Back to the Future? Recalling KKK Picketing to Force Firing of Mexican Workers

This photo was taken on April 23, 2016 in rural Paulding County near Cedar Town, Georgia. It shows members of the Ku Klux Klan participating in cross and swastika burnings after a "white pride" rally.

The photo calls to mind the case of Zartic, Inc., a case that is part of my research into the use of racial prejudice in union elections.

Here is how a National Labor Relations Board decision recounts the activity in the same community:

The record makes clear that in Cedartown in 1981 the KKK picketed the Employer's plant demanding that all the Hispanic employees be discharged. The Klansmen marched through the town and around the plant and burned a cross. They carried signs which insisted that the Employer fire the illegal aliens and send the Mexicans back to Mexico. The Employer did not provide any financial support to the Klan; rather, it obtained an injunction restraining the Klan's activities.

Fast forward to the 2016 photo. Our future points back, not forward. For more on the KKK in the rural South, see this excellent article.