Hate Is My Neighbor

During the early 1970s to the mid-1990s, white supremacists—under the umbrella of the Aryan Nation and Reverend Richard Butler, Minister of the Church of Jesus Christ Christian—sought to create an all-white homeland in north Idaho. Untold numbers of white nationalists, holocaust deniers, white supremacists, neo-Nazis, a far-right Christians gravitated from all over the US to Hayden Lake and Coeur d’Alene, and eastern Washington.Due to the clear dangers of this existential threat, a group of local citizens assembled a Task Force on Human Relations composed of Republicans, Democrats, Independents, Christians, Jews, freethinkers, blacks, whites, Asians, Native Americans, Hispanics, and others. In the face of murders, death threats, bombings, high-profile armed robberies, and extreme harassment, this group of courageous and steadfast ordinary people, under the direction of a Catholic Priest, Bill Wassmuth, rallied their community with their unwavering positive messages and nonviolent actions of saying no to bigotry and violence and yes to inclusion. As a result of educating the public, and aided by federal and state convictions against the white supremacists, the Task Force efforts were instrumental in causing the number of white supremacists in north Idaho to decline and forced the Aryan Nation into bankruptcy.Almost twenty years ago, Hate Is My Neighbor was published, which chronicled the struggle in north Idaho. As it has been said, prologue many times becomes the present. This seems to be evident today in the United States with the current rise of hate crimes, white supremacist activities, neo-Nazi demonstrations, and even denial of certain high-ranking government officials of such harmful and divisive activities and their resultant prospects. It is instructive for the reader to revisit and understand the tactics and methodology of this north Idaho human rights group of concerned citizens who peacefully and legally turned back the rise of hate groups in their midst. In doing so, they saved their community from further violent victimization at the hands of a small army of bigoted white supremacists.On the other hand, history is replete with grim and tragic lessons of doing nothing.