Following the removal of ex-MSU Trustee Stephen S. Nisbet’s name from a building on campus, his family spoke during a Board of Trustees meeting and reached out to different news outlets to share their thoughts.

The name was removed from the Human Resources building after it was discovered that Nisbet was a member of the Newaygo chapter of the Ku Klux Klan in Michigan during the 1920’s. Craig Fox’s “Everyday Klansfolk” had a member identification card featured in it, though the family says the card misspelled Nisbet’s name and had the incorrect address on it.

According to the family, when they asked MSU to share any other evidence that they had, the university refused to give it to them.

Sarah Williams, Nisbet’s great-granddaughter, spoke with the clerk of the library at Central Michigan University and found that from the 1920 census, Nisbet’s address was different in the 1920’s than what the family remembered.

The clerk also told Williams that the misspelling of his name on the ID card could be because somebody else filled out the card for Nisbet.

Williams said that her great-grandfather didn’t know that he was joining the KKK because the organization disguised itself as a charitable organization.

Case numbers are skyrocketing in Michigan, and the curve that had previously been flattened is now a straight line moving up, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said in a press conference Thursday. Hospitals are nearing capacity and are burning through the personal protection equipment they have been provided.

Last Friday, the state recorded its 200,000th case of COVID-19. Every day in the last week, the U.S. has recorded over 100,000 new cases and is averaging about 1,000 deaths per day.