The Klu Klux Klan and groups with ties to the New Black Panther Party faced off at the South Carolina state house yesterday - with predictable results.

NBC News:

About 2,000 people were at the Statehouse at the peak of the two rallies, according to the South Carolina Department of Public Safety. The department said five people had been arrested after the KKK members showed up for offenses including disorderly conduct, simple assault and breach of peace. Additional officers were on scene at that time.

 

No officers were injured, but there were 23 calls for emergency services and seven people were transported by medical personnel, according to the Department of Public Safety. The temperatures rose to the high nineties in Columbia Saturday afternoon.

 

The earlier rally, including members of Black Lawyers for Justice and Black Educators for Justice, a Florida organization with links to the New Black Panther Party, began with about 200 people gathered around a podium and responding to passionate speakers shouting, "Black power!"

Justice Coats said she came to communicate a message about the Confederate flag. "Equality is more important than a symbol of hate," she said.

But Stan Stones, a Baptist minister, said he came to defend the flag but made clear that he does not support the KKK or their beliefs. The KKK "hijacked it in the mid-1950s, and they made it a symbol of hate. And Southern heritage has nothing to do with hate — it has to do with honoring those who fought," he said.

One of the Kluxers was apparently overcome by the heat and was helped up the steps by a black State Trooper named Leroy Smith who was photographed assisting an elderly man wearing a T-shirt that has a swastika on it.

What do you suppose both men were thinking?