"Klansville U.S.A." which was broadcast nationally last night is a PBS American Experience production by WGBH in Boston based on a book of that title by David Cunningham. It is an interesting look at the rise and fall of the North Carolina Ku Klux Klan in the 1960s. A very good historical documentary marred by the jarring flaw of taking a cheap shot at Republicans.
It was almost as if the producer and director, Callie T. Wiser, just couldn't restrain herself from taking a shot at Republicans. The documentary stuck to the facts until just a couple of minutes before the end at the 49:30 mark of the video when historian David Cecelski took the cheap shot:
"...A lot of whites are finding their racial anxieties channeled into other political avenues, into the Republican party but also into George Wallace's American Independent Party."
Amazing that PBS felt it was perfectly alright to take what was a good documentary and allow a political cheap shot to be part of it. Perhaps not so amazing considering the well known bias of PBS. Here is a Boston Herald review of what was for the most part, except for that unnecessary glaring flaw, a good documentary:
...The footage is some of the eeriest of “Klansville U.S.A.,” an American Experience production by WGBH Boston, as it portrays followers of North Carolina’s KKK as ordinary people, not just the anonymous hooded figures in white robes typically associated with the Klan. Their leadership, however, was far more calculating, sinister and self-serving. That’s a takeaway from “Klansville,” as it profiles Bob Jones, the honcho of North Carolina’s Klan. By all accounts, Jones started out life destined to go nowhere. He dropped out of high school and was discharged from the Navy for refusing to salute a black officer. But in the Klan he found power, and an ability to sell his hate to the downtrodden, hopeless and fearful.
We watch as Jones wins over a huge membership of about 10,000 in the unlikely state of North Carolina, which at the time was also the setting of the wholesome “The Andy Griffith Show.”
The Boston Herald gave this documentary a rating of Grade A but your humble correspondent would rate it as A-. A big huge minus for inserting a political cheap shot.
