According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Georgia Dept. of Transportation is currently reviewing the May 21 request–filed by International Keystone Knights of the KKK in Union County–to clean up part of Route 515 in the Appalachian Mountains in Blairsville.
“Any civic-minded organization, business, individual, family, city, county, state, or federal agency is welcome to volunteer in the Georgia Adopt-A-Highway program,” according to the department’s website.
The state attorney general’s office is expected to decide Monday.
“We just want to clean up the doggone road,” Harley Hanson, who filed the application, told the paper. “We’re not going to be out there in robes.”
But Rep. Tyrone Brooks, head of the Georgia Association of Black Elected Officials, called on state officials to reject the application.
“This is about membership building and rebranding their name in a public way,” Brooks said. “What’s next, are we going to let Neo-Nazis or the Taliban or al-Qaida adopt highways?”
“We are good, decent Christian Americans,” Hanson, the group’s “Exalted Cyclops,” added. “What we’re trying to do is to work with the local community.”
It’s not the first time the KKK has participated in an “Adopt-A-Highway” program.
In 2000, the KKK successfully “adopted” part of Interstate 55 south of St. Louis, after a federal judge ruled that the Missouri Dept. of Transportation could not keep the group out of the cleanup program.
The Georgia KKK group said they would file a lawsuit if the state rejects their application.
A group affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan wants to “adopt” a mile-long stretch of highway in Georgia.
Dylan Stableford
