Hanover County residents brought their concerns about growing Ku Klux Klan activity in the area to the streets last week — and to their local elected officials during a meeting of the Hanover County Board of Supervisors.

“Are you a board of all the people or are you a board that supports white supremacy?” asked Beaver Dam resident Holly Jackson Conrad.

She was among 60 people who attended the July 24 board meeting, where, during a public comment period, 14 people questioned the board’s muted response to a KKK recruitment rally that was held by the North Carolina-based Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan outside the Hanover County Courthouse on Independence Day weekend.

Last week’s protest of the county’s handling of the Klan rally was organized by the Hanover Branch NAACP. About two dozens of people joined NAACP leaders, local clergy and others outside the Hanover County Administration Building where a mix of scripture readings and hymns were offered.

Some later went inside for the Board of Supervisors’ meeting, where speakers, most of whom were African-American, gave board members an earful.

Ashland resident and freelance writer Samantha Willis drew upon her own experience with Hanover’s “long history of racism” and as a mother of young children who recently returned to live in the county where she grew up. She described the sight of the KKK group at the courthouse as “an affront to me and everybody who looks like me.”

Beaver Dam resident David Johnson Jr. demanded an answer to “how a terrorist organization can just show up at the courthouse and no one seems to know how they got there.”

Another speaker, Robert Goff of Mechanicsville, threatened a change at the ballot box if the board fails to take action.

“We don’t need people who aren’t going to stand up for us,” Mr. Goff said. “The time will come when all of you will be up for re-election. And I’ll be durned if I wouldn’t put my great faith to get rid of you. Simple as that.”

Calling the KKK rally and the board’s lack of response “a reflection of the darker side of Hanover,” Chickahominy resident Michelle Schmidt echoed other speakers in linking the events to the controversy surrounding the failure of the Hanover County School Board to rename Lee-Davis High School and Stonewall Jackson Middle School.

The schools’ names honor Confederates who fought against the U.S. government to keep black people in human bondage.

The School Board’s 5-2 vote in April 2018 to maintain the names also has been linked to the subsequent decision by the Hanover County Board of Supervisors to not reappoint School Board member Marla Coleman, the former Henry District representative.

Ms. Coleman was one of the two School Board members who voted to rename the schools. While officials have claimed her vote on the issue was not a factor in their decision not to reappoint her to the School Board, Ms. Coleman has disputed that assertion.

Hanover County Administrator Cecil R. Harris Jr. denounced the actions and ideology of the Klan during a Free Press telephone interview last week, but added that no official approval was needed for the Klan members to “walk down the sidewalk.”

Ms. Schmidt asked the Board of Supervisors to “please act and do something (about the KKK) because words are weak.”

“There are known things we can do about this,” she said.

Following 30 minutes of citizens’ comments, Ashland Supervisor Faye Prichard said, “This is what democracy looks like. I support the notion that we make sure the Klan understands they are not welcome here,” she said.

While her sentiment was echoed by two other members of the board, the board took no formal action.

Board Chairman W. Canova Peterson attempted to clarify his response to the KKK rally, which he had posted on Facebook, that stated, “If you hate (them), you’re a hate group.”

His Facebook post led to pushback from the public and scrutiny by the media.

“We condemn the message they espouse and we do not want them here,” Mr. Peterson said at the meeting. “I’m proud to say that the KKK’s efforts bore no fruit in Hanover and they left in less than an hour.”

The July rally was not the first for the KKK in Hanover. Earlier this year, KKK recruitment fliers were found scattered throughout the county. While the Hanover Sheriff’s Office investigated reports of the fliers, they also noted that there was nothing illegal about the flier’s dispersal, with the exception of possible trespassing and littering.

“I am not aware of other visits and we have no information on why they chose to come this time,” Mr. Peterson stated via email when asked by the Free Press whether any further investigations into the KKK group’s repeated presence has been made by officials.

Robert N. Barnette Jr., president of the Hanover NAACP, who was attending the NAACP’s national conference in Detroit last week and missed the protest, called it a success.

“This was a great show of unity made by citizens of Hanover County,” he wrote in an email to the Free Press. “Hanover citizens showed how people can unite locally to create positive change in an unusual circumstance that calls for action.”

He said the Hanover NAACP plans to continue its work educating the public about the KKK and similar hate groups, while reporting any activity to local police. He said the civil rights organization also will encourage the board to “use its powers to eradicate race-based barriers in Hanover County,” pointing to the Lee-Davis and Stonewall Jackson school names as a particular flashpoint.

“Eliminating school names that evoke racial hatred is a first step to tackling the real problems these attitudes have created over the past 150 years,” Mr. Barnette wrote.