Sometimes it feels like South Carolina comes in last place in just about everything. High school graduation rates. Life expectancy. Babies born with all 20 digits. In one list after another, in comparisons with the rest of the nation, more often than not the state is pulling up the rear.

But that’s changed. The Palmetto State has finally landed in first place.

Unfortunately, it’s a top spot on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s most recent state-by-state list of active hate groups, boasting an impressive 47 organizations dedicated to xenophobia, anti-Semitism, and racism. And, boy, was the competition tough. South Carolina not only managed to beat Florida (43) and California (42), but regional rivals Georgia (41) and North Carolina (37), to secure the position as “KKK-king” of the mountain.

For South Carolina, it’s been a long fight to the top. According to the SPLC, back in 1999 the state had only three active hate groups. In 2000, the figure rose to 12. But in 2001 when the SPLC listed 35 groups in South Carolina, it was clear the state had turned it around where hate was concerned. The spit bucket boy had become a contender. In 2004, the year of the latest survey, the state finally took the top spot.

Just who does the credit go to? Why, the League of the South (LoS), an organization which believes the Southern states should break away from the evil American empire and form a united group of self-determined nations where “Anglo-Celtic” culture reigns supreme and Biblical teachings are the basis for the laws of the land. Of the 47 active hate groups the SPLC lists in South Carolina, 33 are League of the South Chapters.

Although the League takes issue with the SPLC’s claim that they are a hate group, they apparently couldn’t be happier about helping the Palmetto State secure the top spot. Dr. Michael Hill, president of the Alabama-based League of the South, says, “South Carolina, I’m proud to say, is just loaded down with us. We’ve got a lot of local chapters in South Carolina. When we first started, South Carolina lagged behind all the other states.”

Hill claims that the SPLC’s hate group tallies are incorrect. Yes, South Carolina has more League chapters than other states, but not by much. “The reason South Carolina has as many local chapters listed on the Southern Poverty Law Center hate watch or whatever it is, is because the South Carolina [League of the South] updates its state website with new chapter information fairly regularly. Some state websites don’t update all that stuff but once a year,” Hill says. “In Tennessee, for example, we have one or two little Confederate flags on SPLC’s map. It should be like a couple of dozen. In Alabama it should be the same.”

He adds, “Sometimes that gives you the impression that South Carolina has a whole bunch more than anybody else. That’s not necessarily more. It probably does have a few more than Georgia. South Carolina has more local chapters, but Georgia has more membership.”

Regardless of the complete accuracy of the SPLC hate map, there’s no doubt South Carolina leads the nation in the number of League of the South chapters. So what caused the uptick in membership rates?

Conventional wisdom would suggest the Confederate flag controversy was the main motivator, but Hill believes there’s more to the LoS explosion than a piece of cloth. The Confederate flag “helped, but we just got the right leaders in place and that makes all the difference in the world,” he says. “We just happened to have the right events and the right leadership coalesce in South Carolina at the right time. Because of that, everything took off.”

Abbeville resident Robert Hayes, director of the South Carolina League of the South, agrees the flag played only a minor role. “It was a factor, but it wasn’t a main factor. We became politically active,” Hayes says. And indeed the League has. The group launched a massive campaign to defeat then-Gov. David Beasley, whose loss they will gladly take credit for.

Frequently, League members can be seen standing outside most any large-scale state political event wearing their red shirts and brandishing signs reading, “No votes for turncoats,” “Sic semper tyrannis,” or the like.

While the League minimizes the role of the flag, Walter Hilderman, of Eutawville, a former member of Save the Sons of the Confederate Veterans, sees it a bit differently. For him, extremist groups like the League of the South, the Council of Conservative Citizens, and Black Mountain, N.C., attorney Kirk Lyons’s Southern Legal Resource Center (SLRC) saw the Confederate flag brouhaha as a way to bring more members into the fold. “The LoS realized that with their 9,000 members they had gotten as far as they could into American society selling neo-secessionism,” Hilderman says. “They needed a hook. The hook is the Confederate flag.”

“It’s sort of a natural fit for folks to look around and say, ‘If we all join forces, we can turn this into a modern political movement and use the Confederate flag as the bait and pull a lot of people into it.’”

Hilderman also believes it was at this critical moment in South Carolina history, most notably at the Confederate flag rally in 2000 in Columbia, these Southern heritage extremists saw the opportunity to launch a takeover of the largely benign and historical Sons of Confederate Veterans.

“These folks … looked at those 7,000 people out there waving flags in the streets around the capital and then realized that the SCV has 33,000 people and has a nationwide infrastructure — camps, communication, money, all those things,” he adds.

Since then, Lyons’ “radicals” have essentially taken control of the SCV while Hilderman was kicked out of the SCV for criticizing the new leadership.

Despite whatever Hilderman or the Southern Poverty Law Center may say, the League vehemently denies that it is a hate group. After all, in order to be a hate group, you have to advocate violence towards other races, right?

“What is a hate group? What constitutes a hate group? Has the Southern Poverty Law Center ever laid down a criteria. I have never seen one. Have you?” Hayes says. “Who gave [the SPLC] the authority to establish themselves as someone who can determine who is and who is not a hate group? I just question the validity of their entire situation.”

Hayes says the League of the South does everything above board and in no way, shape, or form preaches hatred of other racial or ethnic groups. “We do not advocate violence. As a matter of fact, we work within the law,” Hayes says. “We advocate the same thing as our forefathers did when they seceded from England — self-government — and the same thing our Confederate ancestors advocated when they seceded from the Union — self-government. That’s what we advocate today. That’s pure and simple.”

As for the brown shirts and white hoods who try to join the League or who happen to sneak in unnoticed, Hill says they’re turned away or kicked to the curb. “We have made a public statement, I’ve made it a number of times, that we want no Ku Klux Klan members or members of the Aryan Nations or neo-Nazis or anybody like that in the League. If we find out that somebody has joined the League or is trying to join the League who also belongs to the Klan or the skinheads or whatever, we simply won’t let them join,” Hill says.

Whether the League can be rightfully called a hate group is a question that is essentially impossible to answer in the absence of any overt acts or threats of violence or intimidation.

But when it comes to its association with groups like the Southern Legal Resource Center and the Council of Conservative Citizens, there’s no doubt the League of the South shares some strange bedfellows.

On the surface, it’s all fine and dandy, but in order to know for sure, you just might have to look under the covers to see if there are any white sheets.

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