Although it’s a small town of about 7,800, Pulaski, Tenn. may well be the white supremacist epicenter of the nation — at least if the number of rallies held there by bigoted groups is any indication.

The mayor and other residents aren’t pleased. “There’s never been a local person involved in these marches or rallies,” Mayor Daniel Speer told Hatewatch this week. But they’re resigned to being a favorite locale for the haters on the American radical right. Speer’s town is more than one-quarter black, but it has for decades been a favorite place for white supremacist groups to rally because of one unfortunate historical fact: This was where the Ku Klux Klan was born.

The next such event on tap in Pulaski: the annual European Heritage Festival, scheduled for Oct. 23. The event, despite its name, has the heavy footprint of the Klan all over it. Sponsors include the Christian Revival Center led by long-time Arkansas Klan leader Thom Robb; the Knights Party USA (better known by its original name of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan), which is Robb’s “political” organization; Voice of Reason radio, which features interviews with white nationalist luminaries such as Jamie Kelso and Tomislav Sunic; and Abundant Life Fellowship of Morgantown, Ind. ( continue to full post… )

Andrew Pendergraft may be only ten but he is the face of youth within the Ku Klux Klan, the most infamous hate organization in the world.
Read full article

Charity Pendergraft has responded to our earlier post about her white-power sister act.

Pendergraft’s verdict: “I found the article very amusing.”

She didn’t intend it as a compliment. Pendergraft, 18, and sister Shelby, 16, singing as Heritage Connection, have released two CDs and perform at white nationalist events. Among other things, Charity Pendergraft took umbrage at our description of the sisters’ “thin, quavering voices.” “[T]hose who have heard us sing live would agree that our music, lyrics and vocals are anything but ‘quavering,’” she wrote on the sisters’ blog.

She also didn’t like the way we poked fun at her fondness for Mexican cuisine. (Charity had written in an earlier blog post that she’d eaten enchiladas for dinner and loved “Spanish” food.) “Doesn’t she [the author] know the difference between Mexican food and Spanish food?” she sniffed. “Or for that matter the difference between Mexicans and Spaniards? First Spaniards are white and second Mexicans are a mix of indian, white, and negro. I believe she needs to do more research. True native food in Mexico was a mixture of roasted and/or boiled lizard, rat, and boiled root vegetables. No, I’m not trying to be mean, just telling the truth. It took the creativity of the white Spaniards to make the food of ‘Mexico’ edible.”

We took Pendergraft up on her suggestion that we do more research and contacted Jeffrey Pilcher, a history professor at the University of Minnesota and the author of ¡Que vivan los tamales! Food and the Making of Mexican Identity. ( continue to full post… )

Do you miss Prussian Blue, the pop-singing twin sisters who entertained neo-Nazi crowds with their off-key odes to white power a few years back? Then you might want to check out another sister act: Eighteen-year-old Charity and 16-year-old Shelby Pendergraft, who form a group called Heritage Connection.

Prussian Blue, you may recall, consisted of Lynx and Lamb Gaede, who (with a little help from stage mom April Gaede) sieg-heiled their way to international stardom in white power circles. They haven’t been heard from in awhile and have apparently moved on to other things.

The Pendergraft sisters have not yet received the media attention that the Gaede bunch drew in their heyday, but they claim to have performed at white nationalist events nationwide since they started performing as Heritage Connection in 2003. They’ve also released two CDs, “Aryan Awakening” and “Standing Our Ground,” and have shared the stage with a guitar-playing Derek Black, best known for the brouhaha that followed his election to the Palm Beach County Republican Executive Committee. ( continue to full post… )