SOUTHERN NATIONALIST GROUP SETS MEET IN CAPE

An organization that advocates the South should secede from the United States again and whose leader claims the first Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan as a hero will meet in Cape Girardeau Sept. 8-9.

Dr. Michael Hill, president of the League of the South, will be among the speakers when the Missouri League of the South holds its state meeting here for the first time. Another speaker will be league member W. Donald Kennedy, author of the book "The South Was Right."

Hill is a white former history professor at predominantly black Stillman College in Tuscaloosa, Ala. He founded the League of the South in 1994.

The league's Web site, www.dixienet.org, states this purpose: "We seek to advance the cultural, social, economic, and political well-being and independence of the Southern people by all honourable (sic) means."

The league's writings employ traditional spellings based on the British Oxford dictionary rather than the "Yankee inspired" Webster's spellings.

Lewis Goldberg, a Columbia, Mo., freelance writer, will be installed as the Missouri League of the South's new chairman at the meeting at the Holiday Inn. Goldberg said his organization is coming to Cape Girardeau hoping to recruit new members. The public is invited to attend the event.

The group believes that the South was the right side in the Civil War. "People just get hung up on slavery," he said. "It's all about states' rights.

"Slavery is a moot point anyway," Goldberg said. "I don't think anybody wants to see it come back except maybe a splinter group.

"We look at the cultural and political aspects of it. We look at the documents and the Confederate Constitution. There's a lot of good stuff going on there. They tried to renew the revolution."

He believes the South would be better off as a sovereign nation. "The government in Washington is very corrupt," he said. "If you read the Constitution, most of our government is extra-Constitutional."

He thinks of Missouri as a Southern state. "Missouri seceded from the Union," Goldberg said., "A lot of history books say it didn't. But Lincoln chased the government out of Jefferson City."

Pro-South Missouri Gov. Claiborne F. Jackson's refused to send Missouri troops to fight in the Civil War and President Abraham Lincoln answered by sending Union troops against the Missouri militia. Jackson's troops were routed, and a state convention called the next month removed the pro-South state leaders from office.

In a radio talk show interview, Hill called Nathan Bedford Forrest, the Klan's first Imperial Wizard, "a man of principle, a man of character and a man who was tough as steel." He has called the NAACP a hate-mongering organization and has said the league is interested in "preserving the dominant culture," which he terms "European Anglo-Celtic."

Goldberg said the organization is not racist and has black members.

His own ancestry is Slavic. "The political stuff is the stuff that really grabs you," he said.

Area representatives of the NAACP could not be reached for comment.

Goldberg estimated the Missouri League of the South has between 100 and 200 members. Most of the league's chapters include more than one state. The Missouri League of the South has members from Missouri, Iowa and Oklahoma, he said.

The national organization claims a membership of 9,000 in 47 states.

Goldberg said the league is not a political party but rather an organization promoting a political philosophy. The chairman of the Mississippi League of the South is running for governor.