Our View: Power of dignity
The city of Coeur d’Alene can empathize with officials in Olympia who are trying to prevent neo-Nazis and counterdemonstrators from harming one another.
For some reason, the Washington state capital has become the favorite protest ground for a remnant of white supremacists who are still trying to get a foothold in the Northwest despite the failure of the bankrupt Aryan Nations in Kootenai County. An organization calling itself the National Socialist Movement mustered 10 racists Sunday for a second rally in Olympia this year – and 10 to 15 times as many anti-racists, according to a news report in the Olympian.
Washington State troopers broke up the rally after escalating verbal confrontations between hotheads on both sides and escorted neo-Nazi leader Justin Boyer and his few ragtag followers away. Boyer complained that his free-speech rights were violated by the police action and promised to return July 3 with a bigger rally. Counterdemonstrators, meanwhile, were proud of themselves for shouting down the neo-Nazis.
Veteran members of the Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations have seen this drama played out before, at the gates of the old Aryan Nations compound on the rimrock above Hayden Lake, on Sherman Avenue in downtown Coeur d’Alene, at Coeur d’Alene’s City Park. For three decades, the local task force shadowed Richard Butler’s organization, countering annual supremacist conventions with human-rights celebrations, hijacking an Aryan Nations parade for a fundraising event and combating hate with peaceful activism and anti-hate laws. They task force never allowed the racists to dictate its agenda.
The resisters to the Olympia hate rallies would do well to study the Kootenai County task force playbook.
Rather than confront haters directly, which would have provided recruitment fodder for them on the evening news, the late Bill Wassmuth, Tony Stewart, Norm Gissel and others counseled patience. One year, they encouraged Kootenai County residents to show solidarity against the neo-Nazi creed by tying ribbons at their homes and businesses. Another year, they collected statements from cities, counties and states around the Northwest in support of human rights. In the process, they supported victims of hate crimes and promoted legislation behind the scenes that ultimately led to the downfall of the Aryan Nations compound.
The tactics of the task force weren’t always embraced by other human-rights supporters.
During one Aryan Nations World Congress, maverick activists organized a march along U.S. Highway 95 in defiance of the task force’s decision not to acknowledge the Aryan Nation event. Demonstrators from around the Northwest traveled to Coeur d’Alene to protest. They gave speeches after the march. Then, they went home, without accomplishing much. The task force, meanwhile, continued plodding along like the tortoise that upset the rabbit in the fabled race for the ages and eventually was involved in the legal showdown in which Butler lost his compound.
The only good thing that can be said about hotheaded human-rights activists challenging hot-headed racists is that it’s happening somewhere else.