it’s vital for the community to stand against hatred.
“Before this election, with the former president (Donald Trump) talking about the Haitians, we have to come together, show solidarity, spread community awareness and take action as a community as well. That is what needs to happen here.” Manning said he hadn’t reached out to the NAACP directly, but had been in frequent communication with the mayor of Springfield, Ohio, over the past few weeks because of the common ground they now have following Trump’s comments, a slew of media inquires and now this.
On Sept. 18, the Lexington Herald Leader, a print publication, published a story about an ongoing police investigation into similar fliers posted by the TWK organization.
According to that article, fliers were posted that direct potential recruits to a P.O. Box in Maysville, Ky.
In Springfield, fliers criticized the city’s mayor for denouncing the white supremacy organization and called for the “mass deportation” of immigrants, specifically targeting Haitians.
It urged residents to contact an address in Maysville, Ky., to join the Trinity White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.
Maysville Police Chief Michael Palmer said his office is aware of the situation, adding that the P.O. box is an “active box” in their area.
The Kentucky city has contacted the FBI’s Louisville office for investigative support.
Thankfully, Manning said, fliers are not being circulated in hard copies in Charleroi.
“There they are passing out fliers, putting them on cars, placing them around, so thank God that is not happening here,” Manning said. “I want to be very clear, there is no place in Charleroi for that kind of hate speech. This administration completely denounces any type of speech that intimidates, frightens or terrifies any of our people. It doesn’t belong here, it doesn’t belong anywhere and it is not reflective of Charleroi.”
Silva agrees. “These people have come here to seek the American dream, as broken as it might seem right now, there are a few of us who still really believe in that dream,” he said. “This country was founded on immigrants who came here who believed in that. The biggest thing we need to do right now is to find and take every opportunity to heal. “The people of Charleroi and the Mon Valley NAACP aren’t going to stand for this. We want a community full of peace and harmony. We all have busy lives, but we have to continue to work to look out for our children and our community and will continue to dispel any type of hateful rhetoric or erroneous beliefs.”
