NEWS

June 15, 2009
Ku Klux Klan protests inmates’ treatment at prison

The Ku Klux Klan came to Fort Madison on Saturday, but with only a handful of Klansman and without the stereotypical white sheets.

They came from as far away as South Bend, Ind., and Mercer, Wis., to protest what they say is the mistreatment and discrimination of some Christian inmates at the Iowa State Penitentiary.

Five Klansman and a youngster stood at the entrance of Willow Patch access across from ISP, holding signs claiming this mistreatment and discrimination.

The Rev. Railton Loy of the Church of National Knights, who is also an imperial wizard with the KKK, was among the protesters. He says that through mail correspondence he converted two ISP inmates, James Cloyed and Travis Golie, from paganism to Christianity, but that during the past year the inmates have been denied his mailings.

“James Cloyed had a shakedown of his cell and the guards found his pagan literature in his trash,” Rev. Loy said. “They retrieved it and tossed it on his bunk. Mr. Cloyd became upset and the guards put him in shackles and took him to the hole, or to solitary. You wouldn’t treat a dog the way they treat those men.”

Loy says there are different fractions of the KKK and that his is one of a church“ the Church of the National Knights.

“We, the National Knights, do not send anything behind bars that we think would be harmful to any inmate.”

Michael McQueeney, the grand dragon of the KKK chapter out of Mercer, Wis., says the group’s message is not racial, but that the Bible contains some racial passages.

‘We’re trying to send the same stuff, but they won’t let it in. It’s the warden they have here. Our material is allowed in at other prisons,” McQueeney said. “You have rights even in prison. This is not Nazi America and we’re the Klan, not a bunch of NeoNazis. There are a lot of good blacks and good Jews, we just believe in sticking with your own kind. I mean, a wolf doesn’t go out with a squirrel.”

And while protest may have centered on mailings allegedly denied to two ISP inmates, McQueeney said he is bothered by current trends among American’s younger generation and their attraction to hip-hop music.

“You see these kids with their underwear up to here and their pants hanging off their hips listening to that hip-hop stuff. Listen to that. It’s all about beating women or whites, killing cops. I just don’t think our kids today are thinking. They look at these people as role models. You think Mike Tyson, O.J. Simpson are role models?"

McQueeney said he didn’t have much hope that the small protest would bring about change at ISP.

“There’s not enough people here, not enough seeing it,” McQueeney said. “To tell you the truth, if someone from the prison would just come out, talk to us and hear what we have to say, we’d pack up and leave.”

But nobody came out to talk. Two ISP correctional officers stood posted at ISP’s entrance guard house and an officer from the Fort Madison Police Department stood watch from a squad car several feet away.

“We will continue to try,” Loy said. “Those are our brothers in there. They have a right to our mailings just as they do at the other prisons. I’m telling you, the problem is with particular warden.”

BACK TO NEWS PAGE