KKK's Application to Adopt a Highway Denied - as part of the news series by GeoBeats.

A local faction of the Ku Klux Klan has been denied their application to adopt a one mile stretch of highway in northern Georgia, close to the North Carolina border. The Georgia highway clean up program allows for businesses, clubs, or private citizens to take care of a one mile stretch of highway, picking up trash and cleaning up any graffiti in the area four times a year for two years. Local officials expressed concern that the road sign designating the highway as being adopted by the group may serve as recruitment or endorsement for the notorious Klan. “This is about membership building and rebranding their name in a public way,” State Representative Tyrone Brooks said. Alice Chambers, secretary of the International Keystone Knights of the KKK countered by saying “We're not doing it for publicity. We're doing it to keep the mountains beautiful.”

A similar case in Missouri, where KKK members had their adopt-a-highway application denied, ended after a lengthy trial which ruled in favor of the Klan. But after a while Missouri Department of Transportation officials decided to discontinue the Klan’s participation in the program because they did not clean up the highway as agreed.