Karen Pack is the leader of the Tea Party Patriots local group, the Wood County Tea Party. She is also listed as a member of Tea Party Patriot and the 1776 Tea Party factions.
A 30-year old resident of of Winnsboro, Texas, Pack describes herself as “a Christian, a Tea Party Member, a Constitutionalist and a Patriot.” Missing from that description, however, is Karen Pack’s history with the Ku Klux Klan.
Documents obtained by IREHR show that Karen Pack of Winnsboro, subscribed to the “White Patriot” tabloid, and that Thom Robb’s Knights of the Ku Klux Klan listed her as an “official supporter.”
Founded by David Duke in the mid-1970s, the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan fell into Robb’s hands after a series of factional disputes, and he positioned and repositioned the organization over the decades. By the 1990s, Robb attempted to steer his Klan closer to a more mid-stream “Christian patriot” position. It still, however, was a Klan, an inheritor of the violent tradition associated with white supremacist organizations of that type.
Pack’s association with Robb’s Klan in 1996 should not be read as an indication that the entire Tea Party movement is like the KKK. It does indicate, however, that a certain amount of overlap exists between the upfront racism of the Klan and the “we are not racists” denials of the Tea Parties.
In an essay entitled “Texas…Silent No Longer,” Pack declared that, “Those of us who work hard every day and are the backbone of this country all had one reaction to these power hungry mongrels. My professor used to tell me that people who curse lack the english [sic] language to express themselves but I hope here, he will make an exception to his rule. Our reaction was simple and it was not polically [sic] correct or socially nice.”
In another essay entitled “An Ardent Plea,” Pack wrote, “There is no seperation [sic] of church and state. There never has been. Only the historically ignorant or purposefully distructive [sic] will claim that there is. There are people at work today who hate our God, despise our Country and will stop at nothing to destroy both Christianity and the United States of America.”
Despite Karen Pack’s now widely publicized problems with bigotry, as of November 10 she is still listed as a member of the Tea Party Patriots and the 1776 Tea Party and the head of the Wood County Tea Party chapter.
