To have one’s faith in humanity restored, look no further than the people of Freeport.

On Monday, a man out for a run found something disturbing — fliers on South Freeport Road urging folks to call a Ku Klux Klan hotline “if you think there’s trouble in your neighborhood.”

The following evening, residents had filled to capacity the meeting room of the Freeport Community Center with many standing and waiting in the cold night just to have their say on solidarity.

“It was very inspiring. It was good to see everyone come together this way,” said Morgan Harding, 21, of Freeport, according to Lisa D. Connell’s report in The Times Record.

Morgan’s younger sister, Peyton, 15, noted the number of people who came to the forum: “I thought it was amazing to see the power of the community.”

In addition to Freeport, the fliers were found Monday in other Maine communities. One was found at the foot of the driveway of the Ruth family in Topsham.

“While they have their rights to pass around fliers like that, we can’t let things like that get to us and lead to acts of hate,” said 16- year-old Bailey Ruth. “We just have to come together and realize we’re all human, we’re all equal. We can’t breed a culture of hate.” The fliers describe the Traditionalist American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan as a “nonviolent organization … that bases its roots back to the Ku Klux Klan of the early 20th century.”

“We are not a hate group as some will have you to believe.”

Those who recall the 1963 bombing of a Baptist church that killed four black girls in Alabama would disagree, as would anyone with even a passing familiarity of the Klan’s 150-year history of demonstrations, whippings, lynching, shootings and hangings.

In the 1920s, the Klan also used intimidation against Catholic French-Canadian immigrants who would become such an integral part of the Maine cultural tapestry.

If 2016 taught us anything, it’s that one can’t dismiss the Klan and other racist, white nationalist factions as a throwback to Jim Crow-era America. To do so risks complacency at a time when those of the so-called “alt-right” movement — such as White House chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon — are empowered by the Trump ascendency.

In Freeport, residents should be proud to have organized so quickly and to stand with such solidarity, while putting politics aside and acknowledging the right of free speech.

“… (W)e’re doing out best to walk that line,” said Freeport Councilor Chairwoman Sarah Tracy on Tuesday. “This is tough because we’re a community that has a reputation for inclusiveness and kindness, and this is not consistent with how we see ourselves and how we want to reach out to the rest of the state and the world. Despite this incident we feel we’re still a kind and inclusive community and we’ll do what we can to address the matter appropriately, balancing free speech rights and people’s right to feel safe in Freeport.”