KKK Recruiting in Van Buren County, Iowa?

(Anconoa (right) With KKK Researcher Daryl Davis)

Roughly 20 residents from at least three separate communities located in Van Buren County, Iowa, have filed complaints with their local sheriff after finding recruitment fliers for the Ku Klux Klan in their mailboxes. This KKK membership recruitment effort is reaching northward into Iowa from Missouri:

Frank Ancona of Park Hills, Mo., claimed responsibility for distributing the fliers as part of a membership drive and an effort to be more open about the Klan’s activities and goals. Ancona said he has served five years as “Imperial Wizard” for the modern strain of the Klan that calls itself the Traditionalist American Knights... “I swore that if I got in my position I was going to change things, and since I’ve been Imperial Wizard, I’ve really pushed recruiting hard,” he said. He even has his own Twitter account. Members of his group “should be active all over the state of Iowa,” he said.

The Des Moines Register article on this subject notes that Iowa already has its own statewide KKK organizer (AKA "Grand Dragon") who prefers to remain anonymous compared to the more visible Ancona.

Van Buren County Sheriff Dan Tedrow told the Des Moines Register that this KKK recruiting exercise is protected free speech and that they group has not done anything illegal.

Ancona agreed, noting...

Ancona concurs: “We’ve got the right to say it, and we’ve got the right to win people over to our way of thinking. Just because a bunch of gay, lesbian, transgender liberals — whatever they are — want us to shut our mouth, we’re not going to do it. We’re going to preach our traditional Christian values in America.”

There were similar KKK recruiting efforts reported in nearby Cedar Rapids, IA, back in January 2012, which I wrote about here.