Dagwolf

When the Missouri KKK won a lengthy court battle to participate in the adopt-a-highway program - which would have required the state to use taxpayer dollars to "advertise" the KKK on one of those little adopt-a-highway signs - the state legislature responded by naming the highway after civil rights activist Rosa Parks.

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Meta Ridley

http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/outrage/rosapark.htm

First of all, this isn't really recent news. The Ku Klux Klan had been fighting a series of court battles with the state of Missouri ever since 1994, when a Klan member applied to participate in the state's highway cleanup program and "adopt" a stretch of Interstate 55 south of St. Louis. The Missouri Department of Transportation rejected the application, claiming that under the federal Civil Rights Act, it could refuse the use of federal money to "further or subsidize racial discrimination." However, a U.S. District Court judge ruled that Missouri's refusal to allow the Klan to participate in the Adopt-a-Highway program was unconstitutional, and when the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed that finding on appeal in March 2000, the state had to erect signs announcing the Klan's sponsorship of a portion of I-55. The Missouri Legislature then voted to name the stretch of highway adopted by the Klan the "Rosa Parks Highway," in honor of the civil rights hero from Alabama whose refusal to give up her bus seat to a white passenger in 1955 led to her arrest and then a boycott of the Montgomery bus system.

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Missouri's appeal in March 2001, removing the last obstacle to the Klan's full participation in the Adopt-a-Highway program. It is not true, though, that the KKK is "now cleaning up a stretch of the newly-christened Rosa Parks Freeway." The fact is that the Klan has never cleaned up their portion of I-55. When Missouri issued the Klan an ultimatum to start picking up trash or face being dropped from the program in January 2000, a Klan representative just beat the deadline by picking up the bags, reflective vests, and 10-minute safety video required for training and participation in the program. After the last legal obstacle to the Klan's full participation in the program was cleared when the Supreme Court refused to review the case this March, Missouri sent the Klan another ultimatum to begin picking up litter or be dropped from the program, a threat that was made good on April 4 when the Klan failed to respond and was officially dropped.

Missouri's ultimatum won't have much impact, since Thomas Robb, national director of the Ku Klux Klan in Harrison, Ark., already announced that the Klan intended to abandon the stretch of I-55 they adopted "because the person who filed the original application is no longer taking part in the program." The Klan has now set their sights on a one-mile stretch of Highway 21 in Washington County, between Highway E and the city of Potosi, based on an application filed by Ralph Griffith, another Klan member, back in March 1999. That section of Highway 21 is currently unnamed, but if we suspect that if Mr. Griffith's application is approved, it won't stay that way for long.

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NTSS

"The KKK is now cleaning up a stretch of the newly-christened Rosa Parks Freeway"

OWNED!

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reynold

hmmm. not sure.

NoCarrier

http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/outrage/rosapark.htm

Claim: The state of Missouri named a stretch of highway adopted by the Ku Klux Klan the "Rosa Parks Highway."

Status: True.

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