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HARMONY - The Klan rally and "cross lighting" planned for sundown Saturday near Harmony apparently didn't go as planned.
A group called the Loyal White Knights had advertised the rally for Saturday night, but as the sun fell, the property where neighbors said it would take place was quiet and empty.
Those neighbors said cars drove back and forth on Piney Grove Road all day looking for the rally, even driving down private gravel driveways trying to find it.
One exasperated neighbor finally strung a thick wire across the entrance to his property and taped up a "PRIVATE PROPERTY, No Trespassing" sign.
Others said there had been a party at the site earlier Saturday, but everyone left at once. A source in the Iredell County Sheriff's Office who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the rally had moved to Surry County, near the Virginia border.
But as night fell, the cars kept coming and going - still looking for the rally.
"They didn't publicize this too good," said one man on a motorcycle. A woman echoed, "I wanted to take part!"
Others claimed they were just curious and wanted to look.
The Rev. Katie Whitcomb wasn't curious - she was dismayed.
"The people I know have been very shocked," she said. "I didn't realize there was someone who would let them come to their property."
Whitcomb and others came together for a prayer service near Harmony's "town square" - the intersection of Memorial Highway and Harmony Highway - as a way to protest the Klan's actions.
Another rally from a different group at the same location earlier Saturday sought to do the same thing.
They all wanted to dispel perceptions people might get about Harmony after hearing a Klan rally would take place there.
"I think it hurt people's perception all along the line about anything," she said. "Jesus said to love our neighbors as ourselves ... and if we are doing that properly and Biblically we would not have comments that are hurtful to those who believe in ways we don't believe."
