05-03-2025
'Quite a few of us out tonight': 'Pop-up Klans' use KKK flyers for attention
In some places in the United States, the Ku Klux Klan is a memory, something relegated to textbooks. But not in Cincinnati. Here, as recently as 2000, a massive white cross was stationed in the middle of Fountain Square through the Christmas season.
Occasionally social media posts from residents or police departments and local news reports mention groups leaving white supremacist flyers on cars, in streets, or people's front yards. Rarely do the reports mention anyone being cited in those instances.
However, after a neo-Nazi demonstration over Interstate 75 near Lincoln Heights on Feb. 7 attracted national scutiny and left residents on edge, it is no surprise that William Bader caught the attention of local authorities when he drove through the village late last month throwing KKK leaflets out his window, according to police reports.
Members of the Lincoln Heights Safety and Watch program spotted him around 2 a.m. on Feb. 23 and contacted police. Around a dozen officers and deputies from at least three agencies swarmed the area and stopped Bader. He was cited for littering, which could cost Bader $150 per offense and does not require a court appearance. As of Friday, Bader had not paid the fine.
During the traffic stop, which lasted about 45 minutes, Bader told Hamilton County deputies he is an "imperial wizard" with the KKK and said what he was doing was protected by the First Amendment. The interaction was captured on police body cameras.
The Maysville, Kentucky, man said he had started his night in Toledo with 4,000 flyers and distributed them to 16 towns along I-75. He had just run out when he was stopped.
"It wasn't just me," he said. "There's quite a few of us out tonight."
He took credit for every flyer distributed around Greater Cincinnati since 2022, saying they had all come from his group. The goal of distributing flyers is to recruit new members.
"This is a largely African American neighborhood," an officer said. "You're not going to recruit anybody here."
Bader argued and said Cincinnati is only 28% Black. Census data puts that number at nearly 40%, and about 75% of Lincoln Heights' 3,100 residents are Black. Bader said he doesn't know much about the areas he was driving through.
"If it was a totally Black neighborhood, why would I?" he said. "I don't know who lives here. We don't target nothing."
Later, the officer is heard telling a colleague he was "not really buying" that Bader came to Lincoln Heights by mistake.
Bader told the officer that the KKK used to distribute flyers by hand on street corners.
"If I get a G-- d--- ticket for litter, then we're going to come back and stand on the corner in robes," Bader warned. "We're going to go back to just standing on the corner, and you guys are going to come, and ain't nobody gonna touch us."
Bader also asked how he could file a complaint against the people who "chased" him from Lincoln Heights into Lockland. Police said he was welcome to file a complaint the next morning.
Officials said Bader had also taken the "Peace and Love" flag down from the I-75 overpass. A sheriff's deputy confiscated it after it was found in his car. Before he left, Bader asked the officer to give it back.
A deputy replied: "I took property that didn't belong to you."
Bader let out a yell and a laugh as he drove away.
Lincoln Heights community activist Daronce Daniels said his community knows what to do in the face of racism. He said residents are not confused or surprised that systems in place protect men like Bader.
"It's muscle memory for a community like us," he said. "We'll be ground zero of that fight if we need to be."
Daniels said his community is more focused on Lincoln Heights' place in the larger community and why it appears that it is still being treated differently than other communities in Hamilton County.
There's history there. Founded by Black Americans, Lincoln Heights was initially denied the ability to incorporate by the Hamilton County Board of Commissioners in the 1930s, hurting its tax base. Current Commissioner Stephanie Dumas said it was a decision driven by racism that impacts the community to this day.
In 2014, the village was forced to disband its police department, and since then, residents have paid for the Hamilton County Sheriff's Department to provide protection. This costs each Lincoln Heights resident at least $250 per year. Daniels said the total is nearly a million dollars.
"We're not getting a million dollars' worth of service," Daniels said.
He said the leaders in Lincoln Heights are working to use the incidents as an opportunity to make the village whole and bring the community together to be more self-reliant. On Friday, the Lincoln Heights Safety and Watch held a barbecue and clean-up.
"Let's turn our resistance into action," the announcement said. "Let's make history – again."
Since the time of the big white crosses on Fountain Square, the KKK has been in decline, according to Carla Hill, senior director of investigative research at the Anti-Defamation League.
In a strange twist, the first cross went up on Fountain Square in 1992 after a Jewish group won a federal lawsuit allowing them to install a Menorah display. This opened the door to other displays in the name of First Amendment rights. City officials said their hands were tied.
The eerie holiday display continued for years. There were protests, and the cross was sometimes toppled.
Over the years, around 30 people would be arrested for toppling or otherwise defacing the cross, according to Enquirer reports at the time. There were no reports of Klansmen getting arrested.
The city tried several tactics to block them but never fully succeeded.
In 1998, the KKK leader of the group behind the display, Tony Gamble, was sentenced to 55 years in prison for the rape and sodomy of two girls, ages 11 and 16. The cross displays continued for a few years until 2001, when the Klan missed the deadline to apply for a permit.
If Fountain Square, now under the management of 3CDC, were to allow community organizations to create displays again, it's not clear what tools the city could use to try to stop the KKK from resurrecting the cross.
Hill said that hate group activity is a serious issue, but the Klan is no longer a major player.
She said the chapters that still exist are small and Bader's group probably isn't bigger than a dozen or so people.
"They just aren't what they used to be. The Klan movement has been in decline for decades," Hill said. "The younger Klan leaders who occasionally try to create what we call pop-up Klans lack credibility and their groups typically fail."
Other groups have taken up the mantle, espousing slightly different ideologies.
When many of these groups convened for the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, Hill said the organizers minimized the KKK.
"They didn't want the Klan to come to Unite the Right wearing the robes," Hill said. "They just were wearing plain clothes."
She said the Klan had to hold its robed rally at a separate time.
Hill said white supremacist movements overall saw a spike in 2016 and 2017 but have not seen significant growth in recent years when it comes to the number of events the groups have held. She said there were 187 white supremacist events last year across the country – mostly small things with less than 20 people
Hill said what the Klan wants most is attention, and the leaflets are a way of getting that. She said the propaganda makes it seem like the KKK is far bigger and wider-reaching than it actually is. It makes it seem like there are Klan members in your neighborhood when in all likelihood there are not, she said.
Hill said it is likely that the KKK targeted Lincoln Heights due to the Feb. 7 neo-Nazi demonstration, and in the past, communities that make the news for incidents like this face continued harassment. She pointed toward Springfield, Ohio, which saw demonstrations in the wake of false claims about immigrants there. Hill said she fears that might happen in Lincoln Heights.
"I love that they stood up. It is super cool and brave, but the reality is that it can have a counter result and that's more attention for the group," Hill said. "Once a town or city gets on the extremists' radar, a lot of them will come and do this. But everyone has to make their own call."
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: KKK flyers in Lincoln Heights: Man said he targeted 16 towns on 1-75
