The Heroic Lone Tuba Player who Should Have Stolen the Show at the South Carolina Confederate Flag Demonstration

By Nate Thayer

July 25, 2015

The whole South Carolina “Ku Klux Klan” demonstration to “defend the Confederate flag” one week ago never happened.

At least it did not happen as it was portrayed.
First, there were almost no KKK present. There is no one, single Ku Klux Klan. The demonstration was not organized by any of the (at my last count) 139 KKK groups in the U.S. More accurately, it was organized by no one.
Second, the demonstrators were mainly U.S. Nazis.

U.S. Nazi National Socialist Movement with banner who were the overwhelming majority in attendance at the South Carolina “pro Confederate flag” rally July 18

Third, the most poignant attendee who should have gotten the most attention because he best defined the event was a lone South Carolinian with a sousaphone – which is like a tuba who marched with the Nazi’s making fun of the whole spectacle by playing his instrument as if the entire event was a cartoon.

Matt Buck, the South Carolina Tuba player who took on the Nazi’s and KKK last week and won

Matt Buck, who was one of the few who was actually from Columbia South Carolina, played a goofy cadence of the tune of Wagner’s ‘Ride of the Valkyries’, marching beside the Nazis, serenading them, much to the confusion of the Nazi’s and smattering of fringe KKK guys and gals, making fun of both them and the whole event.

“In Blues Brothers, they use it to make fun of the Nazis,” said Buck of the ‘Ride of the Valkyries.’

Actually, Buck played two tunes.

You can listen to and watch the video here: https://youtu.be/Rs4P1kKK-5k   or <iframe width=”640″ height=”390″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/Rs4P1kKK-5k” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen>

The South Carolina tuba player

“That first little ditty was a little marching baseline. It’s a very lethargic one that they used to use in old Looney Tunes cartoons,” he told the Daily Beast. “It got really popular in Family Guy, when Stewie quits his day job to start following a fat guy around all day long while playing it.”
There were exactly six members of the North Carolina based Loyal White Knights of the KKK, who had the formal permit from the state of South Carolina to protest.

Loyal White Knights of the KKK Imperial Wizard and undercover FBI agent Christopher Barker of North Carolina

But Christopher Eugene Barker, the leader–or Imperial Wizard–of the LWK of the KKK could not attend himself because, according to conditions of his federal conviction for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, he is banned from being active in hate groups, of which the KKK is formally designated by the U.S. government. The permit, instead, was issued in the name of his wife.

Chris Barker and his wife, Amanda, both in the white robes

“I won’t be there because the Feds told me I am not allowed to be involved in Klan activity,” Barker told me July 17, the day before the demonstration.
There were 4 other members of a Kentucky-based KKK outfit–the Trinity White Knights–in attendance, including their Imperial Wizard, William Bader.

William (Bill) Bader, Imperial Wizard of the Kentucky based Trinity White Knights of the KKK, who was the most visible of the handful of KKK members at the South Carolina rally July 18

Last I tried to speak with Mr. Bader, his Ku Klux Klan put out a public declaration “sanbogging” me. Sanbog is Klan code for “Strangers are near, be on guard.”

The Trinity White Knights ‘sanbog’ing” me a few months ago when I requested an interview. SANBOG is Klan talk for “Strangers are near–be on guard”

So a grand total of ten members of the KKK.
The overwhelming number of the underwhelming total of less than 50 who converged from around the country on Columbia, South Carolina were members of the largest U.S. neo Nazi party, the Detroit-based National Socialist Movement (NSM), supporters of Hitler’s Nazi Germany.
In fact, most every Ku Klux Klan organization–of which there are plenty–boycotted the gathering because the Nazi’s were running the show and they really don’t like either Imperial Wizard Barker or his Loyal White Knights or Mr. Bader of his Trinity White Knights because they fraternize with Nazis.

Trinity White Knights Imperial Wizard Bill Bader’s fake Louisiana state identification card

Another fact that went largely unexplored in the public depiction of the event was that the other team included the also U.S. federal government registered hate group, the New Black Panther Party. Also out in force were the black urban street gang the Bloods, and various anti-racist, anarchist, and self-defined U.S. communist groups–who together outnumbered the White Supremacists by about 50 to 1.
The whole racial polarization issue is really quite nuanced and complicated–even within both sides of the issue.
What got lost in the muddle of the whole high-profile kerfuffle were two main points, it seems to me:

1/ On both sides were reasonable people with reasonable arguments both supporting the Confederate the flag and, sort of on the opposite side but not really all that different from each other, those opposing racial hatred.
2/ And that racial polarization is not a sideshow or a laughing matter represented by buffoons and extremists–it is deeply ingrained right at the heart of mainstream America.
That is the ugly truth, the elephant in the room, and the unspoken dirty little secret in America.