BLAIRSVILLE, Ga. — The Georgia Department of Transportation tells Channel 2 Action News that it has denied the request by a Ku Klux Klan group to adopt a highway.
The DOT said 173 community and civic organizations are involved in the Adopt-A-Highway program cleaning up liter on about 200 miles of roads.
The group wanted to adopt part of Highway 515 in Union County and have a sign saying the KKK had adopted that part of the highway.
In a statement from the DOT about denying the application, they said, "Encountering signage and members of the KKK along a roadway would create a definite distraction to motorists … promoting an organization with a history of inciting civil disturbance and social unrest would present a grave concern to the department."
Georgia's "Adopt-a Highway" program began in 1989, enlisting volunteers to supplement state cleanup efforts. Each group agrees to remove litter at least four times a year for a two-year period.
There were 173 organizations involved in the statewide program in fiscal year 2011, encompassing more than 4,100 individual participants and covering about 200 miles of roadway.
Georgia sets very broad guidelines for who may take part. According to the DOT website, "any civic-minded organization, business, individual, family, city, county, state, or federal agency is welcome to volunteer in the Georgia Adopt-A-Highway program."
Each volunteer group must have at least six members, with three backup members.
The Klan has a racist and violent past. It began during Reconstruction as a vigilante group dedicated to intimidating Southern blacks with lynchings and cross burnings, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit group that monitors hate groups. Klan membership was once estimated in the millions, but it has seen its influence wane over the years.
Today, while some factions of the Klan have preserved an openly racist philosophy, others have tried to enter the mainstream, describing their agenda as "civil rights for whites." The Southern Poverty Law Center estimates that there are between 5,000 and 8,000 Klan members, split among dozens of different organizations that use the Klan name.
In Georgia, the group has had little visibility in recent years.
WSBTV
