Heat & Noise (1998)

Super 8/VHS, 13 minutes, USA. Jonathan Crow and Joss Winn.

Saturday May 9, 1998, the Ku Klux Klan held a rally in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Two years previous, their visit resulted in a riot. This year, flyers were posted around town again encouraging people to “Smash the KKK” by any means necessary. The flyers also railed against the police. In 1996, Anti-Klan groups clashed violently with the Law. There was still resentment over the incident on both sides. The Peace Team was organized by local religious groups to serve as a buffer between the police and the Anti-Klan groups. In the course of the day, the Klan appeared for less than an hour and their speech ignored by most people. What dominated that hot afternoon was tension between the police and political groups from outside Ann Arbor.