Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, May 11, 1990 TAG: 9005110022
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: BIRMINGHAM, ALA. LENGTH: Medium
"I don't know what he's going to say, but he's not going to change my way of thinking," said Roger Handley, a former Ku Klux Klan leader in Birmingham who was accused of attacking an SCLC march in Decatur in 1979.
The Rev. Joseph Lowery, who organized the march, is to lead the course Saturday for the Klansmen as part of a court settlement growing out of the bloody clash.
Lowery said he plans to talk about "the oneness of the human family" and how the Klansmen themselves may have been exploited by demagogic leadership.
He said he plans to sit in a circle with the former Klansmen and attempt an informal discussion.
Handley, a 44-year-old disabled sheet-metal worker, called the discussion a "waste of time."
"I don't believe in integration; I don't believe in interbreeding. I don't hate anybody, but I'm not going to change my way of thinking on that," he said.
Lowery would not disclose the location of the meeting because he doesn't want reporters to attend.
"I don't think the Klan would cooperate if news media people were sitting in the room," he said. "They've got to protect their pride, and I think they'd turn it into a circus. There would be no serious discussion.
"At best, it's going to be difficult to have a serious discussion."
"One of their cyclops up in Connecticut called it `cruel and unusual punishment,' " Lowery told the Birmingham Post-Herald in a telephone interview. "I reckon it might be."
The meeting grew out of a lawsuit against the Klan by Montgomery attorney Morris Dees of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Dees said that in the Decatur clash, Handley gave the order for Klansmen to fire on black marchers.
Four men, two blacks and two whites, were wounded in an exchange of gunfire.
by CNB