ORGANIZING KLANWATCH Project The Southern Poverty Law Center 1001 South Hull Street Montgomery, AL 36101 Despite their ridiculous robes and insane • rhetoric, the K,u Klux Klan is no joke. A_militant group of Klansmen known as.the Invisible Empire, Knights of the :1(.KK and led by Bill Wilkinson of~ Springs,'Lo-~1isiana, is threateniq.g blacks and Jews throughout the South. Worse still is a secret Klan military,training camp hidden deep.in the vine-covered hills of northern Alabama where Klansmen in camouflaged military fatigues train with AR-14 semi-automatic , weapons (civilian versions of the Army's M16), run obstacle courses,,climb walkof cut logs, crawl beneath canopi~.~of barbed wj.re and swing on ropes across creeks. • The Klansmen call this military camp, shown to some local newsmen last winter, My Lai in honor of the Vietnam'village where .American soldiers massacred women and children. According to Terry Tuc;keri Commander-in-Chief of the Klan Specia Forces 1 his elite g_roup is preparing for a "race war." FromPla~n_ing for a Change KLANWATC.H is a new project of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit organization involved in numerous cases to defend the rights of poor people. KLAN-· WATCH will document the activities of all known Klan groups in the nation. The same • re_c:;ord system used by the Wiesenthal Cen- . ter for the Study of the Holocaust to trace and locate Nazi war criminals will be employed by·the Center's investigators and attorneys. Special reports will be published and made available to the news media. • "Few in the nation outside the South really know the dangers we face from the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan," wrote Julian Bond recently in describing the KLANWATCH project·. Help these folks establish the nation's first and only Klan information center. The Kiah is for real. -MR From No Nukes to a People's Energy Movement: A Strategy for the 1980's,. by Pamela Haines and Bill Moyer, 1980, 8 pp., $.25 ea., $15.00 for 100, from: William Moyer 4713 Windsor Ave. Philadelphia, PA 19143 The Movement for a New Society (MNS) is pretty good,at cleariy defining some of the more effective trends on the American left. If you're not already directly involved in the January 1981 RAIN Page 5 move to create a viable alternative to a nuclear economy, or i~you are trying to get-the w9rd out on what's 'happening in-the "safe ¢ ergy movement/ this special edition of the MNS newsletter is an excellent introduction to the philosophical and political roots of the soft energy path in the United States, as well as a good survey of some of the strategies that are emerging. ~ KB • Playing Their Game Our Way: Using the Political Process to Meet Community Needs, by Gred Speeter, 1978, $6.00. . Planning, for a Change: A Citizens Guide to Creative Planning and Program Development, by Duane Dale and Nancy Mitiguy, 1978, $6.00 1 ·Power: A Repossession Manual: Organizing Strategies for Citizens, by Greg Speeter, 1978, $6.00 We Interrupt This Program . .. A' Citizens Guide to Using the Media for Social Change, by Robbie-Gordon, 1978, $6.00 The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Write Proposals, by Nancy Mitiguy, 1978, $6.00 • • all from: , Citizen Involvement Training Project 219 Hills House North · • · • Div. of Con:t. Ed. Amherst, MA 01003 For all of us who are struggling to.make ends meet while building effective participatory . organizations, here's·some grist for the mill. The Citizens Involvement Training Project has created a series of "how to" manuals for organizatio_ns to develop training programs designed to meet their particular interests and needs. While the focus is primarily on organizing citizen groups, the manuals cover a variety of information from the history of citizen involvement to a roleplay interyiew with-a potential funding source. Drawn from experience with hundreds of groups throughout Massachusetts, the manuals are qrganized to take a group through the steps • of planning and evaluation of programs, be they.media events or grantwriting. There is a plethora of questionnaires, worksheets and discussion questions to prod, prompt and provoke ideas Within a group: Planning for a Change, a manual that we used at a recent Rain Umbrella retreat, has a helpful guide that suggests where to turn for an activity that matches.the stage your group is at. The title of each manual is a fair indication of the material to be found there, with the exception of Playing the Game Our Way and How to Make Ci·~izen 'Involvement Work. Here the two seem to overlap sbme, the former focusing/more on public office ac,ountability while the latter concentrates ~ the power of citizen groups. Depending upon your particular need, the six manuals in this series (the sixth, Beyond Experts: A Guide to Citizen Group Training, is reviewed in RAIN VI:9:2) have something in them for everyone. They're certainly less expensive than paying a consultant! -LS
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