The final "Echo" of racism finally slipping away....

In the spring of 1996, cable news took the city of Laurens to the world with a story about a brand new business that was causing a bit of controversy in our small city. Friends from far and wide called to ask, “What’s this I hear about this store in Laurens?”

“The World’s Only KKK Museum and Redneck Shop,” which opened March 1, 1996, forced Laurens City Council members to get creative as they worked to come up with ways to deny a business license to John Howard as he sought to open the store and Klan Museum in the building which had previously housed the Echo Theater.



Controversy swarmed, with Klansmen dressed in robes showing up occasionally for a dreaded, but peaceful show of support of Howard. On another occasion, several hundred protesters, from within and outside the county, wore black and white ribbons in a show of racial unity, which seemed to grow stronger as races worked together to politely fight the new “foe” in our midst.

In the end, of course, there was an appeal, and City Attorney Tommy Thompson convinced council that the license would have to be issued, thus making the business, at least in the legal sense, as legitimate as any other on the Historic Courthouse Square.

But everything didn’t remain peaceful. A few weeks into it, on Sunday, March 24, David Pritchard Hunter, a 43-year-old white man from Columbia, decided to make his own protest statement and drove his van up from Columbia right into the front window of Howard’s business.

With Hunter’s misguided vigilantism, Howard had become the victim.

Now that 13 years have passed, the controversy has, for most of us, waned and faded to the point that the shop is just “there.” Occasionally there’s a person seen coming in and out. But mostly, the last several years it’s become a place on the periphery, just a shop you pass by on the way to somewhere else down Laurens Street.

Twelve years ago, there would have been jubilation over the news that signs had gone up in the windows signaling the coming end of the store. Now, it’s more of a response like, “Well isn’t that interesting?” or “Who would have thought it would have lasted this long?”

But it wasn’t long, really. Thirteen years. A baker’s dozen.

Ecclesiastes says, “To everything there is a season...”

Evidently, four little hand printed signs quietly mark the end of the season for this World Famous business.

It was easy, especially in the early days when emotions ran high, to think of sides. Are you on “this side” or “that side?” But there is no right side to hatred.

I hope that hatred, whatever “side” it may be on, will soon be gone as well.