KKK loser dies

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/local/story/534059.html

Virgil Griffin was defiant to the end.


In interviews over the years, there were few apologies for cross burnings, his views on race – or his part in a 1979 “Death to the Klan” rally in Greensboro where five people were fatally shot.


Four years ago, he told a group studying the shootings that he never would have gone to that rally had he not been goaded.
“They told us to ‘come out from under our rocks.' I don't hide under no rock for nobody,” said Griffin, imperial wizard of the Mount Holly-based Cleveland Knights of the KKK.
Wednesday, Virgil Lee Griffin Sr. of Mount Holly died at Gaston County Memorial, surrounded by family. He was 64.
The Klan brought him notoriety. The organization he been a part of since his 20s had seen its numbers dwindle, but Griffin and other Klan officials were in the midst of rebuilding, exploiting fears over illegal immigration to draw members, according to agencies that track hate groups.
“People are tired of this mess,” Griffin told the Observer in 2007. “The illegal immigrants are taking this country over.”
The message was the same in the 1960s and '70s; the target different. In 1965, Griffin and another man were convicted of posing as detectives investigating a racial incident at a school. In 1980, Griffin was charged in a cross burning in Lincoln County.
But it was the November 1979 Greensboro rally held by members of the Communist Workers Party where Griffin won his biggest headlines.
The shootings came months after growing tension.