Rick Badie's Gwinnett: A wasted chance to learn history

I’ve had the pleasure (not) of seeing robed Ku Klux Klansmen twice in my life.

The first time was in my hometown in South Georgia. A van load of ’em showed up on the courthouse steps to protest something or other.

Across the street sat Piggly Wiggly, where I was a bag boy, cashier and stock clerk. I can’t recall what brought the Klan to town, but I remember shoppers — black and white — telling me to “be careful.”

In 1986, while a senior at the University of Georgia, I was a cub reporter for The Times in Gainesville. I pulled into town one Saturday morning to find some robed wonders, along with a slew of law enforcement officials, on the main strip.

Seems the Klansmen wanted to march through the black part of town to protest illicit drug use. It almost turned ugly. Some counterprotesters threw bottles at the Kluxers, which included a few kids in full Klan attire, toting toy rifles. Sad.

Last week, metro Atlanta and North Georgia made headlines when students wore Klan outfits at two schools — Gwinnett County’s Sweetwater Middle and Dahlonega’s Lumpkin County High.

In both cases, the costumed students were part of a re-enactment. Lumpkin High’s situation grew legs when a black student who saw his peers in the outfits took offense.

In Sweetwater’s case, a teacher alerted an administrator when she saw the students preparing for their roles. The re-enactment was squashed. School officials then found out the social studies teacher in charge of the re-enactors had let another class proceed with the project a day earlier. Now there’s an investigation.

It’s understandable that someone on campus would take issue with the Klan costumes, especially if they didn’t know it was part of a lesson. Moreover, some parents might get up in arms if they learned from their children, or through the grapevine, that such an activity had occurred on campus.

But with a little more forethought, the hoopla could have been harnessed. A history lesson for students could have been a teachable moment for a community.

Why didn’t the two teachers — one black, the other white — get pre-approval? Why weren’t parameters set that fit the sensitive nature of the project if it’s that important? For example, the Lumpkin High students reportedly wore their costumes while walking through the cafeteria. Not so smart.

What if the school principals had explained the who, what, when, where and whys of the project to students and parents, then lent an ear to those with objections?