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SWOYERSVILLE — A 6-year-old girl sang and talked about how all people came from the earth and a 5-year-old lab mix dog walked through the crowd of about 100 people welcoming affection from everyone, regardless of the color of their skin.
Such was the scene Sunday at Roosevelt Park in Swoyersville where Mayor Chris Concert organized a candlelight vigil to send a message that the Ku Klux Klan is not welcome in his town — or anywhere in the “Valley With a Heart, not hate.”
Apalonia Passetti, 6, of Forty Fort, bravely stood before the candle-holding crowd and told them how she feels about racism and hatred of one group toward another.
“Everybody is made from earth,” she said. “And love.”
People waited more than an hour for the scheduled 5 p.m. vigil to start, giving them time to talk about the recent recruitment attempt by the East Coast Knights of the True Invisible Empire. The group placed fliers on Jay Street last week, asking for interested people to call and join their cause.
John and Mary Kurlandski live on Jay Street. They have four grown biological children and five adopted African American children — four of the adopted kids live with the Kurlandskis.
Fliers bring fear
The Kurlandski’s daughter, Christine, a 13-year-old seventh grader at Good Shepherd School, found the KKK recruitment flier on her front lawn when she left her house to get on the school bus. She said she didn’t really understand what it meant until her mother explained it.
“That’s when I felt scared,” Christine said.
Mrs. Kurlandski said there are a lot of Swoyersville residents who, like her daughter, felt scared when the KKK made its presence known in the quiet Jay Street neighborhood.
“It’s been happening all over,” she said, referring to similar flier-droppings in Wilkes-Barre, Kingston and Mountain Top, the reported headquarters for the local KKK-affiliated group. “But nobody seems to want to say anything about it. I’m glad our mayor organized this event to send a message.”
That message sent Sunday evening was that Swoyersville and its residents will not tolerate a group like the East Coast Knights to take root in their community.
As Kurlandski’s son, Frank, 22, said of the KKK group: “Just go away.”
White interests
That seemed to be the sentiment of most of the people in attendance. Three young men stood without candles at the rear of the vigil. They said they do not support the KKK and its beliefs, but they felt the vigil was “an over-reaction” to the fliers being dropped in the borough.
Stephen Smith of Pittston, Ryan Wojtowicz of Nanticoke and Jesse Clime of Forty Fort, said while they don’t support the KKK, the do support the interests of white Americans.
Smith said African Americans commit a much higher percentage of violent crimes than whites. He said that issue should be discussed more often and solutions to what he said was “the real problem in this area,” need to be found.
“But if you bring it up, you run the risk of being called a racist,” Smith said. “All I’m saying is that we have a lot more violent crime in this area and we should be looking for ways to address it.”
Debbie Davis and her mother, Johanna Wozniak, live in Forty Fort. They brought Davis’ dog, Sammy, a 5-year-old rescued lab-pit bull mix who milled around the crowd looking for attention.
“We’re here because its frightening that the KKK is rearing its ugly head in our neighborhoods,” Davis said. “This is really scary in this day and age.”
Color-blind to race
Davis said people can learn a lot from her dog, Sammy.
“Sammy doesn’t see color or race,” she said. “He’ll go over to anybody. He even plays in the house with our four kittens.”
Davis said her brother-in-law is African American and her niece, Brittney McIver, 19, drove to the vigil from Allentown.
“I don’t believe in the KKK,” McIver said. “It’s ridiculous and so is racism. This is very sad to see this happen anywhere.”
Concert said he was thrilled to see the large turnout for the vigil.
“I thought I might be the only person here,” he told the crowd. “We are here to rid our town of hatred and racism. We are here to say we are never going to accept groups like the KKK. We are here to stand up against this.”
Concert said similar flyers were distributed in Kingston, Wilkes-Barre and Mountain Top. Clime said he had one on his porch in Nanticoke and a woman said she got one in Forty Fort.
Rev. Ann Marie Acacio, a retired minister, said the Wyoming Valley is a quiet, caring community.
“There never should be any room for hate,” she said.
The vigil closed with the crowd singing “God Bless America.”
A community’s response
The Swoyersville incident was not the first time that the KKK made its presence known in the Wyoming Valley. KKK recruiting fliers were distributed to some homes in Wilkes-Barre in August and more recently they showed up in Kingston. The East Coast Knights gathered three weeks ago for a private “cross lighting” in Mountain Top, with Klan members telling the Times Leader the event drew participants from as far away as Delaware.
The group’s recruitment efforts drew widespread media coverage and a response from the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and other religious and community organizations, which held a march on Sept. 15 that they said was intended to send a message to the Klan that it is neither welcome nor wanted in the area.
A full-page ad recently ran in the Times Leader featuring a letter from religious officials throughout the Mountain Top region and beyond, speaking out against the Klan’s efforts.
“As followers of Jesus, we categorically reject the hatred, fear, and violence of the Klan as sinful, evil and anti-Christian,” the ad read.
In September, U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Scranton, called on the nation’s top prosecutor to aid in the response to the KKK’s presence. In his letter, Casey said city residents were “frightened” to find the fliers bearing a Ku Klux Klan symbol on their properties and asked U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch to “mobilize Department of Justice resources to take proactive steps” to ensure safety while the “fringe group” is active in the city.
“These new fliers are another troubling sign of the KKK’s persistent attempts to recruit followers to their hateful cause in Northeastern Pennsylvania,” Casey said at the time. “This group has a right to promote their cause, but we should call it out for what it is — racism, plain and simple.”
Concert said he felt the KKK activity was giving Swoyersville a bad name.
“We’re about unity,” he said. “We’re here for all the people, regardless of race.”
