“Aw Hell Naw!”

Last Friday I got a text message from a source saying that there was going to be a surprise rally held in the Tacony section of Philadelphia. OK, not a big deal, In Philadelphia rallies are almost a daily occurrence. So I wrote back, “And?”

“And it’s being held by the Klu Klux Klan.” Ok that got my attention!

It seems that there was some type of issue with a KKK member trying to get into the neighborhood watch program and he was rejected. This person thought it was strictly because he was a Klan member, which I couldn’t confirm, and he told his Klan friends. They decided that this warranted a little, un-promoted, not announced, little rally on the Tacony library steps.

What they didn’t quite understand is this particular neighborhood is very in touch and the word got out. Quickly. Tacony is one of the “live and let live” area’s of the city and they are proud of the fact that there is little or no racial issues in that area. “Sure we have issues,” one neighbor told me, “but there just issues. We work through them.”

When I arrived at the library there were a few people in the area and a few young men were about to go into the corner store. When they saw us arrive with our press badges and such they asked, “What’s going on?”

When we told him about the rally his reply was, “In Tacony? Aw hell naw!”

The young man know as “Twin” promptly got on his cell phone and shortly there were quite a few neighbors there to counter any numbers the KKK were sending. You see the KKK was importing people from surrounding states to boost their numbers. They had people from New York, Maryland and Virginia but we think when their scout reported back that some decided against coming as they didn’t have a whole lot of people at the rally once it actually got started.

This neighborhood grouped together within minutes and stood together to push a known racist group out of their area. They refused to stand idly by and let them have their say without saying something back; and they certainly gave it back with gusto. This is the type of Philadelphia I am proud of.

Yo Tacony, thanks for making me proud!

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