ADL Praises California for Banning Kkk Paramilitary Training Camps

The Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith praised the California legislature for being in the vanguard of states adopting legislation which bars paramilitary training camps run by the Ku Klux Klan and other extremist groups. The statute, approved by both houses of the legislature last month and subsequently signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown, makes California the third state to take such action. Connecticut and North Carolina passed laws over the summer.

According to Justin Finger, director of ADL’s Civil Rights Division, the bills already passed and those pending in seven other states are based on a model statute drawn up by the ADL. It calls for imprisonment and/or fines against those found guilty of operating paramilitary camps or receiving training there.

Finger gave a “status” report on the legislation to ADL leaders from all sections of the country gathered here at the Fairmont Hotel for the agency’s National Executive Committee meeting, which ended yesterday. He said the seven state legislatures in which anti-paramilitary camp bills are pending are Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

In Massachusetts, the “model” bill has been endorsed by the Boston Chapter of the NAACP, the Urban League and the Greater Boston Civil Rights Coalition. In its nationwide survey on the KKK last year, the ADL revealed that California was a Klan distribution center for instructional manuals and handbooks on terrorism.

Finger said that ADL’s model statute was based on the 1968 federal Civil Obedience Act, which has been upheld as constitutional by federal Courts of Appeals. The ADL bill was drafted, he declared, after a canvass by ADL regional offices revealed a pressing need for laws enabling state authorities to crack down on Klan paramilitary encampments.