From a segregated movie theater to the “Redneck Shop” Ku Klux Klan museum, there is a property in the town of Laurens, S.C., with a long racist history.
Today, The Echo Project is working to turn the building into a place of hope and healing.
“Help transform America’s most infamous KKK museum [and] former home to the American Nazi Party into a center for diversity, a place of remembrance, and a space for hope,” reads the project website.
Rev. David Kennedy, 68, is one of the project organizers. He grew up in Laurens, according to NBC News. His great-great uncle Richard Puckett was hung by a mob in the town – which is named after a slave trader – more than 100 years ago. Photos of the lynching were later sold at the Redneck Shop, which opened in 1996 and closed in 2012.
In addition to the gruesome photos, the Redneck Shop offered KKK merchandise such as knives, old grenades, T-Shirts, caps and more, according to The Washington Post. It also served as a meeting place for white supremacist groups such as the Klan, the National Socialist Movement, Aryan Nations and the American Nazi Party.
According to a 2016 report by the Anti-Defamation League, “despite a persistent ability to attract media attention, organized Ku Klux Klan groups are actually continuing a long-term trend of decline.”
This trend has continued in more recent years, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which describes the KKK as “the oldest and most infamous of American hate groups,” with targets that include Black people, Jewish people and the LGBTQ community.
“We started protesting heavily, and some of the young people wanted to burn the place down,” Kennedy said of the shop’s early days, according to NBC News. However, he prioritized nonviolent protest methods.
Despite being targeted by the KKK for leading protests against it, Kennedy – the longtime leader of New Beginnings Missionary Baptist Church – developed a relationship with Michael Burden, one of the shop’s owners.
Burden would eventually denounce the Klan and he sold Kennedy the deed to the shop. Kennedy gained complete control over the property in 2017, when the shop’s founder died.
Andrew Heckler’s 2018 feature film, “Burden,” explores Burden and Kennedy’s relationship.
Today, Laurens is a town of 9,300. Its population is 56 percent white and 38 percent Black. Kennedy and his partner in The Echo Project, Regan Freeman, a white man who grew up in Laurens County, aim to transform the building into something more than a painful reminder of the town’s racism.
“We want to create an atmosphere where everyday people will feel the freedom to speak,” said Kennedy.
Both Kennedy and Freeman want the new center to reckon with the history of the town where Klan members were harassing shop owners even in the 1990s. Laurens Mayor Nathan Senn said The Echo Project is part of Laurens’ efforts to become a more inclusive place.
Plans for the Echo Theater space feature a museum and diversity center. Historian Vernon Burton of Clemson University is on board to help and they plan to open the center late next year.
“I think it’s crazy looking back now — the Redneck shop was open 15 miles from my house. I think a lot of people don’t understand the depth of what they were doing in that building,” Freeman said. “They were promoting nationwide and worldwide antisemitic and incredibly evil and racist organizations and materials.”
Work still ahead of them before the center opens includes removing a swastika painted on one of the building’s walls.
I have great hope for it,” said Burton. “It’s not going to be an easy thing. But what Reverend Kennedy did wasn’t easy, either.”
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