Hate Literature Scattered At Center Leaflets Found At Martin Luther King Jr. Building

On a weekend of celebration for civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., someone scattered hate literature around a family center bearing his name Sunday.

The leaflet bore a picture of King with a sniper’s sight superimposed around his head.

“It was really hideous. I was just horrified,” said Stacy Hersrud, executive director of the Martin Luther King Jr.

Family Outreach Center, where the leaflets were found.

Hersrud immediately cleaned up the area.

“My first thought was I would not allow these to be here,” she said. “Then, later I had a moment of being hugely sad, because these things were on the playground where children play,” she said.

Hersrud did not have time to discuss the incident with the full board of the center on Sunday. The day was busy with events for the King holiday; a community resource and volunteer fair and a remembrance service at Spokane Community College, which was attended by several hundred people.

“You show up to these (events) and they are a reminder of why they are still necessary,” Hersrud said after the remembrance service. “There is nothing that can defeat … the movement for social justice and human equality.”

Even though there was a phone number on the flier, Hersrud said she was not going to respond to the hate literature.