Recently Idaho State Rep. Cherie Buckner-Webb received an application to join the Ku Klux Klan in the mail.

    I received a KKK application in the mail, too, but that was 20 years ago while I was working in Drew, Mississippi. It’s a tactic used to try to intimidate people. I was writing columns in support of then presidential candidate Bill Clinton, and other Anti-American subjects like equal rights for everybody. At least one member of the KKK didn’t appreciate it.

    Now why would the KKK have a problem with Buckner-Webb? She’s a Democrat. She’s stood up for gay rights, and fought against restrictions on abortion in Idaho’s last legislative session, some of the same issues Mississippi and other states are dealing with now. I don’t know if this has anything to do with it or not, but Cherie Buckner-Webb also is the only black lawmaker in Idaho’s Legislature.

    The Intelligence Report, published by the Southern Poverty Law Center this spring presented its latest active hate group list, with a breakdown of the known chapters operating in each state. Thankfully, Mississippi did not make the top of that list. California came in first with 84, followed by Georgia with 65, Florida with 55, New Jersey with 47, Texas with 45, and then Mississippi with 41.

    Of those six states, if you compare the number of hate groups with the state population based on the 2010 census, then, well, yeah — Mississippi wins.

    It’s an interesting report with a rundown on the different chapters of the different groups — some hate white people, some hate black people, some hate based more on religion — they all seem to defend their hate based on religion, however, so that’s one thing they have in common.

    Another interesting detail of the report is that there seems to have been a surge in hate group activity during the administrations of Presidents Clinton and Obama, although there has been an increase each year since 2000, when there were 602 groups identified. For 2011 the report lists 1,018 such groups.

    You can find the report online at the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Web site, if you’re interested, at www.splcenter.org.

    There’s a cute interactive map when you search individual states, and if you click on a town, like Meridian, for example, you’ll see a little white triangle with eyes representing a KKK chapter here. There are swastikas so you can see where the Nazis are, I don’t know what the attraction to New Jersey is for them, and little purple stars to identify the Black Separatist chapters, and XXX to point out the Racist Skinhead groups.

    There’s just one hate group shown in Alaska, and it’s a Skinhead chapter. I feel sorry for them. You know it’s cold up there.

    Steve Gillespie is managing editor of The Meridian Star. E-mail him at sgillespie@themeridianstar.com.