West Indianapolis residents Kevin and Deb Bruce take morning walks around Rhodius Park every day, rain or shine.
They walk past William Penn Middle School 49 and various amenities at Rhodius Park, including baseball fields, a playground named for John Mellencamp keyboardist John Cascella and a large pool. Most days, the area’s filled with kids.
Their morning walk on June 4 took a dark turn when they strolled past a small piece of paper flapping against a chain link fence next to one of the park’s baseball diamonds.
It was a homophobic recruitment flyer for a Kentucky-based hate group described as a “small and struggling” faction of the Ku Klux Klan by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks extremist groups.
The Bruces weren’t mentally prepared for that kind of trash littering their park.
“It’s pure ignorance,” Bruce said. “I’ll leave it at that, because I can’t say the words I’d rather use.”
The flyer was one of dozens strewn throughout the neighborhood just a few days after the beginning of Pride Month, but only a few made it to where children could see them.
That’s due to an effort by local residents and members of the West Indianapolis Neighborhood Congress to pick up the flyers and stop the spread of their hateful message.
“Part of America’s fabric is its diversity, and this community is continuing to become more and more diverse, and it’s continuing to be a really great place to live,” said WINC president Jon Howe. “Their hatred isn’t welcome here.”
Neighbors kick out the hate
One neighbor, who chose not to be identified, spotted the flyer on the afternoon of June 3. The neighbor let Howe know about the flyers and began picking up every one they could find on the street.
“The community member was disgusted and said ‘They’re not welcome here,’ and was extremely mad that people like this still exist,” Howe said.
Howe called other WINC members, who began helping with the cleanup, eventually collecting several dozen of them on streets near Rhodius Park, School 49 and Daniel Webster School 46 and placing them in the trash.
“(The Klan group) hates this country, and they show it by constantly trying to attack and hate people in this country,” Howe said. “Whether they like it or not, (LGBTQ+) people are a part of this country, and if they don’t like it they can move somewhere else.”
The group behind the flyers
The flyers bore the name of the Trinity White Knights, a small group based out of Kentucky that was founded in 2012.
This isn’t the first time the group has apparently littered the Indianapolis area with the flyers. The group also placed anti-immigrant flyers in several Hamilton County cities in 2023 and 2024.
According to the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office, the group’s flyers don’t break any laws as they are protected free speech.
But that could have been different if they were caught in the act. In February, the group’s founder was cited for littering in Lincoln Heights, Ohio, after residents called 911 after seeing him distributing the flyers.
MCPO communications director Michael Leffler said his office asked the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department and the FBI to be on the lookout for the group in the area.
“It’s really sad that this is still happening in 2025,” said Aundrea Lacy, co-vice president of Indy Pride’s inclusion, diversity, equity and accessibility efforts. “These types of people think they have the upper hand because of the current (presidential) administration and they’re acting up.”
She said the flyers or other similar efforts won’t prevent LGBTQ+ people from living with joy. After all, Pride Month is a commemoration of the start of the nationwide push for gay rights, the 1969 Stonewall Uprising.
“They want us to go back and hide, but we’re not hiding. We are going to be out and celebrate, and have a good time and kiki,” she said.
Getting involved
To learn about all the LGBTQ+ events happening in Indianapolis this month, head to Indy Pride’s event page.
To report a suspected hate crime, call the Marion County Hate Crimes Hotline at 317-327-5314. A trained social worker and victim advocate will return your call and work with you to make the necessary reports or referral.
A history of diversity — and hate
West Indianapolis started off as its own town in 1894 and was annexed by Indianapolis about three years later. The neighborhood was populated by immigrants from Germany, Italy and a number of Eastern European countries, many of them Catholic, as well as Americans who had immigrated from Appalachian states on the east coast.
It was diverse for the time — too diverse for some.
The Klan, which was gaining massive popularity across Indiana, was also active in West Indianapolis. At least one cross burning, involving three crosses, happened in Rhodius Park in July 1923.
In 1940 the Home Owners Loan Corporation gave the neighborhood the lowest grade possible in its financial security ratings for having “very low-class whites” and a “hazardous” number of Black people. The process — now illegal under anti-discrimination laws — was known as redlining, and meant only the most profit-secure businesses, such as pollution-heavy manufacturing plants, could get loans to set up in the neighborhood. Those decisions shaped the neighborhood for the rest of the century.
About 75 years later, the West Indianapolis neighborhood is even more diverse than it was then. People of color now make up about 38% of total residents.
“Everyone’s mingled together,” said Deb Bruce. “There’s Black people and white people — people from Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala here. There’s a couple from the Philippines that lives on our street.”
Howe believes exposure to different lifestyles has helped improve residents’ acceptance of people different from them.
“When you’re neighbors you have to actually have conversations and you get to know people,” Howe said. “And when you do that, you realize that everybody shares a lot of similar problems and a lot of similar beliefs.”
Lacy believes the neighborhood’s education through experience has helped them keep hateful groups from gaining members in the neighborhood and gives her hope for the future.
“The people on the west side going over there and cleaning it up and getting it out before other people could see the flyers — that shows me that there are allies out there,” she said.
Mirror Indy, a nonprofit newsroom, is funded through grants and donations from individuals, foundations and organizations.
Mirror Indy reporter Enrique Saenz covers west Indianapolis. Contact him at 317-983-4203 or enrique.saenz@mirrorindy.org. Follow him on Bluesky at @enriquesaenz.bsky.social.
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