‘He gives them the green light’: Trump’s rhetoric revives hate groups across US

For Denise Williams, the 70-year-old head of Springfield's NAACP chapter, the past several weeks have been testing to say the least.

Last month, flyers calling for mass deportations of immigrants were distributed by the so-called Trinity White Knights, a group associated with the Ku Klux Klan, in Black-majority neighborhoods in south Springfield.

"I'm telling people: do nothing - don't approach them. But it's not easy for people to see this," she said.

"I think that is what a lot of folks cannot understand - why do we have so much hate?"

About 22% of Springfield residents are African American, according to the US Census Bureau.

"People are mad. African Americans here don't understand how this is allowed. We just have to take this for a minute. I know it's hard."

Trinity White Knights is headquartered in Kentucky, where flyers were also seen by residents of the Cincinnati suburb of Covington in July as part of an apparent recruitment effort. The flyers included a PO box address in Maysville, Kentucky, and a phone number.