This story was originally published by LINK nky, a media partner of WCPO.com.
Catrena Bowman, Erlanger resident, business owner and executive director of the Northern Kentucky Community Action Commission, had suspected something was up for a while, but she wasn’t certain until about a week and a half ago when her landscaper sent her a photo of a note scrawled on a paper bag he’d found in her yard, the same bag Bowman had spied at a distance earlier but didn’t think much of.
On one side of the paper was a drawing of a gawking face. On the opposite side was a swastika and the words “MB Hates N****s.”
“He sent me the pictures of the note, and I was just like, ‘I knew it,'” Bowman said. “In a way it was confirmation that I knew something was going on, just based on all of the things that have been happening.”
Bowman’s not the only one. In Covington’s Eastside neighborhood, leaflets bearing images of Ku Klux Klan members have been distributed on streets. Residents are concerned and are calling on fellow community members to speak out.
“We just ask for anyone who saw something [or who] may be aware of something to contact their local law enforcement,” said Jerome Bowles, president of the NKY branch of the NAACP.
Bowman doesn’t know who or what the ‘MB’ on the note refers to, but she said there had been several incidents leading up to finding the note that had made her suspicious. She’s lived in the property for six years, but she said these incidents didn’t really become a problem until the last year or so. These included the destruction of a street lamp in front of her property, which prompted Bowman to install cameras, and the repeated slashing of her mother’s tires — Bowman’s mother used to live with her.
Bowman even said that one time a few months back, her mother had been the recipient of racist insults while walking around the neighborhood. All of these events compounded, Bowman said, into a situation where she felt she’d been targeted, like she’s being watched.
“These people have no idea who I am, what my background is; they don’t know anything about me,” Bowman said. “But just because you see a Black woman, you can get to the point you say that you hate them.”
Bowman complimented the Erlanger Police Department, which is investigating the case and has stepped up security in the area.
Meanwhile, in Covington’s Eastside neighborhood, there have been recent distributions of leaflets bearing KKK imagery. Specifically, the papers show a hooded Klansman pointing at the reader, telling them “You can sleep sound tonight. The Klan is awake!”
The flyers bear the name of the Trinity White Knights branch of the Ku Klux Klan, which, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, is a subgroup of the KKK based in Dry Ridge in Grant County. The flyer also sports a phone number with a (606) area code, asking readers to report “crime and drug dealers.” The (606) area code covers eastern and parts of south-central Kentucky.
Melissa Kelley, president of the Eastside + neighborhood association, who shared a photo of the flyer with LINK nky, said it wasn’t clear if the flyers were meant as a recruiting tactic or a way of intimidating people but that the neighborhood would be working with local and federal law enforcement in the coming weeks to figure out how to handle the situation.
Similar flyer distributions have occurred in other parts of Kentucky and Indiana in the past.
Ari Jun, director of the Jewish Community Relations Council, spoke with LINK nky last year following the distribution of antisemitic literature in Covington’s Mainstrasse neighborhood and said that white supremacists and other hate groups would often travel from place to place.
“Some of these folks don’t even live within the state, and they’ll just drive up the east coast of the U.S., leafleting as they go,” Jun said last year.
Tensions seem to get worse during election season, Bowman said.
“That’s just me anecdotally saying that,” Bowman said. “It’s just what it appears to be because those flyers and all of that were being circulated during the last election season, too.”
Bowles said that the region as a whole has been improving in its efforts to improve diversity and its openness to different cultures, so when incidents like these do occur, it’s “disheartening. But it just goes to show that we still have a lot of work to do together to overcome racial issues in our region.”
Bowman encouraged community members to speak out against racist rhetoric when they encountered it in their everyday lives.
“We can’t do it all ourselves,” Bowman said. “We have to have allies out here to help us to combat this and to fight against it and to stand against it.”
Bowles is meeting with FBI officials on Monday to discuss the matter further. He encouraged anyone who may have seen anything related to these incidents to contact their local police.
