Some members of the Selma City Council want to send letters to all the participants of a recent National League of Cities meeting in Denver apologizing for a group of protestors who appeared at the Denver Convention Center during the meeting.

The protestors handed out flyers to people attending the conference. The flyers’ headline said “Attention: League of Cities Selma, AL is not progressing!”

The single sheet flyer showed council President Cecil Williamson speaking at a Nathan Bedford Forrest birthday celebration earlier this year. Forrest was a Confederate general and unsuccessfully defended Selma from Union troops at the Battle of Selma in 1865. Forrest also was a member of the Ku Klux Klan.

The flyer claimed there are racists in city government, pointing to Williamson’s participation in the birthday celebration for Forrest, which the authors of the paper label as “the Grand Wizard of the KKK.”

The flyer also states Williamson attends the “segregated Selma Country Club and is a former member of a known hate group (the League of the South), which he refuses to denounce.”

In an interview earlier this year Williamson said he quit his association with the League of the South when it became too radical for him.

“But I don’t know where they got that about the country club. I am not a member,” he said.

The flyer quotes Williamson from a 2000 essay, “The Real Reason Our Heritage is Attacked,” in which he is alleged to have written the South was right in 1861 and it’s right today.

The flyer alleges segregation remains in various forms because the city’s white leaders have kept black leaders indebted to them.

The flyer asks people to e-mail changeforselma@gmail.com for more information and how to get involved. The Selma Times-Journal sent an e-mail to the address with a list of questions about the origins of the flyer, but received no answer by press time.

Some members of the Selma City Council have laid blame for the flyer on the shoulders of the Freedom Foundation, a nonprofit group comprised of volunteers who work in various projects all over the city. Many of the group’s volunteers relocated to Selma from Parker, Colo., which is 75 miles from Denver. Nobody with that group has responded to questions emailed to them by The Selma Times-Journal.

City Councilman Sam Randolph of Ward 5 said he saw the protestors, but doesn’t think the city council should send an apology or statement to each of the National League of Cities’ attendees until the city cleared some issues raised by the flyer.

Some months ago, Randolph called on Williamson to resign his post as council president because he alleges Williamson was associated with white supremacists in the past.

Williamson continues to ignore statements like those from Randolph, “I will not resign from my post, but will not run again,” he said.

Williamson did not attend the National League of Cities meeting.

Councilwoman Angela Benjamin, who supports the idea of sending a letter, said she spoke with a protestor who said she was from the Denver area. Benjamin said the protestor stood outside the convention center, handing out the flyers. Benjamin said she was not wearing her credentials that revealed her name or her city and asked the woman had she visited Selma, and the woman, replied no, but she had some relatives in the area.

Benjamin said the woman told her Selma’s mayor, who is black, was a member of the KKK and that was a concern among her relatives.

“I told her he could not possibly be a member of the KKK. They wouldn’t have him,” Benjamin said. “It frustrates me how this gets out of control.”

Mayor George Evans also seemed irritated by the flyer and the message it sent.

“This leaflet disturbs me because I really don’t believe it at all,” he said. “I know that our city is making progress.”

He said he saw people passing out the flyers to everyone attending the conference at the center. He saw it on Wednesday. Evans said several people asked him about the flyer and he explained it to them saying

“It’s not what it seems like. It is not. The point (was) to try to go out and destroy the City of Selma. To give the city a slap in the face is wrong.

There are other avenues to express displeasure.

“Progress is happening all around us. Just look around. The bond — we’re getting new police cars. We’re getting new garbage trucks, fire trucks and building new buildings. And to place these, even paste them on the bathroom walls, is just wrong.”

Gregory Minchak, a spokesman for the National League of Cities, said he saw the protestors and the leaflets.

“I don’t think there were many; not like busloads,” he said.

Minchak said he knew some staff had encountered the protestors, but he had not talked to them.

“I don’t know about conference attendees,” he said.

It’s uncertain when or if the letters will go out from the city. Some council members have wondered about the cost of sending letters. Williamson said the issue could be discussed at another meeting early next year.