Thirty-four year-old Gayla Gavin of Raleigh couldn’t believe her eyes and ears Saturday when she saw a group of white supremacists gathered on the courthouse steps saying they were there to “get rid of the unwanted.”

“I thought we were past that,” said the black woman who has lived in Raleigh all her life. “I haven’t seen a Ku Klux Klan march since I was in high school.”

Gavin said she learned about the gathering Friday night from a woman living in Scott County. “It was amazing to me that people in Scott County, Simpson County and other parts of Smith County knew about this and those of us living in Raleigh knew nothing about it until the day it happened.”

When Gavin first heard about it, she said she was mad and really wanted to do something to stop it. However, Friday night was too late to block the gathering.

“I tried to get all the black people I knew together,” she said. “I figured they didn’t want us to know about it.”

Gavin and other blacks gathered at the courthouse, too. They listened and Gavin video taped the whole incident and sent a copy to the local television station for all to see.

“I just wanted people to know what was going on in Raleigh, Miss.,” she said.

Officer Matthew Tullos of the Raleigh Police Department acknowledged that the city had “a little gathering at the courthouse.

“It was not a march, but people who had gathered on the steps to give a speech,” he said. “Someone told the sheriff (Charlie Crumpton) that they were from Petal.

“None of them were from here. A lot of them were from out-of-state.”

Gavin said Tullos is wrong. She estimated the group to be about 100 people. She also said that many of them were Smith County residents.

“Half of the people in that group were our people,” said Gavin. “They were people from Smith County.

“Sure there were some from Alabama and places like Copiah County, but Smith County residents participated, too. Those from other places took their masks off, but those from Smith County kept theirs on.”

Tullos said the gathering and speech ended after about an hour. But Gavin noted that it ended after a fight broke out between the group and those who opposed the message they were delivering.

“It was just pathetic,” said Gavin. “Things are still going on in town.