Jacksonville warns Klansman about littering in wake of leaflet drop

Another batch of Klan flyers dropped in Duval, and City Hall can’t fight them.

In January, Jacksonville residents complained about the return of Ku Klux Klan flyers to city streets.

“I am visiting Jacksonville, and was disturbed to see these flyers (such as those pictured) rolled up and strewn along Riverside Ave. in Five Points in short intervals.  They are everywhere in the area between the Publix and Bell Riverside Apartments, and beyond.  Regardless of the content of the messages, it is illegal to litter City rights of way and private property like this, per the Florida Litter Law, Section 403.413(4)(a) and (c), Florida Statutes,” one wrote.

The cover described the “Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan” as “fighting for the white race.” The interior text referred to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as a “communist alcoholic pervert.”

The city was slow to respond, and that response included a suggestion to set up an “Adopt a Road” program.

The story doesn’t end there.

Chief Administrative Officer Sam Mousa was made aware of the issue not through internal communications, but “through the media.”

Mousa was emphatic in an email to the complainant: “I was not happy!!”

The city, meanwhile, has attempted a remedy of sorts; namely, a letter to the man it deems responsible for the flyers, Chris Barker: a Klansman from North Carolina.

Citing Jacksonville’s “zero tolerance” litter policy, the letter from Neighborhoods head Stephanie Burch notes that littering fines start at $150, and go up to $500 by the third violation.

Each leaflet, Burch wrote, constitutes a violation.

“In the event future violations may occur,” Burch wrote, the city can “pursue enforcement” against Barker or his “organization” without notice.

The Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan do have professed operatives in Jacksonville, per Folio Weekly.

One of those operatives, Ken Parker, describes a flyer drop.

“I don’t even know where they all threw them out at … there was like 1,600 fliers thrown out that night,” he told the Jacksonville alt.weekly in 2016.

Parker made news in 2017 when he was banned from the University of North Florida campus. The Florida Times-Union described the 37-year-old undergraduate as a “Nazi.”