Ku Klux Klan leader warns there could be more violence in US

By Cordelia Lynch, US Correspondent

Harrison, in Boone County, Arkansas has had to deal with an unenviable association - being home to the head of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.

In reality, Thomas Robb is living 15 or so miles away on the outskirts of the city.

But as you approach Harrison, there are clear signs of the challenges created by their neighbour.

A billboard reads: "Diversity is a code word for white genocide."

Mr Robb has tried to rebrand the Klan as a gentler, more tempered group - one that's driven by Christian values and is family focused.

He took over leadership of the group in the 1980s after the departure of David Duke. Rather than the traditional title of "Imperial Wizarder he opted for "National Director".

He's employed Duke's strategy of using the internet to reach a wider audience, broadcasting radio and TV shows.

The Klan has declined significantly in number, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center - from four million in the 1920s to thousands. Yet Mr Robb insists the KKK has gone mainstream.

The KKK's official newspaper, The Crusader, endorsed Donald Trump and the then Republican presidential candidate clearly disavowed the group - saying he didn't want to energise them.

Yet Mr Robb claims the group found a voice in the 2016 election. In an effort to remarket America's oldest hate group, he now says it was the first "alt-right" organisation, a term coined in 2010.

The headquarters is located on an uneven, winding road. As I walk up to the driveway, it's lined with flags. Mr Robb is wearing a suit and tie.

He tells me: "This is where we do clerical work, membership applications, reports and we produce DVDs."

He has an almost polished facade, a far cry from the hooded imagery that haunts America

Hallways are lined with pictures from KKK events

But the hallways inside are littered with pictures of him in robes on rallies alongside his family. They still hold them each year in Pulaski, Tennessee. This is a business for them.

His daughter Rachel shows me hats, badges and flags they sell. There's a recording studio and a church across the way, with two cabins for men and women. This is where they hold their annual conferences, he says.

He's exercised about the clashes in Charlottesville and is convinced there will be more violence because if "politicians only want to condemn the white nationalists... and don't want to equally condemn the Antifa and Black Lives Matter, it emboldens them".

He claims they are "desecrating cemeteries, taking down monuments of our heroes".

Mr Robb tells me black people have a right to be black and he just wants to protect white identity.

Gay people, he says, are an "abomination".

Harrison, Arkansas, has had to deal with an unenviable association

It doesn't take long to find traces of anti-Semitism in the KKK's literature. Yet Mr Robb tries to couch his cause as a noble one, saving people from an indigenous threat in a country he believes is undermined by immigration.

He denies it was ever a melting pot of cultures, but also resists overstating his reach.

"I never said we were important," he tells me.

The Klan has proved endlessly adaptable over 150 years. Mr Robb appears to be trying to piggyback on the recent wave of white nationalism, but he cuts a solitary and isolated figure.

The KKK went from having millions of members to thousands

Down the road, a group called the Harrison Task Force on Race Relations has been fighting for 15 years to counter his message.

They say this city is no different from anywhere else, but they felt they had to publicly confront the man living near them, trying to create a "white paradise".

They tell me people were coming here for 25 years in the hope they could live alongside other white supremacists.

But Kevin Cherie, an African-American man in the group, says Mr Robb "gets his mail here. He uses this geographic location to help people find him. That's the most significant impact this man has. And I'm speaking as a black man living here, who with his family has been happy and successful and productive".

They seem to represent the prevailing attitude of this community.

Thomas Robb seems like an isolated ideologue, but one they know they have to acknowledge, an extremist who feels his movement has new momentum.

The reality is his group is fractured - and in many ways, is at war with itself.